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Video #0016 – Cool Find: Air Video HD: stream your downloaded anime, with perfect subtitles! ![[Play Now!]](http://media.otakunopodcast.com/images/PlayNow.jpg)
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.
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 If you were having trouble downloading the podcast or accessing the website this weekend, I apologize. For an unknown amount of time this weekend, the Otaku no Podcast website was down due to a server crash. (Not a bad one, no data was lost thankfully) Anyway I’ve restarted things and we’re back online now. Thanks to DJ City of TJX – The Japan Xperience for letting me know about the downed server. Did you miss the special teaser of the new Halo Legends anime that Spike TV aired last week? Well you’re in luck, thanks to the YouTubes. Check out the below video for your special sneak peek at the new “The Babysitter” short, part of the Halo Legends anthology currently in development by BONES, Casio Entertainment, Production I.G., Studio 4C, and Toei. Unfortunately, the YouTube video doesn’t show everything that Spike TV broadcast (there’s about a minute missing). But this should at least give you an idea of what to expect when the DVD (and Blu-ray!) of Halo Legends hits store shelves sometime early next year. (Thanks to Japanator for the video link!) Just a quick reminder that the special one-night-only screening of the new Eureka Seven movie is tonight, September 24. Tickets are probably still available, so check out the link for the list of participating theatres and for ticket purchasing info. Sorry if this message seems a bit terse to you. I’m typing it on my iPod touch. (Note: yes, I announced the date of this episode as Monday, September 21. I really did intend to release it on that day, honest! Oh well, better late than never, I suppose!) Pretty much everybody agrees that we are indeed going through some troubling times, economy wise. Most everyone is feeling the pinch of the global recession, and we’re all looking at cutting our expenses. So how do we feed our need for anime in these lean times, without breaking the bank? I explore this topic in the first of two segments I’m calling “Anime on the Cheap.” We also go through the latest anime news, including – of course – Weird Japan. And I have a few treats for you as well, so be sure and stick around till the very end! Continue reading Episode #0009 – Anime on the Cheap, Part 1 Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:32:14 — 42.2MB) | Embed New York Anime Festival will be hitting the Jacob Javits convention center THIS weekend – Friday through Sunday, September 25-27. Special guests include Yoshiyuki Tomino, the director of Mobile Suit Gundam; and Yui Makino, the voice of Sakura in Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle. Film premieres include Gurren Lagann: The Movie – Childhood’s End, Cencoroll, and 20th Century Boys. There’ll also be tons of musical goodness, including the US debut of all-female Japanese theatre/idol supergroup AKB48, and the Far East to East Showcase musical tour, featuring Kokusyoku Sumire, Swinging Popsicle, Echostream, and Gelatine. Of course this barely scratches the surface of the tons of other cool things that’ll be going on at this mega-convention. For more details, check out their website. Unfortunately New York is a bit of a trip for me, so I won’t be able to go, nor do I have any Evil Henchmen(tm) in the vicinity whom I can order into action. So if you’ll be attending any of the convention or ancillary events, I would really appreciate it if you could type up – or better yet, record – a short review of what you thought of the event. You can send it to me using any of the contact methods listed on the “Contact Us” page. Who knows, I might just use it in the next show, and you’ll be famous 😉 In any case, if you are going, please do enjoy yourself! Psst – are you a fan of the wildly popular Halo video game franchise? Do you get Spike TV on your cable or satellite lineup? Then you might want to set your DVR to record Spike TV’s “GTTV Presents Halo 3: ODST Countdown to Launch” special. Which, at least according to my TV schedule, starts at 9PM on Thursday the 17th. (So for you East Coasters, this is probably Friday morning at midnight. Definitely check your TV listings to be sure!) Why would you want to do this? Besides the obvious Halo goodness, Spike TV will be teasing us with a preview of some scenes from the “The Babysitter” short, part of the Japanese-animated Halo Legends anthology, animated by BONES, Casio Entertainment, Production I.G., Studio 4C, and Toei. This was of course one of Microsoft’s big announcements at San Diego Comic-Con this year. Shinji Aramaki, who you might know as the creator and director of Appleseed and Appleseed Ex Machina, serves as the project’s creative director. Famed director Mamoru Oshii is also involved. Halo Legends is a collection