I produce this show out of my own pocket, primarily because of my love of all things anime and Japan. Unfortunately in this down economy, I need as much help as I can get. If you feel so inclined, a small donation to help offset my costs (server, bandwidth, equipment, etc.) would be much appreciated. Either make a purchase through one of our affiliates, bid on our eBay auctions, buy me something on my wish list, or use the handy donation button below.
Bitcoin Address: 14hYjheG9W7aWip7K wLPcfXxoXdALwDcma Total Donations:
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“Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” Or so the old saying goes. And if the act of “teaching” includes blogging and podcasting, then it’s especially true in my case. You see, I can’t draw worth a darn. And that explains why I write about anime and manga rather than actually create it. 😉 But, as is true for many people I’m sure, there are still stories bouncing around in my head that I wish I could either animate or draw. (Or maybe I just want to make a cheap rip-off or parody of some already existing property.) Luckily, for people like us, technology is here to help, at least as far as “drawing” manga is concerned, thanks to a new program called ComiPo!.
This software lets you place 3D models of various manga-y characters in various standard outfits (school uniforms, etc.) in various poses, add speech bubbles or action text, and place them on a variety of backgrounds. And because the models are 3D, you can easily pose them any which way you want. It really has an impressive list of features. The software is currently still under development, but they have released a free trial version that’s good through November 30, 2011 which can be downloaded from their website. (Look for the big red download button about halfway down the page.) The software should run on almost any fairly modern PC, and appears to work with Windows XP and later versions. (Mac users – sorry, there doesn’t appear to be a Mac version; but it runs beautifully under emulation software such as Parallels, VMware Fusion and VirtualBox.)
You’ll need to enable Japanese language support in Windows. I previously showed you how to do this in my Kanon installation video, but it turns out the steps I showed there were incomplete. I’ve made a new video that shows you how to properly enable Japanese language support.
Unfortunately the software is in Japanese (duh) and no English translation (or tutorial) has yet been put forth; I’m sure that there are groups working on this Newsflash! The creators of ComiPo! have announced that they are working on an English language version of the software!! For now you’ll have to resort to the tried-and-true technique of “click on something and see what it does.” You also might want to check out the official demo video to get an idea of what you can do with the software, as well as episode 8 of Patrick Macias’ and Yuu Asakawa’s (English language) show Otaku-verse Zero, who also showed off ComiPo!; the segment starts in at around 03:00. Japanese culture blogger Danny Choo also wrote about it and you might find some useful tidbits in his post (as well as in the comments to his post). He also featured ComiPo! in episode 11 of his show Culture Japan. (The segment starts in at about 26 minutes.) There’s also a community site (in English, fortunately). And, the makers of ComiPo! have set up an English language Facebook page where Facebook users have helpfully posted their own English language tutorials on how to use the software. Sugoi ne!!
In our continuing efforts to take over the world, bwahahahh!!!! bring Otaku no Podcast to the widest possible listening audience, we are pleased to announce that we are now available on the Stitcher SmartRadio app.
Stitcher is an award-winning provider of news and talk radio for your mobile phone. With the free Stitcher SmartRadio app (available for devices running iOS, Android, BlackBerry OS, and HP/Palm webOS), you can listen to your favorite radio programs and podcasts – anytime and anywhere you want.
Stitcher has a truly wide variety of programming available, from the media industry’s premier content providers — tech news, sports, talk radio, business, entertainment, and much more. It’s the easiest way to stay connected to your world while on-the-go. You can easily create your own personalized audio stream, with only the content that you want, and listen to it anytime, anywhere. With over 5,000 shows available on Stitcher, you’re bound to find something of interest to you. And if you’re having trouble finding something to listen to, Stitcher’s recommendation feature can help you out.
First of all, yes, I am well aware that there are no Anime Expo Day 2-4 updates. I’m sorry, but I just wasn’t able to get them done. By the time we got back to our hotel room each night, it was too late and we were way too tired to write anything even remotely coherent. Besides, bandwidth was pretty much crap, so even if I did write something, it would be next to impossible to post it. This weekend we’re planning on getting together to record our Anime Expo review/recap episode of doom, panel-style as usual, so that will serve as our final AX update of doom.
But the AX coverage doesn’t stop there! Besides recapping the veritable cornucopia of new anime licenses, releases and other news to come out of AX, we will also be posting, over the next few weeks, audio, photos, and videos that we took while at Anime Expo. The first such fruits of our convention-going labor are now up on our YouTube channel. We were able to sit down and chat with MegaTokyo webcomic creator Fred “Piro” Gallagher and voice actor, director, script adapter, former child actor, and all-around multitalented guy Taliesin Jaffe about their various projects and other sundry topics.
