Streaming Picks of the Week
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 At their Worldwide Developers conference last month, Apple announced the next version of its mobile operating system, iOS 6. One change in iOS 6 is that podcasts will be removed from the iTunes Music app, and will be broken off into their own app.
Apple recently released their Podcasts app. It is compatible with all devices that run iOS 5, so you can start using it now; and when iOS 6 comes out, this app will be the new way of downloading and listening to podcasts on your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad.
In this video I show you how to subscribe to and listen to Otaku no Podcast using the new Podcasts app.
Watch the video on YouTube or in the embedded player below the cut.
Continue reading How to subscribe to Otaku no Podcast using Apple’s new Podcasts app in iOS 5 and iOS 6
 Fair warning: this post is going to be very light on news (even more so than yesterday’s), since (as predicted) we didn’t go to any events today, other than the charity auction and closing ceremonies. So this blog post will consist of mostly me summarizing our weekend here at AX, and pulling various opinions out of my… er, personal space.
Well, another Anime Expo has come to an end. I am now safely back home at Otaku no Podcast HQ, a little bruised and worse for wear, but otherwise very happy. Planning an event the size of AX is no small feat, and the staff have once again done an excellent job.
When we got together to record our wrap-up of last year’s AX, I expressed concern at how they would top their efforts that year. Well, they certainly tried. They were definitely basing their GoH selection on the popular trends in the anime world — with the popularity of Fate/zero (and the fact that it just recently ended its 25 episode run – perfect timing!) the whole Fate/zero related guest roster made perfect sense; and no one can deny Yuki Kajiura’s impressive musical contribution to countless anime (and of course there’s FictionJunction too); not to mention LiSA, with her undeniable meteoric rise in popularity following on from Angel Beats! and GirlsDeMo (popular in and of themselves). Did they succeed in besting themselves? Ultimately, the old saying “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” applies. To me personally, nothing could top Mikunopolis – that was truly epic. But that’s not to say that this year’s con was not enjoyable. Quite the opposite. It just didn’t have that “BAM!” like last year.
Continue reading Anime Expo 2012, Day 4: Seriously wounded, but the soul still burns
 Not a whole lot to report today. We didn’t really go to any panels. The day was spent mostly wandering around the (Xbox huge) dealer’s hall and artist’s alley, and attending Masquerade. So today’s post will consist of mostly miscallany.
I’m sure I’ve missed tons of industry announcements, even at the panels that we went to (it’s hard to keep up sometimes). I’ll be going over the news coming out of AX later this week when I’ve had a chance to recover and decompress, and I’ll certainly post about it and/or talk about it during our inevitable wrap-up podcast, which we’ll most likely be recording sometime this coming weekend. So you can look forward to that.
Continue reading Anime Expo 2012, Day 3: It’s cosplay, deal with it!
 Note: the same grammar/typo/accuracy disclaimer from yesterday’s update also applies here. Didn’t take any notes, so my only reference is a log of my liveblog, which can be somewhat hard to follow at times (even for me, and I wrote the darn thing).
Attending an anime con usually involves a certain level of Con Drama™. Fortunately I’ve been able to avoid this bit of unpleasantness. That is, until today. Unfortunately, today we had Drama™ and we had it in spades. I won’t go into the (disgusting) details, but in brief, today’s flavor of Drama™ involved missing bath towels, and a broken toilet, and resolving it to our satisfaction basically flushed the rest of our day down the drain (heh, there’s a metaphor for you!).
Continue reading Anime Expo 2012, Day 2: Circling the drain
 Before we start, I’d like to apologize for any factual errors as well as grammatical errors/typos. It’s been a long day and I’m way too tired to do anything but a cursory look-over of this post.
Day 1 got off to a promising start – I actually managed to get out of bed before half the day was over! (A miracle where conventions and I are concerned) Also, amazingly enough, the shuttle service has actually seemed to improve a little. They finally retired those ancient decrepit school buses and have a fleet of decent looking tour bus style buses. Reasonably comfortable, if a bit hard to get on and off (very steep stairs, and lots of ’em). We arrived at the LACC right around noon time, and headed toward the Press & Industry registration area — and a Line of Lesser Doom. It was fairly short as AX lines go, but it moved at a snail’s pace. At least it wasn’t as bad as what I’d heard it was yesterday (so our arriving late and not being able to do badge pickup yesterday may have turned out to be a blessing in disguise). A bit more efficiency in the line would be a good thing; for example, why not pre-print everybody’s badges? You know who’s registered, so why not print their badge and have it ready for them when they check in? Paper isn’t that expensive…
Continue reading Anime Expo 2012, Day 1: Let’s do the time warp again
 The best laid plans of mice and men… or so the old saying goes. We’d planned on arriving in Los Angeles sometime in the early afternoon so that we could leisurely pick up our press badges and catch at least some of the press conferences; but alas, it was not to be, thanks to a combination of having to do Real Work™ in the morning; and the most dreaded of all enemies to travelers – TRAFFIC. Didn’t end up getting to the hotel until well past 8 PM, and while press badge pickup was going on till 9, by then we were way too tired and just wanted to get checked in to our room and get settled in. So the badges will have to wait till tomorrow.