of 7 short films based on the Halo universe — a la Animatrix style. The Animatrix parallel is particularly apt for two reasons: Halo Legends expands on the Halo universe, filling in backstory, etc., similar to how The Animatrix expanded on and filled in backstory for the Matrix universe; but also because one of the participants, Studio 4C, was in fact responsible for the Animatrix. Either way, this should be some pretty good stuff. “The Babysitter,” the short which Spike TV will be showing parts of, follows the Spartan super-soldiers as well as the ODST (Orbital Drop Shock Troops), “when an all-or-nothing opportunity to strike at the heart of Covenant leadership arises.” Fans can look forward to the DVD and Blu-ray releases of this anime, coming from Warner Bros., sometime in early 2010. One of the latest buzzwords in mobile technology these days is augmented reality. It’s the combination of a live (real-time) view of the world that is overlaid – or augmented – with computer-generated imagery that somehow builds on what you are seeing and enhances it. Probably the most well-known example of this is a heads-up display, where the computers in an aircraft display projections on the windshield that assist pilots in navigating or firing on enemy planes or whatever. This technology is beginning to see widespread adoption, at least in an experimental stage, in both the commercial and military sectors. This technology is now starting to see its way onto the so-called smartphones many people are now carrying in their pockets. Phones based on the Google Android OS have had this capability for a while, and now with the recent releases of the iPhone 3Gs and iPhone OS 3.1, that device is starting to see applications of augmented reality technology as well. Tokyo Underground (iTunes App Store link, $0.99) is one such app that recently came on the scene. It’s a pretty useful travel companion, featuring all sorts of maps, guides to the various rail and subway lines in Tokyo, and a trip planner. But if you hold the phone up (so that the camera is facing where you’re looking) and activate the “Your New Eye” feature – new in version 3.0 of this app – you will see a view of whatever you’re looking at, overlaid with icons to various user-selectable Points of Interest (POI’s). Looking for a nice place to eat? Choose the type of restaurant you want (Japanese? Western-style? etc.), activate “Your New Eye,” and wherever you point your phone, if a restaurant that fits your criteria is within 1 km from where you are (determined by the iPhone’s built-in GPS and compass), you’ll see an icon on your screen representing where you should go. You can get more detailed directions if you need them, and the display updates in real-time — so as you walk toward it, you can see how far you have to go, or if you manage to drift off-course. This is pretty cool stuff. Granted, it’s not quite on the level of something like a VISOR or Borg implants, but it’s still pretty neat, and will definitely come in handy especially if you’ve never been to Japan before. The app is available now for purchase in the iTunes App Store for $0.99. While the rest of the features (mapping, route planning, etc.) will work on any iPhone (or even an iPod touch), the fancy Augmented Reality features are only available if you have the latest model iPhone, the iPhone 3GS. More information on this app can be found at the iTunes App Store as well as the developer’s website. The fine folks over at TJX – The Japan Xperience bring us yet another episode of their fine show. This time around, they talk a very important subject — well, important if you ever want to visit one of Japan’s famous hot springs – Onsen Etiquette. (I wish I had this information back when I visited an onsen – it would have helped smooth over some, er, rather awkward moments.) They also talk on several other travel-related topics, as well as the latest music releases to look forward to. Give it a listen today! Thanks for visiting my humble podcast and website. Your visit is much appreciated. I’m still pretty new at this podcasting stuff, so your feedback and suggestions are greatly appreciated. You’ll find all the various methods of contacting me on the “Contact Us” page. I’m trying to get an episode out every two weeks or so. The past year and half have been pretty rough on me – a lot of things happened in my life, most of them not very good – so I haven’t been able to make this goal lately. But I hope to do so going forward from now. (Speaking of which, I’m wrapping up production on the next episode, so it should be out and hitting the feeds within the next day.) In between episodes, though, I definitely plan on updating the website with whatever tidbits of anime-related news or trivia I find while prowling the Internets. So definitely keep us in your bookmarks list or RSS reader. Again, thanks for visiting, and please enjoy your stay! |
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