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Besides his involvement in Robotech, Macek and his company Streamline Pictures was also involved with quite a few other anime titles, including Captain Harlock and Queen Millennia (released as “Captain Harlock and the Queen of a Thousand Years”) all the way to more recent projects including Bleach and Naruto. Unfortunately his involvement with the American anime fandom was not without its share of controversy, but even his detractors would be hard pressed to deny him his legacy I think.
Update 2014-06-16: The folks behind Air Video have put out a brand new, even better app, Air Video HD. Not only does it stream your videos in stunning HD quality, but it also perfectly renders subtitles, even complex ones like SSA/ASS! Check out our video review of Air Video HD.
I hope you’ll excuse this slightly off-topic posting, but I just found something that I had to share with you.
We’ve all got anime on our hard drives. Might as well man up and admit it. OK, so maybe it’s anime you legally purchased through an online service like iTunes; or maybe it’s content that you ripped from DVD’s that you own (technically illegal under the DMCA, but we’ve never heard of individuals who only do this for their own personal use [and don’t share the files they create] being prosecuted); or maybe it’s something that you downloaded via teh torrents (definitely illegal, but most anime companies have traditionally turned a begrudgingly blind eye toward fansubs). But I’m sure that many of us have some anime hanging around on their hard drives.
Playing this downloaded anime, however, can prove to be a problem. There are over 9,000 video formats out there. (Not really, but it sure feels like it!) And with different bitrates, options, etc., this can prove quite confusing for most computers to play. Add different audio formats (AAC? AC3? PCM? WAV? MP3???!) and different subtitling methods (SSA? ASS? SRT??!) and that makes the complexity even worse. Fortunately, for desktop PC’s and Macs, there are excellent “swiss army knife” video players such as VLC (Mac, Windows, and Linux/UNIX) and Perian (Mac only) that do a pretty good job of playing back the various video formats out there.
But what about portable devices? Devices such as the Archos 5 do a fairly good job of playing back the most common video formats, but many files still require transcoding, which takes lots of time and CPU power. But if you have an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, you’ve got an even harder challenge, as these devices support a very limited set of formats (basically only MPEG-4 and H.264 of a certain resolution and bit rate). Also, with any portable device, your storage space is limited – anywhere from 8 to 64 GB for flash players, and maybe 250-500 GB max for hard drive based players. Which is a problem for those of us with, erm, larger anime collections.
What to do, what to do?
Enter Air Video. This fantastic app for the iPhone and iPod touch lets you stream video files from your computer over either WiFi or the 3G cellular network. The kicker here is that, if the file is in a format that your device can’t play natively, it will transcode it – on the fly! And it also supports the display of embedded subtitles. It’s pretty solid too. I’ve thrown just about every oddball video I’ve got at it, and it works perfectly.
The program is available right now for the iPhone and iPod touch. They’ve already upgraded it for the iPad and have submitted it to Apple for approval, so hopefully the iPad version will be out soon. Best of all, the iPad version will be a free upgrade to those who already own the iPhone/iPod version, so feel free to buy it now – the iPod/iPhone version works just fine on the iPad.
Get it today for the amazingly low price of $2.99 at the iTunes Store. There’s also a free version with limited features. You’ll also want to head over to the Air Video website to download the accompanying server software for your desktop computer (versions available for both Mac and Windows).
A few days ago I wrote about how the iPad will appeal to anime and manga fans. This, my friends, is a concrete example of that.
(UPDATE 04/09/2010: The iPad version of Air Video is released and is on the App Store, and once again, is a FREE update if you’ve already purchased the program. Just go to the Apps section in your copy of iTunes and click the “check for updates” button at the lower right corner of the window, and you should automatically download it.)
If you haven’t heard of the Apple iPad, which is due to hit store shelves tomorrow morning, then you’ve probably just returned from a long journey into another dimension fighting an impossibly tough foe on behalf of a civilization that considers you their only hope for survival. Or perhaps you were off frolicking with your mail order bride who turned out to be a powerful goddess who can grant your every wish (and get you into a ton of mischief while doing so). Or [insert other random contrived anime plot here].
