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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Psst! Hey… wanna go to Japan? I know you do! So listen up!
Project 760 Productions, the group behind many otaku-centric events in the San Francisco Bay area including JTAF, is teaming up with Pop Japan Travel to offer you a chance to travel to Japan to attend the 2010 Tokyo International Anime Fair, one of the largest anime trade fairs in the world! You’ll get to take a sneak peek at the latest anime projects and series scheduled for the Spring and Summer TV seasons in Japan.
In addition, the tour will include visits to famous otaku landmarks, including Akihabara, the so-called “Electric Town,” a major shopping area for electronics and consumer goods, and now a hotbed of otaku activity, with many anime and manga shops, maid and cosplay cafés, and the like; Nakano Broadway, a ginormous building chock full of otaku-worthy shops — arcades, manga, anime, idol, music, toy, etc.; the Ghibli Museum, shrine of all things Studio Ghibli; a dinner at a cosplay café, a picnic by the sakura (cherry blossoms), a visit to an animation studio, and more!
This 9 day tour will take place between March 24 – April 1, and will run you $1,985, which includes all costs including round-trip airfare from Los Angeles, transportation, interpreters/tour guides, entrance fees, etc. You’ll also get a customized guidebook created exclusively for the tour. If you like, you can arrange your own travel plans to Japan, which drops the price to $1,360.
If there’s enough interest, they will also make several tour extensions available, including a tour of the port city of Yokohama and the history-filled city of Kamakura; and a tour of Studio Pierrot. (Tour extension is contingent on whether or not there is enough interest in it, and will incur an extra charge.)
Also, to commemorate the Studio Pierrot Tour, Pop Japan Travel is hosting a special contest through their YouTube channel.
The fan that submits the best video with a question for Studio Pierrot will receive their choice of three books courtesy of Digital Manga, Inc. and will get to visit Studio Pierrot free if they take the tour. Winners will receive a PJT credit towards a future tour if they cannot attend the TAF tour. The contest concludes on February 14, 2010.
Attention Gundam fans! In honor of the impending Mobile Suit Gundam UC (Unicorn) Blu-ray release, everybody’s favorite streaming anime provider Crunchyroll is not only streaming Unicorn, but is also streaming the original Mobile Suit Gundam series! This stream is available free to anyone in the US, Canada, Europe (excluding select countries) and Russia.
Not familiar with the Gundamverse? (Where have you been??!) Here’s a brief synopsis describing the series. You can also check out the Wikipedia entry on Gundam (but beware – there be spoilers here!)
“U.C. 0079. The rebel space colonies of the Principality of Zeon launch a war of independence against the Earth Federation, using humanoid fighting vehicles called mobile suits to overwhelm the Federation Forces and conquer half of Earth’s surface.
Months later, the Federation has finally developed its own prototype mobile suits at a remote space colony. But when the colony suffers a Zeon surprise attack, these new weapons fall into the hands of a motley crew of civilians and cadets, and fate places a youth named Amuro Ray at the controls of the white mobile suit Gundam…”
And here’s the synopsis for Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn:
“The year is U.C. 0096. Three years have passed since the end of the Second Neo Zeon War.
It is said that the Vist Foundation manipulates the Earth Federation and Anaheim Electronics from behind the scenes. Hoping to create a new world, the Foundation attempts to hand over a certain secret to the Neo Zeon remnants known as the Sleeves. This will mean the opening of Laplace’s Box, which holds a great secret tied to the origins of the Universal Century.
The exchange between the Vist Foundation and the Sleeves is to take place at the manufacturing colony Industrial 7. This is the home of the student Banagher Links, who rescues a girl he sees falling through the colony’s zero gravity area. The girl gives her name as Audrey Burne and says she wants to prevent a war, spurring Banagher to step into the conflict surrounding Laplace’s Box—almost as if he is drawn in by his own bloodline.
Based on a story by author Harutoshi Fukui, the newest Gundam work dynamically unfolds against the backdrop of the Universal Century. It all begins with this first shocking episode.”
Well, I didn’t get any angry e-mails or death threats, so I’m assuming that you folks liked our first videocast (or were at the very least willing to tolerate it). So we’re back with another. In this, our second installment in the Sushi series, we’ll be talking about how to make maki sushi, or rolled sushi. We’ll be making two of the most popular examples of this – kappa maki, or cucumber roll; and the infamous California Roll.