Anime Expo 2011 Day 1 has drawn to a close. Actually we’ve been here since Thursday, aka Day 0. So at long last here is our writeup!
Day 0 was spent mostly getting here, followed by press interviews. We had the great honor of interviewing Fred Gallagher of MegaTokyo fame, as well as the multi-talented Taliesin Jaffe. Those should be hitting the podcast feeds along with our inevitable panel discussion recap episode of doom.
By now you all know that, for many years, we have been a happy member of the Amazon Affiliates program – that is what powered our wonderful AnimeFinder(TM) search box, as well as the product links in the various podcasts and other articles here (such as when we review an anime, or choose one as one of our Picks, etc.). This has been (IMHO) a great relationship for both you the audience and us the podcasters: you get to acquire anime (and other products) at a decent price (their selection is pretty good and their prices are not too shabby), and we get a little “something” for your business. And, while small, these little “something”s really do add up. (Example: our most recent affiliate payment helped me put together a cheap, but pretty sweet mobile studio rig for the interviews we’ll be doing at Anime Expo.)
Sadly, as the man said, all good things must come to an end. Recently my home state of California signed a new budget, one of the more controversial parts of which institutes a sales tax on all online purchases, even if the business in question doesn’t maintain facilities in California. As a result, Amazon has decided to terminate all California-based associates’ contracts. (Apparently, at least according to Amazon, Governor Brown has signed this new legislation, though I can’t find any news articles confirming this.) It’s thought by many that Amazon is doing this just so that they can raise a ruckus, make a statement, whatever. Still, this is bad news for us, as we are now left without a small, but reasonably steady income stream.
Fortunately, however, not all affiliates programs are “wussing out” or grandstanding like Amazon is, and so I am pleased to announce that we are now an affiliate of The Right Stuf. The Right Stuf, aside from being an anime distributor in their own right, runs a truly awesome store that sells a huge variety of anime, manga and related goods (and not only titles that they own the rights to either). They regularly have some pretty amazing sales, and of course there’s always the by-now-infamous Shawne’s Deal of the Day. They’ve been in the business of feeding the otaku need for many years, and are second to none when it comes to customer service. They’re good people.
In the meantime, we ask that you please don’t make any purchases through any of the links in our past postings until I’ve had a chance to go through and update them to point to Right Stuf. Seeing as how I’m busy with Anime Expo this weekend, that probably won’t happen for another 2 weeks or so. We’ll update this article, as well as post announcements to Twitter and Facebook when that has been completed.
Remember, too, that we are a Friend of J-List, and we will get a small “something” thanks to any purchases you make from their simply awe-inspiring collection of anime figures, t-shirts, calendars, snack foods, traditional Japanese culture items, and ahem “those” kind of products too (this does not cost you anything extra). Check out all that J-List (includes some NSFW products) and J-Box (100% work-safe) have to offer, and be amazed. Also, remember that clicking on our Google ads helps as well. 😉
Yes, it’s that time again, time for another Anime Expo. This time we’re actually going to try and bring you some actual coverage. To that end we have set up our new liveblog, which, after hours of experimentation, I have determined to be much easier (and much less vomit-inducing) than live video streaming.
And this is your opportunity to ask a question of one of the Guests of Honor. We’ll be in one-on-one interviews with Fred Gallagher of MegaTokyo and Taliesin Jaffe, who’s been involved in one way or another with more anime projects than I can count; and we’re gonna try to get interviews with Danny Choo and Hiroyuki Itoh and Wataru Sasaki of Crypton Future Media (yes, the Vocaloid people). However there may be other opportunities to ask questions of the other Guests of Honor too.
So, got anything you want us to ask? Then post them in the comments here. We make no promises, but will do our best to get your questions answered.
As you may (or may not) know, for a while we have been experimenting with livestreaming video from various anime conventions. And after hours of experimentation, I have come to one inescapable conclusion:
Livestreaming video is hard.
For one thing, it’s almost impossible to hold a cameraphone steady, which is painfully evident if you’ve managed to sit through any of our livestream trials. (Contrary to what it may seem, it is not our intention to induce nausea and vomiting in our audience.) I suppose I could put together some sort of eXtreme steadicam type rig, but (A) I don’t have the money to do so, and (B) I’m lazy. There’s also the fact that all cameraphones have really crappy sound. Which means that, most of the time, it’s almost impossible to understand what the speaker/panelist/GoH/whatever is saying; it usually ends up sounding something like this: “Mmfffrrf mrrrfff mrr mfff mff mrrrrfff.” And, of course, unless you happen to travel with a backpack-mounted studio lighting kit (which I don’t), the only thing you have to work with lighting-wise is the (often lousy) lighting found in most convention center rooms; so even if I could manage to get a rock-steady shot, the video would most likely be of inferior quality as well.