In brief, the iPad is Apple’s answer to the tablet and netbook. Based on the iPhone OS, it’s a tablet computer that Apple is positioning to fill a perceived gap in functionality between a smartphone and a laptop computer. Since it’s based on the iPhone OS, and uses similar (though scaled-up) hardware, it has many features similar to the iPhone and iPod touch; however many user interface elements have been designed to take advantage of the much larger screen (a 9.7-inch (25 cm) LED backlit multi-touch display at 1024×768). And at $499 for the base model, the price is really quite reasonable considering the power and capabilities of what you get (IMHO of course).
Of course, reaction on the Internet to the device is bitterly divided. (Kind of like American politics. Sigh.) The true fanboys are lauding it as the best thing since sliced bread, while the haters are calling it “just a giant iPod touch.” But I think that the detractors are missing the point here. Yes, it IS a giant iPod touch. And that giantness is what makes the device work. There are things that you just can’t do (or you can do, but very poorly) on the iPhone or iPod touch because of its limited screen size. The larger screen of the iPad makes these applications possible. (Yes, she was right when she said “size matters.”) Here is why you, the otaku, should get really fired up about this device.
As if my earlier coverage of Japanator’s Spring 2010 anime lineup isn’t enough, here comes another summary of the Spring 2010 anime lineup, in a more graphical form. Thanks to Crunchyroll member everydaygamer for posting this. This one covers a few more shows than the Japanator analysis does.
Are you in that between-series slump? Looking for something new to watch? Curious as to what the Japanese anime industry has in store for us this spring? Are you bored to tears and want to look at some shiny pictures? Good news, Japanator has got you covered, with their Spring 2010 Anime Preview of Doom (part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4). They give a pretty good 30,000 foot view of the Spring 2010 anime scene. Each series includes a capsule description as well as information such as air dates, studio/director involved, and some sample artwork (that’s the shiny pictures part). Definitely give it a look. Some of these series may make it to such streaming sites as Crunchyroll or others. And, if all else fails, well, there’s always teh torrents. (insert standard disclaimer about how downloading anime is illegal, you should respect the copyrights of the artists, and do the honorable thing and buy the DVDs if/when they are released in your country, blah blah blah).
After reviewing things, here’s what I’ll be keeping my eye on in particular:
Angel Beats: written by Jun Maeda of Key – the same folks who put out one of my all-time favorites, Kanon. ‘Nuff said. I’m willing to give anything associated with Key a shot. Besides, the premise of “[a] group of students […] leading a war against God for what he’s done to them […]with guns” sounds interesting. And violent. Yeah! EDIT 2010-03-28: found this promo video on YouTube. I’m definitely interested now. Interestingly enough, it appears that some of the main characters(?) are part of a band… Gee, I wonder where they got that idea from… 😉 Still, I’ll give it a spin.
Arakawa Under the Bridge: Sounds rather nutty and interesting.
Black Rock Shooter OVA: There’s been a lot of buzz surrounding this show, most of which surrounding the fact that it’s based on a character designed by Huke, the same guy who designed the Vocaloid Hatsune Miku who is one of the illustrators associated with the Vocaloid music group “supercell“ (thanks polymetrica for the correction). If nothing else, the artwork definitely looks interesting. Dark and moody and stuff.
Heroman: An anime… created by veteran comic book Stan Lee. Innnnnnnteresting… Yes, I know there have been other cases of “East-meets-West” style collaboration between Japanese and Western comic styles, but c’mon, STAN FREAKIN’ LEE. Whether it’ll be good or not… well, we’ll see. The old “boy finds a robot and uses it to save the world” plot has been around the block more than a few times.
House of Five Leaves: The art style on this one is definitely intriguing. And it’s being animated by Manglobe, the studio who did Ergo Proxy, which definitely had its own unique art style. And I’m always up for a samurai period piece.
Kaichou wa Maid-sama: Sounds a lot vaguely like Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu. Straight-laced student president type has a secret double life working at a maid cafe, and someone finds out about it. But still, I’m always a sucker for the old closet-otaku’s-secret-gets-exposed storyline. Not expecting anything terribly original tho. (again, Nogizaka…)
Kiss x Sis: Maybe I’m crazy, but after hearing the Anime TV panelists talking about it on their most recent show (it’s in the first “hima time” segment) I’m morbidly curious. (Their reaction wasn’t terribly favorable, btw). The Anime TV panelists were pretty spot on when they called it a “sexier version of ‘Please Twins'” (that’s me paraphrasing, I forget their exact words). That’s exactly what it sounds like to me. Still, there’ll be at least some nosebleed-worthy scenes to look at, I’m sure. So it ain’t all bad.
