Ok now while this isn’t anime related I really wanted to post this as i’m sure these bands aren’t as known as they should be. Dir En Grey and Versaillies. I’ve been listening to these guys for awhile now and i’ve been meaning to make a post about them. Chances are if you like anime, you have also taken a liking to the music played during the show be it OPs or EDs. On top of that you may also have started getting into other forms of japanese music. This is where these 2 bands come in. If you’re a fan of metal then you really should listen to them.

Dir En Grey

They are what I would call a heavy metal band but they could be classed as many things, including Visual Kei which they originaly belonged to before toning down their look a bit. They have 1 of the best music videos i’ve seen in awhile and by best I mean most twisted and disturbing even over throwing Marilyn Manson. Lets talk about the singer a bit. The singer in a band is argueably the most important person. He has to sing and people have to like his voice, he has to find a way to connect to the crowd and get their attention. This guy seems to have gone to the same showmanship school as Manson did as he has gathered some fame beyond just being a singer. according to Wikipedia… more…

This really could work out. Letter Bee (Tegami Bachi) the manga has already been licensed by Viz and the special short has been shown earlier in the Shounen Jump road tour in Japan. This new anime adaptation is not official yet, but it’s likely.

You can watch the Letter Bee special mentioned above here. It is sub-titled already, but you will need to download the special Shounen Jump player to watch. After that hit watch and then open/save. You may want wait a bit before playing the file.

Letter Bee has been compared to D.Gray-Man and there are some similarities, but this series is really styled well and the characters are more likable, though. There are five volumes of the manga published in Japan, so there will be enough material for at least a good season (or two). Just hope it does not go so long as D.Gray-Man. The voice acting is very pleasent in the special, even Lag’s.

Cool points are scored by Lag’s name, his gun (which clearly looks like it was meant to be much longer), and the abuse of various shades of purple with blue colors.

Yes we have all seen the horrid photos of when cosplaying, which is dressing up to match an anime or game character, goes wrong and results in an image burned into your brain you can’t forget. It’s always a very traumatic event when you see a 150kg Misty or ugly-as-sin Konata. Not to point any fingers but these generally tend to be american people and end up looking like this

However that said, I thought it would be a pleasant change to see what happens when both american, and japanese cosplay succeeds…

Oh and please correct me if any of the characters names I use are wrong, i’m doing my best to remember them all since its 2am right now. Oh and also i’ll update this again tomorrow since imageshack is being annoying and won’t let me edit this with more photos i’ve found. Buu

EDIT – Ok so it’s the next morning and like I said, i’m going to update this with some more awesome cosplay i’ve managed to find.

more…

Over here there is a petition starting, asking the government to allow marriage to 2d characters with the following translated text.

“We’ve no interest in the 3D. If we could, we’d like to live in a 2D world. However, with current technology, this is not possible. So at the very least, can we have marriage to 2D characters legally recognised? If this were to come to pass, I intend to marry Asahina Mikuru.”

A few thoughts about this come to mind after reading about this…

1. This is both pathetic and sad on a level that is utterly amazing
2. Why would they ever think of signing something like this and submitting it to any government official?
3. If by some incredible stroke of luck this did get passed, what do you think the laws would be on the minimum age limit?
4. How would they deal with the millions of people who would want to marry the same character like Konata or Haruhi. Would they be married to all of them at once or is it a 1 character to 1 person type deal?
5. Finally, how would the honeymoon work? Would they have use 1 of those hugging pillows?

Anime and manga reviews are quite common. The more popular series get the most and smaller series sometimes get really passionate reviewers. A good example of this would be solanin which was linked on Manga Blog to this review. This review and ones like it stick with someone. Good (in this case manga) reviews give information about the volume they read, style, and descriptive points about the story. A good review also is honest and don’t give pointless scores or grades. Oh hey, this manga is scored .3 points more than this. Buy it! Not having such an silly system tacked on to the end is what made Newtype USA reviews great. They tapped in to the hearts of people who would be interested in that franchise. If someone wouldn’t like something then chances are they wouldn’t get more than half way into the review. Other then that a reviewer should work on descriptions. Just saying an anime or manga looks great won’t make a lot of people buy something. If only becoming skilled at such was easier said then done.

The one thing to remember about reviews before moving on: They’re almost always of a series the reviewer really hated or loved. Why write when you have no connection or care of something?

Crediting of sources (graphic, information, or other) is another issue. Many times on sites like LiveJournal or forums you have people crediting the wrong person or a large site without crediting. Saying you have image stock from Photobucket, 4chan, or some awful manga reader site. The online reader site is obviously wrong to credit when they did nothing with the scanning or translation. Thanking an image hosting site isn’t giving any thanks to the person who created whatever fanart, artbook scan, or screenshot. As for large sites like Anime News Network or others…people thought out and typed those descriptions. >:3

These should be the basics, but maybe once and a while something like this should be mentioned or discussed. Never hurts.

This is where someone would say sorry for the lack of blogging, but it’s best to blog instead. Just a series of unhelpful events and uncertainty of life. There’s been a lot of good things this year.

Moon Boy returns – Yen Press took off as it announced many new series along with the manhwa picked up from ICEkunion. One of them being this adventure of rabbit and wolf people. Volume four had a September release and it can be found on Amazon for a fairly cheaper price.

The basic idea of the story is that these rabbit like people once lived on the moon, but were forced off and came to earth. It’s either that or be eaten. These people fit in society like normal, but many have no knowledge of this or their power. Myung-Ee Joo is the (loud…) main character who’s…okay stop. She’s not really the main character. The story pretty much drags her along with it.

Back to the basic idea. You have these loose rabbit people along with a fighting force called Rabbit Tribe who helps Myung-Ee Joo and protects Yu-Da Lee. Their goal is to save Yu-Da Lee from the foxes who believe they’ve completely wiped his mind and surround him everyday. Both sides are able to form swords either from fox claws or by the will of a rabbit.

Each volume comes with a small folded poster, the art is always styled, and the series gets straight into the fun and drama. There’s not really any character development minus learning about what one capable of and their different ways of not being serious. Publishers Yen Press and Orbit are now under one roof so now there’s going to be volumes of the Moon Boy series with three different logos and companies on it…

ADV and Tokyopop – Tokyopop licensed Mirai Nikki as Future Diary with the first volume in May 11, 2009. Other than that ADV and Tokyopop have been more of a pain than good. Tokyopop dropped Lagoon Engine, Beyond the Beyond, and others. ADV dropped Sergeant Frog and gave up after releasing 5 Centimeters per Second.

More? Yes and who knows what ADV Manga will do when and if volume two of Lagoon Engine Lagoon Engine Einsatz comes out. With Yotsuba&! being on hold and the big list of canceled manga from ages ago…Gamerz Heaven, The First King Adventure, and Rise R to the Second Power as examples. ADV tossing out both the profiting Newtype USA and the poorly thought PiQ anime magazines.

Mirai Nikki from Tokyopop? No thanks.
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Kaiba was a crazy adventure, Yozakura Quartet is animated, Kyo no Gononi has a new series, a cosplay magazine comes to the US with a large massive hard cover, and Soul Eater became popular.

Where’s the hard cover of Q Ko-chan volume two, though?

Next year maybe Geneon will return, Lolifox the web browser will make a come back, Letter Bee has a TV series announcement, and more Japan based comic publishers will cross the sea themselves to other countries. Guess this entry serves more of what to expect in future writings (but hopefully easier to read and coherent).