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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ATTENTION ALL COLLEGE STUDENTS!! Looking for a unique and fun way to earn some internship credits and — maybe, just maybe — break into the anime/manga industry? The TOKYOPOP 2010 Digital Media Production and Marketing Summer Internship might just be your golden ticket! From May 28 through September 6 of this year, TOKYOPOP will be hitting the road and touring America, stopping at just about any place that’ll have them — anime/manga conventions, bookstores, libraries, parking lots, you name it — to promote their properties and characters. But this isn’t any old roadshow – this is a multimedia experience – and that’s where you come in! TOKYOPOP is looking for a few good fans to join them and help “create a viral grassroots experience the likes of which have never been seen before.”
Some of the things you’ll be doing include:
Working under the supervision and guidelines of a real-world production company to plan, shoot, edit, and upload video for a web-based “reality show”-styled grassroots marketing endeavor
Using social media tools to promote and market your videos, TOKYOPOP products, and the TOKYOPOP Tour
Hosting contests and events at conventions, bookstores, etc., nationwide
Assisting the Tour Managers to set-up, tear down, and troubleshoot all events
And more!
What qualifications do you need to have? You…
Must be a manga/anime/Japan enthusiast
Must be comfortable on camera and able to energize a crowd
Must be a skillful user of Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and YouTube
Must be able to plan, shoot, edit, and upload video
Must be available for most if not all of the Tour: May 22-September 7
Must like to travel
Must have lots and lots of energy!
Film or film marketing studies a plus
Japanese speakers a plus
Must receive course credit; this is an unpaid internship (travel expenses will be covered)
Must receive verifiable college credit for an internship; this internship is unpaid (travel expenses are covered)
Must enter into a TOKYOPOP Tour Internship agreement with TOKYOPOP
Upload your resume and a writing sample as a blog post to your TOKYOPOP Tour profile
Upload a video telling us why you’re the right person for the internship to your TOKYOPOP Tour profile. Show us your most positive attributes, the ones that you think will make you a great spokesperson for TOKYOPOP on the road. (Note: Both TOKYOPOP and Ning prohibit the use of profanity in your video. All other Ning terms of service apply.)
Send and email to Tour@TOKYOPOP.com with the subject line “TOKYOPOP Tour Internship Application” confirming that you have submitted an application
Better hurry tho – deadline for application is this coming Wednesday, March 31! (Sorry for this last minute post. Somehow I missed this story until now.)
So I was prowling around the YouTubes tonight, giving my mind a break from dull repetitive tech writing, when I found this little gem, an insert song from the Haruhi Suzumiya OST titled “God Knows…” (It was used in the scene where Haruhi and Yuki fill in for two of the members of a band who couldn’t perform in the school festival due to illness – if you want to see it, it starts at about 10 minutes into the season 1 episode “Live Alive”)
But, damn, what a catchy tune!! I spent most of the rest of the evening with it on auto-repeat, much to the detriment of our neighbors.
I have no idea how I missed this the first time… oh wait, actually I do. It’s because when I watched Haruhi, I was watching the English dub. And in the English dub of Haruhi, they committed the cardinal sin (in my book anyway) of translating the song lyrics replacing the Japanese vocals of a song with the English voice actors/actresses singing it in English. FAIL. I’m sorry, even though I have nothing against English dubs, especially if well done, I absolutely abhor the dubs where they (attempt to, usually badly) translate the lyrics of songs dub the vocals in English as well. (EDIT: I actually meant when they have the English voice cast sing the songs in English and replace the Japanese audio with that. I know they have to translate the lyrics anyway for the English subtitles, which I don’t mind. English is hard.)
Anyway, the version of the song used in the anime is truncated; the full-length version was later released on various singles and Haruhi soundtracks. Well one fan decided to take it upon him/herself and make a “music video” of sorts using the full-length version of the song, combined with footage from the part of the anime where it was performed. Obviously there’s some repetition (since the actual song is longer than the version in the anime), but on the whole this video is very well done and the editor did a good job of covering up its repetitive nature.
