Antique Bakery wrap up AKA rocks fall, everyone dies, disney style

So Antique Bakery is now over. And now to be blunt and honest, the ending sucked.

 Except, you know, the ending.

Crystal Blaze Review

What, an anime review?  On this blog?  It’s more likely than you think.  Episode 12 was finally subbed and put on the Internet, after basically a three month drought.  The ending, like the rest of the series, was decent.  Let’s take a look at what makes this series tick

Cosplay impressions of AWA 14

CJ has the news from the con while I post pictures of cosplay. Again, I was happy to be part of a cosplay group from my anime club this weekend, so I wasn’t bored all the time. Also being in pictures means I don’t have as much time to take them all day. So there are fewer, but my album is only one of many on the Net anyway.

Can you spot me?

Anime Weekend Atlanta Wrap-Up

I wasn’t planning on going over everything that happened at AWA, especially since I wasn’t even there. (Crisu was though!) But since tons of very relevant tidbits happened there, I might as well summarize them here.

First of all, Funimation indirectly confirmed that yes, the release date-less D.Gray-man will be dubbed (dunno if we knew that already or not, but their website says nada on the matter) by saying at their panel that they have started recording the voices. (Giapet’s panel report included that news; the report also briefly mentions Nanoha, Fullmetal Alchemist and Ouran, so check it!) There is, of course, still absolutely no word on DGM’s dub VAs, because they’re Funimation and they love keeping us in the dark in suspense. Strangely, Nanoha went almost completely unmentioned at AWA; the season 1 DVD box set has been confirmed by various distributors (not by Funi’s website, notably!) for a November 11 release date.

Touching on AWA 2008

Well I totally missed the announcement about Toonami until CJ posted something. And I was here… ^^;;

Not that I’m big on panels. I seem to go to cons solely for the photography and the dealer’s room. With the money I pay for admission, I ought to be going to panels and writing down important bloggable information, but… >_> I guess I don’t find myself so passionate about the latest news. Or I really don’t care at all for any of the North American voice actors. I think I’ve said before that Mignogna and Rial are probably very talented, but I think they are far from what the ideal voice talent is. It’s just because there’s no competition that they’re heralded so much. It’s like a teacher curving test grades so the highest score, an 80, becomes 100. America’s dub voice actors are B+ level at best, but we love them as A+ simply because there’s no one better right now.

Well anyway, I’m working on uploading pictures. Cosplayers are super fun to watch, and this time I participated, too. My anime club put together a big Gurren Lagann group, so I was seemingly the only Rossiu at this year’s AWA. This means our cosplay group, which seemingly also had the only Kittan, was the super best ever. (…or that AWA is somewhat lacking in its cosplay diversity.)

You can say I went primarily for friends and for memories, because I expected the dealer’s room to be somewhat disappointing, and it was. Of course I measure disappointment by my inability to find things I want to buy. If there was a booth full of Shana and Key and Lucky Star figures (for a decent price, too), I’d be loving it … all while suffering in being indecisive of how to spend my money. Yes I get thrills from odd situations.

I bought two Lucky Star DVDs and a Goomba plush. Might try to look for wallscrolls and posters tomorrow before leaving Atlanta.

I visited the Maid Cafe as it opened … took a quick look inside .. then decided it was rather not worth it to stay. ^^; There were maybe 200 people in line and only 15 maids to provide service. It was $10 for cake, drink, and a game — game being something cute like rock, paper, scissors. And I assume the maids have memorized some stock phrases to say when they win or lose. Regardless, I didn’t like the way AWA staff was handling the customers, and I expected little from the maids when they came outside to say a group ‘Konnichiwa’ (I would have preferred ‘Irasshaimase!’) before the cafe opened. So I left the line before I got to the host; I had seen enough.

I did not go to the yaoi panels.

~Crisu

Pictures of the con a little later.

Woah, Did I Just TOTALLY Miss Our 1-Year Anniversary?

FUUKO! CELEBRATE WITH FUUKO! *dances*

…. ha. I MISSED IT, BIG TIME. ‘Cause, you know, it happened to be right around the time I started yucky public school.

Yes, it has been somewhere around 396 days since Borderline Hikikomori had its first post (the domain was claimed in March 2007, but it sat unused for a while.) Since then, the team has grown to 7 members, 4 of whom are considered ‘active,’ with 539 total posts and around 250,000 views.

That’s a LOT for me, considering my last Internet project (a crappy website) had about 8 pages and less than 120 hits over two years.

And it’s not all about stats. This has been a TON of fun for me, and my writing has improved by leaps and bounds as well. I’ve met people both crazy and normal, smart and ditzy, nice and (unfortunately) mean, and I’ve learned a lot. I’m sure my fellow writers can agree with that.

Cartoon Network’s Toonami Block Allegedly Ending Tonight

According to ANN, Cartoon Network’s ‘Toonami’ block will reportedly cease to exist tonight after 11 years of existence. It was revealed at Anime Weekend Atlanta this morning that a special announcement regarding the cancellation will appear on CN during the 10:30-11 pm EST timeslot.

Insert big fanboy/fangirl “WHAAAAAAAAAAAT? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!” here.

Though Toonami’s only current Asian animation is Naruto fillers, it has been home to at least 30 anime series over the years, including Dragonball and Sailor Moon. (ANN’s article has the full list of series.) Heck, I remember a very old-skool CG version of Tom, Toonami’s old mascot, popping up during Sailor Moon commercial breaks when I was a kid. (Yes, I’m that old young.)

Nostalgia aside, though, Naruto’s future is somewhat up in the air. While there are two episodes scheduled to air tonight, one of next week’s episodes has been replaced with Batman: Gotham Knight, and no further news has been released regarding Naruto’s future times or episodes. It’s unlikely that CN will outright cancel the airings of Naruto, however, I see at least some filler removal in its future. Perhaps skipping ahead to Shippuuden, the ’second season’ of sorts? Perhaps VIZ has some special plans for the uber-popular franchise’s adaptation.

Expect updates as AWA continues and New York Anime Fest rolls around next weekend.

~CJ

Simon and Nia (FMA ending parody)

This is awesome.

Exploring Peach-Pitt

Mein Gott! What happened to me? Matsuricon, a very bad cold, and a couple tests this week put me out of commisson. School is a beast this year, so I think we’re just going to be getting impression posts from me for now. Anyway, I am also terribly behind in Antique Bakery, with FOUR episodes to catch up on.

But I did get to read some manga. In particualar, Rozen Maiden 1 and Shugo Chara 1 by Peach-Pitt.

Attempting a lecture on mahou shoujo

Take your average anime club in America. It probably has a lot of mainstream fans — people who watch DBZ, Inuyasha, Cowboy Bebop…

Well you’ll mostly get a lot of shounen fans. Said shounen fans probably won’t take magical girl series very seriously. Or they’ll approach it with a mocking tone, because things are so pink and girly and weak. America is all about aggression and the mighty superpower and big explosions and direct attacks. People love Superman and Batman and Spiderman, but we don’t see enough Wonder Woman and Catwoman.