(To those of you wondering when Anime on the Cheap Part 2 is coming, the answer is – “sometime, hopefully soon.” I’m taking a break from audio podcasting mostly because I’m procrastinating, and also because I have fun new toys to play with 🙂 )
Links to some of the products mentioned in this video:
Welcome to our first ever videocast. Okay, technically this is our second videocast, but since the first one was an Anime LA highlights video I put together over 9000 years ago, it doesn’t really count. In this first videocast, we take a brief journey away from anime, and into the kitchen, and I teach you how to make Inari Sushi, a tasty treat perfect for munching on during anime watching parties. (I mentioned this in Anime on the Cheap part 1) And no raw fish is involved!
This is really an experiment for me. I won’t do these videocasts very often – maybe one every few months at best – so don’t worry, your bandwidth won’t be choked up with huge downloads every week.
Greetings, and Happy New Year everyone! The Otaku no Podcast staff and I wish you all a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year.
We started off the New Year in true Japanese fashion with a traditional cleaning of the house – or, in our case, the Otaku no Podcast website. The site has needed a redesign for quite some time, and so I switched to a new theme that offers much more flexibility without the need to go in and directly hack on the code. I’ve also installed some caching code which should (theoretically) improve performance (i.e. faster page load times).
And now, on to the financial report. People have asked me how much money I make on this, and I’m sure many others have wondered the same in silence. Well, today I am here to tell you that, including all of the income generating items on this site — Amazon affiliate links, Google ads, etc. — I have made a grand total of… drum roll please… $0.00. So no, I’m not making any money on this. No trips to Tahiti or the Bahamas, no off-shore bank accounts, etc. 😉 This is very much a hobby and labor of love for me. Still, I’m not one to turn down any additional income, so if you DO happen to click on some Google ads or Amazon product links, well, you’d have my eternal gratitude, and you’ll help keep this boat afloat, so to speak. Every little bit helps in this lousy economy. (Pro tip: you can still help us out, even if you don’t want to buy any of the products mentioned in the Amazon affiliate links. Just click through to the link, and then use Amazon’s search box to find whatever you are looking for. Any items purchased during this session (i.e. until you close your web browser or clear your cache) will be credited to us. Keep this in mind when you decide to finally purchase that 60″ plasma TV and home theater sound system. ;-)) OK, enough begging.
Now, on to The Future(tm)…. Right now I have yet another of our famous Panel Discussions of Doom, talking about Anime Los Angeles in the pipeline, and should have that posted by the end of this week. No, I haven’t forgotten about Anime on the Cheap. Unfortunately the really hectic time I mentioned in previous posts and chibicasts is beginning – The Move of Doom(tm). Also my girlfriend and friend of the show Beep will be going in for surgery at the end of this week, and I’ll be taking a few days away from the Interwebs to visit her in the hospital and help her recover when she returns home. Please send her your best wishes for a fast recovery. So the next episode after our Anime LA recap will come… sometime. Sorry, I can’t be more specific than that.
As far as anime convention coverage, the next convention for me isn’t until July – Anime Expo. I always make it to AX, come hell or high water. No exceptions. And this year I’ll really try and actually cover it (i.e. actually attend events, get interviews, etc.) We MAY be going to the San Francisco Cherry Blossom Festival (which is usually around mid-April), mostly because that’s right around our anniversary time, and a trip to San Francisco is always a welcome anniversary present. If we do end up going, I will of course get some photos and video for you. Other than that, I probably won’t be at any other conventions until Anime LA 2011. Maybe MikomiCon, which is sometime in the fall (September-October-ish). I just can’t afford to take time off from work to attend anything else. Also, hotel, travel, etc. is expensive, and I’m not exactly flush with cash these days. (see the financial report above). However, I will do what I can to cover major anime conventions (Otakon, NYAF, etc.) remotely, by slogging through the torrent of news articles, blog posts, etc. that come out of these, and condensing them down into pure unadulterated anime convention-y goodness. Of course, if you, the reader/listener, happen to attend any anime conventions, we’d really appreciate your thoughts on the experience. And pictures if you’ve got ’em. Use any of the methods on the Contact Us page to get in touch.
Also, over the next few months, I’ll be working on some other interesting projects, including some Video podcasts. And no, this isn’t because TJX recently did one of their own. (okay, that’s a lie, but I had always wanted to do some video podcasts even before TJX did theirs. Honest.)
And, of course, I’ve got quite a few anime reviews in various stages of completion as well, so look for those to trickle out in the coming months.