(I also couldn’t help but draw parallels to K-On! while watching this, but that’s another story…)
Exciting news for all of you anime fans who are iPhone/iPod touch (and soon to be iPad) owners. Have you ever wanted to watch your favorite streaming anime site Crunchyroll on your iDevice? Well now you can, because there’s an app for that! Crunchyroll has recently released their iPhone and iPod touch app, available for free in the iTunes App Store. It will let you watch any of the content that you would normally be able to watch on Crunchyroll, including premium content if you login to the app with your Crunchyroll account. Currently it only streams over WiFi; however with Apple and AT&T’s recent change of policy that now allows 3G access for the SlingPlayer and Skype apps, this may change. And – here’s the part that’s good news for those of you planning on getting an iPad — they are planning on upgrading their app to work natively on the iPad and take advantage of its ginormous screen size (and other nifty features)!
To commemorate this event. Crunchyroll is sponsoring a contest wherein one lucky winner anywhere in the world (you just have to be able to receive a package by mail) can win their very own 16 GB WiFi iPad! The only requirements are that you must: (A) sign up for a Crunchyroll account, (B) become a Premium member (Since you get a free two-week trial as a Premium member, tecnically there is no purchase necessary – just make sure that your trial status doesn’t expire before the contest ends. But at only $6.95/month or $60/year, a premium membership is quite reasonable if you ask me); and (C) become a fan of their Facebook page. The contest ends on March 31, at which point the lucky winner will be announced.
A long time ago, on a Crunchyroll forum post far, far away, I once opined on the awesomeness that would result if CR made their very own iPhone app. I was rather perfunctorily brushed off with an “ehh… not likely to happen.” They must have been planning this all along… those sneaky bastards!! 😉
I’m not sure how or why, but apparently a few random peoples’ AudioBoos somehow accidentally made it onto the Otaku no Podcast AudioBoo feed. So far it looks like this is just an isolated event, but just in case it isn’t, I’ve temporarily disabled AudioBoo publishing. Sorry for any inconvenience and/or confusion, and thanks for understanding.
Greetings, and welcome to the third and final installment in this series of sushi making videos. It’s finally time to run with the big dogs and face your fears – raw fish. But don’t worry, it’s not as difficult as it sounds, and assuming you have access to a reasonably good Asian foods market (or are willing to order frozen products shipped to you in dry ice over the internet) you’ll be just fine. (Look at it this way, not only do you get good quality raw fish, but also dry ice to play with. Fun!) Today we learn how to make Temaki, or hand rolls; and Nigiri, or pressed sushi. We also take a brief detour and learn the Way of the Blade – handling sushi knives.
This is the final video in the Sushi series. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed it. I’ll be returning to audio podcasting after this. But stay tuned until the end of the video, because I’ll be talking about the future of Otaku no Podcast and these video podcasts.
Links to some of the products mentioned in this video:
Remember last year when we wrote about the (then upcoming) Halo Legends anime? This is a series of 7 animated shorts that pay homage to the Halo franchise of video games, and are animated by some of the hottest anime studios, including BONES, Production I.G., Studio 4C, and Toei, and with notable project participants including Shinji Aramaki and Mamoru Oshii. Like another famous anime/pop culture tie-in, The Animatrix, Halo Legends expands on the Halo universe, filling in backstory, etc.
Well, at the time of release, Warner Bros., who is the US distributor, promised a release on both DVD and Blu-Ray sometime in “early 2010.” Well, they’ve delivered! Halo Legends is available TODAY, on DVD in both a single-disc “bare-bones” basic edition, a 2-disc special edition, and on Blu-ray (which I would wager looks simply awesome).
First, there was the story of the increased popularity of the Washimiya, Saitama area of Japan (and in particular the Washinomiya Shrine located there) because of the fact that much of the anime “Lucky Star” is based in that area. Now comes word of the latest real-life-spot-turned-otaku-mecca, Toyosato High School in Shiga Prefecture.
What? Not familiar to you? Then you must not be a K-ON! fan. For this humble school building, and its surrounding areas, were used in large part in that work.
According to the translation provided by the kind commenters over at this YouTube video, the school building, which might be some sort of historical building/landmark, was apparently scheduled for demolition 8 years ago to make way for a new school facility; however, instead they decided not to demolish it and instead built a new school facility opposite the old one. In appreciation for saving the building, the author of the K-ON! manga used the building along with parts of the surrounding area as scenes for his work.