So, yeah, livestreaming video is hard. So how am I to achieve my goal of bringing you live on-the-spot convention coverage? One word: Liveblogging.
Yes, the very same technique that many tech bloggers have successfully employed to bring coverage of tech conference keynotes and so forth will now be put to use to bring you the latest and greatest anime news from whatever con we happen to be attending. This is being brought to you thanks to the excellent free liveblogging service CoverItLive. If you head to our livestream page you will now see a lovely new “Liveblog of Doom!” widget. When we are at an event and are liveblogging it, you will see our pearls of wisdom scroll by just as fast as my fingers can type them. And there’s no need to obsessively hit your browser’s “reload” button either; the CoverItLive widget does all of that hard work for you, so all you have to do is sit back and watch. Unfortunately the service is ad-supported, so you’ll have to sit through the occasional advertisement video. But in general I’ve found the service to work pretty well.
How will you know when we are liveblogging an event? For one thing, you can take a look at our con calendar. This will list the events that we are interested in. However that doesn’t necessarily mean that we’ll be at each and every event listed here (the usual disclaimer about the fickle nature of convention scheduling, plus my unpredictable stamina level at any given moment applies). However when we do decide to livestream, we will of course update our Twitter.
We hope you enjoy this new method of convention coverage. If you have any comments, or are having trouble getting the CoverItLive widget to work for you, please drop us a line.
This is sort of a half-Cool Find, half-review type article.
For the last few years I have been on a quest — a quest to free my anime from the confines of my computer screen.
Many others out there have shared this quest, I’m sure. After all, although watching anime on your computer is nice (especially with the mega-HD resolution monitors of today), it’s still nice to get away from the computer every now and then. Maybe we want to consume our anime while out and about; fortunately there are devices and software that make it relatively easy to do so, such as iPods, iPhones, iPads, Android smartphones/tablets and the Archos 5, and software such as Meridian, Air Video, and Crunchyroll for iPhone or Android.
But what if we want to enjoy anime on the big screen, using your home theater system?
As Murphy’s Law would have it, mere hours after we released our latest episode, the fine folks at Anime Expo go and release their preliminary schedule. Would’ve loved to talk about it on the podcast, but what can you do? shrug Anyway, go forth and peruse the schedules for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. (You’ll need the free Acrobat Reader, as these are PDF files. Or Mac and iOS users can use their device’s built-in PDF support.)
Speaking of iOS devices, the AX staff are planning on releasing an updated app for the iPhone, and are also working on an app for Android devices as well. Keep an eye on the Anime Expo website as well as their Twitter for an announcement when those are ready.
We here at Otaku no Podcast have begun going through the schedules and have started filling out our convention schedule with events we are interested in. You can look at our convention schedule on the brand-new Con Calendar page.
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“Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” Or so the old saying goes. And if the act of “teaching” includes blogging and podcasting, then it’s especially true in my case. You see, I can’t draw worth a darn. And that explains why I write about anime and manga rather than actually create it. 😉 But, as is true for many people I’m sure, there are still stories bouncing around in my head that I wish I could either animate or draw. (Or maybe I just want to make a cheap rip-off or parody of some already existing property.) Luckily, for people like us, technology is here to help, at least as far as “drawing” manga is concerned, thanks to a new program called ComiPo!.
In our continuing efforts to ![[YouTube Logo]](http://otakunopodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/YouTube-Logo51.jpg){kind=logo}
First of all, yes, I am well aware that there are no Anime Expo Day 2-4 updates. I’m sorry, but I just wasn’t able to get them done. By the time we got back to our hotel room each night, it was too late and we were way too tired to write anything even remotely coherent. Besides, bandwidth was pretty much crap, so even if I did write something, it would be next to impossible to post it. This weekend we’re planning on getting together to record our Anime Expo review/recap episode of doom, panel-style as usual, so that will serve as our final AX update of doom.
Anime Expo 2011 Day 1 has drawn to a close. Actually we’ve been here since Thursday, aka Day 0. So at long last here is our writeup!![[The Otaku no Podcast Anime Store of Doom! Powered by Right Stuf]](http://media.otakunopodcast.com/images/rightstuf.gif)
Yes, it’s that time again, time for another 
As you may (or may not) know, for a while we have been 
This is sort of a half-Cool Find, half-review type article.
As Murphy’s Law would have it, mere hours after we released our 