Senko no Night Raid: Set in the 1930s, in the Japanese-occupied city of Shanghai, China, it details the exploits of a supposed secret organization of Japanese spies, the “Sakurai Kikan,” that possess special abilities and were involved in various covert missions, so secret that they were buried in history. Anime history lessons FTW! (How much of this is actually history, exaggerated history, or outright made-up stuff, I have no idea. Neither Google nor Wikipedia comes up with anything useful other than links to stories about this anime.) But still, anime and spies… I’m game. This show is the second show to be introduced through The Power of Anime programming block – the first title to come out of it was So-Ra-No-Wo-To. This may send up warning bells to some of you. Let us hope that the people involved with Night Raid don’t fall into the same moe trap (no, not that kind of trap) that So-Ra-No-Wo-To fell into. (Not that the moe-ness killed it for me; unlike many of the angry reviewers out there, I still enjoyed So-Ra; I will however concede that, without the distractions of moe, it probably could have been an even better show.)
Working!!: At first blush, this seems like yet another moe fluff piece. But after checking out the preview episode, I’m not so sure I’d be willing to give it that summary judgment. There’s quite a bit of moe, for sure — Japanator called it “[like] K-ON!, but with food” — but unlike other series that people complain about, it doesn’t seem to me like they are using moe as a crutch. In other words, behind the moe, there appears to be a fairly decent, sometimes humorous slice-of-life piece, that I’m willing to devote at least several episodes’ worth of attention to. Besides, how can you go wrong when you’ve got a waitress that wields a katana? (Although in all honesty I would’ve picked a better name for their restaurant than “Wagnaria.” I wouldn’t want to eat somewhere with a name that sounds like an infectious disease, one that causes you to hallucinate that you are a German composer or something.)
Yojo-han Shinwa Taikei: Based on a novel about the “nonsense campus life of a self-conscious but dull university student,” this doesn’t sound terribly exciting. But when you consider that it’s being helmed by Masaaki Yuasa, who also brought us Mind Game (which, by the way, is oh so deserving of its title – it’s a real head trip), the excitement-o-meter is starting to swing toward the positive. It also comes to us through Fuji TV’s noitamina (that’s “animation” spelled backwards, get it?) programming block, which is known for its unique and distinctive titles, so it has a good pedigree. Check out the trailer and see for yourself.
And finally…
K-ON! Season 2: This one should go without saying. MIO!!!!!!!!111
(EDIT 2010-03-28: added Part 4 (the final part) of Japanator’s Spring 2010 Preview, along with my reactions to it.)
Recently I finished watching Macross Frontier. I’ll be posting a full review to the blog in a while, but in short, I was absolutely, positively blown away. Fantastic animation, very engaging storyline, and simply awesome music, which isn’t surprising coming from a series whose whole premise is based on the concept of the power of song.
The only thing I knew about Macross before this was that Robotech used parts of the first Macross anime, The Super Dimensional Fortress Macross for its first story arc (The Macross Saga), and that they heavily edited the Macross storyline to fit within the Robotech continuity. (One of these days I must view it in its original form.) So I’m still a newcomer to the Macross series.
Anyway I highly recommend you check it out, even if you’re not familiar with the rest of the Macross-verse; the story stands on its own, and you don’t really need to know much of the Macross backstory to enjoy it (plus there’s always Wikipedia). In particular, the music is, as I mentioned before, spectacular. As an example, here is J-Pop artist May’n (who provided the singing voice of Macross Frontier diva Sheryl Nome) singing one of the ending themes of Macross Frontier (and my favorite song from the series), “Northern Cross.”
This is just a quick heads-up. I’m testing a new method of updating Twitter AND Facebook whenever I post a new blog or podcast. I’m hoping that this will work without any major snags, but there is always the possibility that it may flood either Twitter or Facebook or both. If this does end up flooding the feed, please accept my sincere apologies. I’ll be monitoring things closely so if things do go wonky I’ll be able to pull the plug quickly. Thanks for your patience and understanding.
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!! 😉
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