This part at least is true. The resemblance is uncanny, particularly the auditorium where the K-ON! girls held their concerts, the look of the hallways, the music room itself, and even the brass animal figures on the stair bannisters. (Not sure if there is a real life analogue to that statue that the students in K-ON! are always putting funny hats/outfits on tho… I didn’t see one in the video)
Anyway, the building is still being used for some functions (at least I believe the library is being used still – hmm, I wonder if they have the K-ON! manga on their shelves? That would be pretty meta!) And the school is cashing in on the building’s otaku street cred, as they are apparently holding concerts in the style of K-ON! in the auditorium, and the music room is decorated with K-ON! pictures as well as sweets and tea on the tables! (I really hope those are plastic models! Or that they change them daily, but that would be kind of cost-prohibitive…) And the otaku are indeed flocking to the location, as is evidenced by the huge collection of itasha (otaku cars decorated with anime decals, figures, etc. – literally means “painmobile” as in “too painful [for non-otaku] to look at”) parked in the parking lot – not to mention the cosplayers taking photos in front of the building and various landmarks. Sure hope that all of this attention isn’t disturbing the students too much!
Video below. (EDIT 2010-03-24: the original video has been taken down from YouTube for terms-of-use violations. Grrr… However I found not one, not two, but THREE!! fan-made videos of trips to the K-ON school that shows some additional footage of interest (e.g. the guitar shop that the K-ON girls bought their instruments at, the fast food restaurant where the girls often meet and where Mugi-chan got a job (apparently based on a McDonald’s), other views of the surrounding town, etc. And apparently the statue with the funny hats/clothes is actually based on a real-life statue of the man who built the school. Be sure and check out some of the “related videos” too!) (EDIT 2010-03-25: found another video!)
Boxee is one of my favorite media center applications. Available for the Mac, Windows, Linux, and AppleTV, Boxee presents an excellent “10-foot interface” ideal for use on a Media Center computer – that is, a computer hooked up to a large-screen TV, projector, etc. It makes it really easy to watch/listen to your movies, TV shows, photos, and music, both from your computer/local area network as well as from various sources online (TV networks that stream their own content, Hulu, Netflix, etc.). It also brings a unique social aspect to your media consumption – you can follow other Boxee users and see what they’ve been watching and what they recommend.
Even if you don’t have a Media Center PC, Boxee might still be a good program to have, since it can automatically retrieve metadata on your video files (album/cover art, titles, actors/directors/etc.) and will organize your movies and TV shows (TV shows organized by season and episode number, etc.). It can also decode practically every video, audio, and image format under the sun.
Well, this must have happened sometime a while ago, as I haven’t been paying much attention to Boxee. Recently they released a new beta (now freely available to anyone who signs up at the Boxee website – their beta used to be invite-only but is now open to the public). And when I went into the Boxee App Catalog, I discovered to my delight that everyone’s favorite streaming anime site Crunchyroll is now easily watchable through Boxee – a Crunchyroll app is now available in the Boxee app catalog!! You can watch any of the publicly-available streams, or, if you have one, you can log in to your Crunchyroll account to watch any of the non-free videos you have access to – including HD streams!
Want to get in on the action? Head on over to the Boxee website to sign up for a free account and download the free Boxee software. Then, from within Boxee, go to the App catalog (the “Apps” icon, duh) and download the (also free) Crunchyroll app!
BTW, if you are a Boxee user, please feel free to follow me – I’m “dburr” on Boxee.
Little did I know, but the folks over at Anime TV, Revision3‘s new anime show, paid a visit to the recently-held Anime Los Angeles 6 held last month. Either they hired uber leet invisible ninja cameramen, or I simply did not notice them thanks to my oblivious-to-the-world nature. More likely the latter. Anyway they highlighted some of the cosplay gathering action as well as a look at the dealer’s room and Artist’s Alley, and a brief interview with Guest of Honor Kyle Hebert.
You can download the video or subscribe to the podcast through the website, or watch the embedded version below. The Anime LA segment starts 8 minutes into the video. They also review the series Rental Magica.
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