With five $5 you can get someone to tell you something that you can easily find on Google.
“I will give your the URL to the best “Hentai” Site for $5”

You can pay someone to do something that can be easily done on an anime forum.
“I will talk anime, manga, comics (Marvel, DC, etc.) with you for $5”

Make yourself ugly with…
“I will turn you into an Anime character for $5”

Force an innocent person to watch Boku no Pico and have them tell you about their thoughts on the anime.
“I will watch an amime series of your choice for $5”

…oh my, why would anyone normally care?
“I will say anything you want in an angry voice in Japanese (in an anime way) for $5”

The site is called Fiverr and it basically is a site where you can do things for other people for the fixed price of $5 USD. Payments are done both via credit card or Paypal. Each offer has an image and a description of what you’ll be getting. After you get your product or service, you may leave a review. Perhaps this is your chance to make money on something you can do well.

You can also find people to translate manga, teach you Japanese, review your fan art, and people who will put advertisements up of your site or blog. Those aren’t fun, though.

I’m sure everyone already knows that Nick Simmons pieced together his manga by cutting out pages from Bleach and Hellsing, and glued them onto pieces of construction paper. Now, I don’t really see why this is a big deal. After all, with all the style Bleach steals from American rock history; we should consider it karma that rock would want its piece of the pie back. In this case, through the proxy known as legendary rocker Gene Simmons’ son, whatever his name was…

Plagiarism happens all the time. For example, nobody seems to care that Ikkitousen is probably, and always will be a huge rip-off of Tenjou Tenge. I would not doubt that if you were to place pages of either over the other you’d notice elements of tracing. But because Ikkitousen’s artist doesn’t suck as bad as Nick Simmons, he can get away with it. On the other hand, Flower of Eden’s artist sucked at art. Or more specifically, sucked at art involving people doing something other than standing. So when Random Person A mentioned that she traces from Slam Dunk and REAL, people made it a big deal. Keiji Kawaguchi traces from photographs and magazines all the time. Like hell he wants to actually visit these places and take pictures on his own. But because his art looks somewhat decent, and because he’s so well-established in the industry, nobody pursues him.

Frankly, I never liked DeviantArt. And I don’t like Incarnate. That doesn’t mean I don’t like American comics. It just means I have good taste.

A bunch of popular illustrators try to revive the infamous Sanrio franchise. It may work, or not. That will depend on you.

They’ve already stockpiled an impressive set of goods for Comic Market 77. And if I had the balls to leave for Japan, I’d probably buy one.

I mean honestly, is that hot or what?

What an ugly cover.

A recent article from Yen Press reveals the cover for the new English version of Spice and Wolf, and boy does it suck. Do people really buy novels based on the cover? Unfortunately, yes. It’s a rather shallow way of approaching literature; no, rather than shallow, I’d have to say contradictory… Therefore I can understand their reasoning behind why they would pull something so daft. Many people are less inclined to buy novels with anime characters on the cover, including myself. However, I’m sure whoever gets tricked into buying spice and wolf will feel betrayed upon seeing the inner illustrations, so I think pulling that move was rather stupid and unnecessary on Yen Press’s part.

Not to mention, I’m pretty sure a lot of potential buyers didn’t buy the Haruhi novel because the cover for the paperback sucked. Besides, even though the cover was not anime-oriented, they still stuck it in the “manga” section of every bookstore I’ve gone to. It seems everything is just working against these people’s genuine efforts to bring Japanese light novels to a wider audience. Oh well, I don’t think too highly of any of these children’s books to begin with, so I’m not too affected.

To be entirely frank, I’m not completely enamored of Spice and Wolf, and its elementary economics, or its token furry heroine. I don’t care if the series gets ruined because it got a horrible eyesore as a cover, or the fact Yen Press’s logogram experts can’t come up with a title design that does not look like some early 90′s RPG. Let’s just say, I’m content with what I see. Hah!

A dark and dreary world full of noir emphasis. I see...

Oh lordy, why am I always ten steps behind the times? A Black Rock Shooter anime project has been announced, with all reason for me to be excited. I’ll admit, I’m not that infatuated in Vocaloid software or its music. But when Studio Ordet and ryo (supercell) is involved, how can I contain myself? Unfortunately Yutaka Yamamoto will not be directing this, so things are really up in the air as to how it’ll go. more…

Art not made officially by staff of a manga or animation would be the best way to describe fan art. That’s much different than saying art made by people or fans since staff or authors also make their own not so official art. What would you consider that since not all of their illustrations and works may be from series they worked on? They are more than a simple fan and some images they share may also be official ones.

The fact is many people believe it’s fine to take an image off of another blog that was taken from Anime News Network that got it from an official site or announcement to post on a discussion forum. It takes money and effort to get a digital camera and scanner to produce images from real life objects not previously added to the net. This brings me to a good supporting point of how the Internet is. If you make anything creative and share it publicly on the net, what do you expect everyone to do? Not saying it’s okay to be a jerk, but not everyone using fan art has a malicious intent and the uploader should know the possibility of others using their work without permission.

Human beings like recognition and linking to their image account or site shows you support them, however, don’t assume all artists are upset when they see their work used without permission. They may simply enjoy knowing someone liked their art enough to use. This being said, not all sites have field or detail areas when uploading a image and other sites may not be focused on comments and image details. Then what?

The best the artist can do is add a watermark or sign their name and put a notice where images are displayed that you wish to be linked to or asked before having an image used. The best blogger, graphic creator, or web disigner can do is link back, ask, or ask around for the source if unknown. One thing you can learn to do is add the artist or source name when saving an image so you can remember and so that some image hosts may keep that file name in the url or details page. Or just don’t upload at all…any of you.

Besides, people like to be able to find more. On a semi-related note, this community does have a link directory for anime and manga illustration and our gallery does have a copyright area.