Night Wizard flew under a lot of radars during its Fall 2007 run. Sure it started off as a run-of-the-mill game adaptation, with neither the story nor the concept being particularly original, but Night Wizard was still a solid show. It’s a shame that more people didn’t watch this show, because I think it had a lot going for it.

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July is steadily approaching, and if you haven’t seen it already, I’ll steer you over to Moetron’s Summer 2008 Guide. This looks to be a pretty good season for a summer lineup, even if there are a whopping nine sequels… And a show based on a pachinko game, which consequently enough looks like a joke.

My watchlist: Natsu no Sora, Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu, Seikirei

The contenders: Birdy the Mighty Decode, Chocolate Underground, Natsume Yuujin-Chou, World Destruction, Strike Witches, Koihime Musou

Picture excerpt is from Oh great’s currently running manga, Air Gear. Political agendas in anime and manga? Gasp! They could have been a bit more subtle about it. This November, run to the polls and vote Omaha.

Edit: Added a translated page

As someone who hasn’t been too impressed with the selection of anime in the past few years I’ve found myself frequently going to more “exotic” avenues to fill my need for DVD hoarding. Even so far as to go into the terrible world of non-animated purchases. The horror. However my current attitude makes me more willing to try out various random things as my budget isn’t already slotted for 20+ anime DVD purchases for the next two months. That’s what eventually brought me to Oban Star-Racers, an interesting fusion in every sense of the word. The show itself is a 2D/3D experiment of sorts and the show was created by a collaboration of French and Japanese creators with the French actually leading the project.

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I activate my trap card. It lets me discard three cards from my hand to stage a totally fake real contest on the blog. Identify the traps in the picture to win fabulous prizes like nice boats, giant death rays, and stock in Shinra Electric Power Company*. Huzzah**!

*All contestants must be Rickroll’d and subsequently hacked to death by Rena Ryugu or Kotonoha Katsura to be eligible. Stock in Shinra has no cash value and cannot be traded for other prizes. This contest will leave you in despair.

**There are no winners. We’re all losers when it comes to traps.

All joking aside, if you seriously want to participate, I’ll make this a “Name the characters” type of contest.

Show off your mad Photoshop skillz entry
1a. Save the full-size picture to your HD.
2a. Open it up in Paint, Photoshop, etc.
3a. Match names to the boxes you recognize.
4a. E-mail the picture to me - yamcha(at)gmail.com

Or text only entry
1b. Download the numbered version.
2b. Match names to the numbers.
3b. E-mail your text answers.
4b. Do a barrel roll for taking the easier route.

5. Go about life as I judge the results; Whoever names the most characters wins.
6. The winner and runner-up will get nifty awards or something.
7. Deadline will be June 15th at midnight (US east coast time).

PS. Don’t feel daunted because there are fourty characters; I could only name twelve of them without any help. Just enter for fun to test your trap knowledge.

When I heard that BONES had actually done a movie, I was like, how on earth did I miss this? And after watching it, I must say, did I miss the hype for this movie or something? Because I hardly heard anything about it, but as a wise man would put it: Sword of the Stranger is nothing short of a masterpiece.

So here’s a quick review.

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I saw a commercial for this on TV and just had to report this abysmal news to the otakusphere. Set to air on June 24th as part of ABC’s summer schedule is the new reality/game show entitled I Survived a Japanese Game Show. More info after the jump.

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First things first. I don’t speak Japanese, so I won’t be doing any translations anytime soon. I’m just wondering if there’s a sizeable group that’s interested in the backstory to the Shuraki figure series. There is a ton of noteworthy voice talent with the likes of Ami Koshimizu, Mayumi Iizuka, Yukari Tamura, Saeko Chiba, and Ryoko Shintani as the lead females thus far. A lot of effort went into making the drama CDs, and it just seems a shame that we English-only speakers are missing out on this interesting facet.

Maybe if there’s enough demand for the CDs to be translated, it may just catch the attention of some generous translators out there. I’m betting that won’t be the case, but this blogger wants to see someone prove him wrong. I’m surprised no one has attempted this task yet, especially with so many big seiyuu headliners.

So does interest for a project like this lie only with the figure collectors? At the end of the day is it worth undertaking this translation for such a small fanbase?

Delved back into Touhou after a long withdrawal only to quickly realize that it still kicks my butt. I suppose I just wanted to finish the earlier games before moving on to the newer ones, which will still incidentally kick my butt. I really like these games though, and that’s saying something because top-down shooters have never exactly been my cup of tea.

I’ve also gone further down the dark path with eroge too. It’s nice to play English patched games courtesy of hard working fan translators, but the selection will always be limited to what the translation teams choose. It’s not to say that I’m unappreciative - far from it. There’s a whole wide world of eroge out there just waiting to be played. You have to play a wide variety of eroge; the good, the bad, the popular, and the obscure to truly appreciate what distinguishes the great eroge from the ordinary.

In summary, there are a couple posts in draft mode right now. I do my best thinking while gaming. At least that’s my excuse for now.

With the festivities winding down today, so ends another chapter of A-Kon. There were cosplayers, internet celebrities, furries, 4channers, and regular fans all gathered together for the sake of anime. Sure the smell was… unique, but it was certainly fun. There was a group Caramell Dansen in the dealer room earlier but alas, I didn’t bring my camera for the final day.

Picked up one final item, the Kotobukiya Shana swimsuit version for a cool $30 plus tax. I couldn’t resist Shana’s siren song after all. I also saw the cute Max Factory Kotori Shirakawa, but then I realized that while I like Da Capo, I don’t like it that much. Some of the dakimakura covers were tempting too, but I wouldn’t be caught dead with one of those.

Anime Fest is spaced far enough from A-Kon to give my wallet time to recover, and for better or worse, it’s a much smaller convention.

I don’t think I’ll go to A-Kon next year, but I’ll be shooting for either Anime Expo or Otakon in 2009, because it’s time to see and experience something new. I’ve really wanted to go to both of those conventions for a long time. I should start looking for a group to meet up with since I don’t know anyone out there, and it’s doubtful I can persuade any of my friends around here to travel that far.