Finally, I would like to thank you for continuing to visit our website, and for subscribing and listening to our podcast. If you could find the time to do so, we’d really appreciate it if you could rate us and/or write a review in iTunes. Just click on the iTunes subscribe link in the left column and use the “rate this podcast” box. Also, if you’re a Zune user — or even if you’re not — please submit us to the Zune Podcast directory. (Yes, the Zune directory requires the LISTENERS to submit podcasts to their directory, rather than the podcast creators. Very odd.) Simply go to the Zune podcast directory page and click the “Submit a Podcast” link in the lower left. It will ask you for the podcast RSS feed, which is
http://otakunopodcast.com/feed/podcast/
Again, best wishes for the New Year, and we hope to see you again real soon!
Behold, for here are the winners in the various divisions of both the Masquerade and AMV contests at Anime LA 2010. Congratulations goes out to everybody who participated in both contests – all entries this year were truly awesome.
Those of you with an insatiable desire to consume anime news in podcast form, take note – there’s a new kid on the block! Revision3, the Internet video programming network formed by many ex-TechTV personalities including Kevin Rose (of Digg fame), is now hosting an anime review show, Anime TV. The show, hosted by well-known American anime voice actors Cristina Vee and Johnny Yong Bosch, consists of panel-style discussions where the panelists talk about the various anime, manga, video games, etc. they’re into at the moment, and, as a group, review one particular anime series. They also occasionally feature other segments; for example in their first episode they “invaded” the US dub studio Bang Zoom Entertainment and took the audience on a tour of the facility and interviewed some of their key personnel.
My first impressions are that they sometimes take things a bit over the top, for example the whole “Anime TV… GO!” schtick. The panelists seem to have a good rapport with each other, and obviously we the audience will grow more comfortable with them as we get to know their tastes and personalities. I’ll wait to pass final judgment until a few more episodes have come out. I will say however that I’m pretty much in agreement with their verdict on Ghost in the Shell 2.0. The original animation was definitely cleaned up and did look crisper; however the transitions to and from the redone CGI elements were still a bit too jarring for my taste. If you haven’t seen GitS yet… for heaven’s sake, go do so now!! But if you already own the original GitS on DVD, it’s not really worth it to upgrade.
I’m back from Anime LA, and so far (knock on wood) I’ve managed to avoid the dreaded Convention Sickness. Keep your fingers crossed…
I”ll try and schedule a recording session with The Gang soon to record our A-LA recap podcast. Look for that in the next week or two. In the meantime, here are my initial impressions and thoughts.
Continue reading Back from Anime LA
The day started off on a good note – I actually managed to get up and out of bed before noon, which, according to most of my friends, is a miracle.
The con is definitely in full swing now. It’s Saturday, which means lots more people in attendance who couldn’t come during the week because of work or school. It’s also the day when most of the “big” panels and workshops are. And it’s Masquerade day (by far one of the most popular events at any anime convention). The lines at registration at 9:30 this morning were pretty impressive, and I’d imagine that as the day goes on, they will grow.
The most interesting and informative panel this morning was “How not to run an anime convention” presented by fan guest of honor Bekka the Alice. As past chair of Nan Desu Kan, she definitely knows what she’s talking about. She presented many tips and techniques and things to watch out for, signs that a newly-born anime convention might be heading down the road to failure, and how to avoid these pitfalls, interspersed with a few war stories as examples of what not to do, and how catastrophically FAIL things can become if you didn’t heed her advice. Very interesting, and I’d wager that alot of her advice would apply to other types of public events as well. Bekka has graciously agreed to come on Otaku no Podcast to talk more about how to properly get a new anime convention from conception to reality.
I attended several other panels and workshops on amateur/beginning voice acting, and while informative, they weren’t quite what I had expected. More on these later.
Unfortunately my camera is out of commission at the moment. I forgot to charge the battery last night, and I used up what was left this morning taking panel shots for the photo gallery. I really need a second camera battery. The camera’s in the room charging so that it’ll be ready in time for Masquerade; in the meantime I’ll have my video camera with me (which takes passable stills) for as long as its puny battery lasts. (I need a second high capacity battery for that as well… one of these days…)
Still quite a few hours left in the day, during which I hope to attend a few more panels/workshops, visit the dealers room and artists alley, and get as many pictures as I possibly can. (and maybe an interview or two as well) Then, of course, there’s Masquerade. Stay tuned for more…
Day 1 of Anime Los Angeles has officially drawn to a close. Due to various factors including my travel schedule (I didn’t actually arrive on-site until close to 2:30 this afternoon) and my body’s need for a sudden unscheduled nap (remember what I said about human frailties…) I only made it to one panel today, but it was an interesting one – all about anime conventions in Japan and how they differ from the typical style of anime conventions we’re used to in the Western world. I’ll post more on that later. However, the evening ended on a bit of a sour note…
Continue reading How not to run an AMV competition screening
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