Continue reading Anime Expo 2012, Day 0: And so it begins…
 We’re now only 1 week away from Anime Expo (AIEEEEEEE!!!). Yeah, I know, I haven’t even finished up with FanimeCon stuff yet (quickly looks away to avoid accusing glares from certain bloggers). (although I really, really hope to be finished by this weekend.) You can blame my work – in order for my overlords to even consider letting me take time off to attend AX, I am having to work like a dog. (oh well, at least it pays the bills…)
But, back to the point of this post: it is time once again for us to solicit questions you might have for any of the Guests of Honor. Yes, folks, that’s right, YOU get to reap all the benefits of their knowledge and expertise without the nervous sweatdrop-inducing act of facing a microphone and actually speaking in public.
So if there’s ever anything you’ve ever wanted to know about any of the GoHs, their activities, the projects they’ve worked on (or are working on now), etc., ask away! Either post them as a response to this post, or you can use our lovely contact us form (or any of the other methods of reaching us listed on that page), and we will do our best to get them answered for you. On video or audio if possible. You’ll need to act quickly though, so send ’em in as fast as you can think ’em up.
Unfortunately this year Anime Expo decided to hold their press interviews in the form of a free-for-all press conference, so we won’t be able to bring you the sort of intimate one-on-one chats we were able to bring you last year (bummer!) But, hey, anything is better than nothing.
So ask away!
 One of my favorite events at any anime convention I go to is the AMV contest, where creators cut together videos consisting of their favorite anime set to music. Usually the videos try and convey some sort of story, and are generally categorized into various themes (drama, comedy, action, etc.). Often, AMV contests are a great way (for me anyway) to discover new anime — I’ll see a character, fight scene, art style, etc. that I think is cool, and later on, I look up the AMV on the org and find out which anime was used in it.
Just as often, however, is the case where I find some cool music or a cool artist through AMVs. I’d hear a cool song and wonder “Oh, that song sounds cool, I wonder who did it?” Usually I’d have to either ask around on the forums, or wait a few weeks until the video hits the .org and look it up there. But now, for us “instant gratification” types, there’s an app that’ll tell you what song you’re listening to – Shazam.
Simply load this app (it’s free) on your smartphone or tablet, and, whenever you hear a piece of music you wish to identify, tap the big button. Shazam will listen in using your smartphone or tablet’s microphone, and in a flash, will identify your song. It’s amazingly accurate — even in a loud, echo-y AMV screening room, with sub-par audio, people yelling/talking at each other, etc., it has been able to identify music with a shocking level of accuracy. (Of course it’ll work anywhere where you hear music – your local coffeeshop, a restaurant, concert, whatever. And, again, even in noisy environments, it’s surprisingly accurate.)
Get it today for iPhone and iPod touch, iPad, and Android.
 Yes folks, it’s true: I’ve actually begun going through my FanimeCon pics! (See, I’m really trying to overcome this whole inertia thing…)
Unfortunately going through them is going to take a while. I vowed to try and be more judicious in the use of the shutter button, but failed miserably – I ended up with over 1100 pics from Cosfest alone. Sorting through them is one thing, then I have to denoise, color correct, white balance, sharpen, etc. So you will see pictures coming up in fits and starts over the next few days.
Also, you will see a lot of pics with legs and feet cut off. Unfortunately the stage was set up in such a way that peoples’ lower halves were frequently blocked by stage equipment. (Why do they have to put those speakers at stage level? Can’t they put them off to the side and/or at ground level?) Wherever I needed to cut something, I tried to do it in the least gruesome manner possible.
Finally, while I did get video of the event, it’s kind of crappy. (Consumer grade camcorders such as the one I have aren’t well known for their low light performance) I’ll do what I can to fix this, but there’s not really much I can do at this point. Oh well. At least you’ll get to hear their skits.
So where can you view these, you might ask? Well, pics will be posted to our Flickr account (or you can check out our handy dandy Photo Gallery page), and video will be on our YouTube channel.
Finally, for the list of CosFest winners, look below the cut.
Continue reading The FanimeCon 2012 Cosfest Post of Doom! (including pictures!)
 OK, it appears as though the AMVs that were shown at this year’s FanimeCon have started hitting the org, so I figure now’s as good a time as any to post about it…
Overall there were some amazing videos this year, and aside from the usual technical glitches (c’mon people, just burn a frakkin’ DVD and take all this unpredictable computer software out of the equation!) the contest went off pretty well. Unfortunately we missed the actual contest on Friday evening; fortunately they had a repeat showing the following day.
Thanks to Gintoki23 on the FanimeCon forums for posting this list – for some reason we never received a ballot, and I couldn’t read the video names on the screen, so I couldn’t write them down during the showing.
NOTE: I’ll update this post periodically as I find more links to the videos, so please check back often. Also when I learn which videos were the winners in the various categories, I’ll update this post with that info. If any of the videos that I linked to are incorrect (I have been known to make mistakes on occasion ;-). Plus I missed a fair chunk of the AMV contest, and on top of that, my memory is a bit hazy…) please let me know. Also, if you know of a link to any of the videos that I don’t have yet, please let me know as well.
Update: 2012-05-31, late evening: I’ve found a few more. For some reason I never think to look at other places (i.e. Youtube), and when I started searching Youtube, I started finding some more.
Update 2012-06-03: Removed a few incorrect links, and updated with the winners. Also found a link to the official listing of videos. Thanks to foester, Gaki and Marin Jei El on the Fanime forums for the additional info/corrections.
Behold the list of AMV contest entrants in all its glory, below the cut.
Continue reading FanimeCon 2012 AMV Contest Finalists and Winners (Updated)
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