Archive for ◊ April, 2010 ◊

Author:
• Friday, April 23rd, 2010

The fourth volume of Hen-Zemi will come coupled with an OVA. That is, unless Kodansha is lying to me again. Regardless of the circumstances, I’ve already pre-ordered it.

Granted, this news is old. Old as the stars. I did a google bing search on my “discovery” and found an anime news network article already announcing what I thought to be my little secret. I’ve ordered the third volume of Hen-Zemi, but it’s been nearly three months now and I still haven’t received it, thanks to my brilliant stupidity and the extremely cheap SEA shipping option offered at bk1. So I never had the chance to see this little announcement in the back that would have made clear this information.

But I’m not blaming anyone in particular here… The only thing we can really blame is my lack of enthusiasm in perusing the internet for the metaphorical scraps of smut from the tabletop. In any case, Hen-Zemi’s OVA will be amazing. I’m sure of this for several reasons:

  1. Kana Hanazawa will voice the female lead, Nanako Matsutaka. Kana has several merits going for her, the least of which is that she’s younger and prettier than me. Her most notable role, faithfully represented with great enthusiasm I might add, happens to be Potemayo from the anime of the same name. I believe her lesser roles include Kobato (Kobato.), Zange (Kannagi), Suou (Darker Than Black: Ryuusei no Gemini), and stuff.
  2. XEBEC will handle the animation. Throughout history, XEBEC has managed to make even the greatest concepts into a neat mediocre anime series. 
  3. The script is written by someone who has yet to write anything amazing, and the director has hardly any repertoire. When you dig a hole as deep as this, then you’re bound to strike oil.
  4. Did you know that Gregory, our token furry-eared foreigner swallows goldfishes?
  5. There is an animated condom on their front page.It's alive!!There is an ANIMATED CONDOM on their front page!

So essentially, I am looking forward to it.

Author:
• Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

You can read the first entry about this here.

Google deleted the thread asking them to contact me for more information. Admittedly, it had turned into a shitstorm of abuse. They have not contacted me, despite the fact that several Google employees have been active in that forum over the period that it was posted.

So, I take this to be a sign that we should accept that our block is not going to be overturned, nor are they willing to communicate why.

So be it, that’s their right. They’re a company, and can do whatever they feel is best for them. I find it to be a slightly impolite way to treat someone, but whatever.

As for where we go from here, I think fighting this in a traditional sense is going to be futile. I don’t even know who or what we’re up against. WordPress seems to have declared support for us in that they haven’t deleted us yet. They’ve surely received a load of complaints over the last few days, but we’re still here. For that I thank them, and urge you to support them if you can.

You can read the full story from its source. There’s even a neat quote from Charlton Heston about civil disobedience. And again, link page is safe, but the rest is mostly not safe for work or school.

Google has also reported them to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, even though the site contains none that relates to them. The poster of this announcement lives in Japan and is fairly safe from legal actions, but those who work with him are not. They’re brave enough to continue from this loss and they’ll surely do fine with how wide spread their torrents and fans are. I may not be a fan of lolicon of any sort, but I wish them the best of luck and I’m heavily considering dropping anything Google related. Microsoft’s Bing search engine isn’t too bad, I can easily switch back to Safari from Google Chrome, and I have already found myself using Nico Nico Douga more than Youtube. Such content is purely subjective.

Author:
• Monday, April 19th, 2010

Manga news and information site for scanlations and summaries has had their Google Adsense account disabled without being given a specific reason.

In case you haven’t noticed recently, we’ve removed all of the ads supporting this site. We recently received an email from Google stating our account was disabled. Upon appeal, we were rejected. No particular reason was provided, so we are quite surprised as we have funded the site using Adsense for the past 5 years with no issues. If anything, I suppose I feel quite liberated. It was quite daunting living in the environment of fear Google has created with their Publisher system.

As far as funding issues go, we’re not sure where we stand at the moment. Over the next few weeks, I will be experimenting with different ad networks. We’re not in the red yet, but this is something we will try to work out over the next few months. If we cannot find a suitable replacement, we will be forced to ask for donations as it comes time to pay our server bills. I had hoped it would never come to this, but we cannot control everything. I have enjoyed the free ride that Adsense has given us over the years, and only hope that any new network we join is not more intrusive to your experience than Adsense was.

The full announcement can be found here. Interesting timing soon after the lolicon situation with another site no longer showing on Google’s search engine, perhaps. Surely there’ll be an update to how they’re going to manage the costs of such a will visited site. They may see the site’s content as copyright infringement and Google Adsense does not allow linking or hosting of pornography, regardless if it’s legal or in this case hentai.

Author:
• Sunday, April 18th, 2010

There is a lolicon scanation site set up like a blog named Little White Butterflies that has been removed from Google’s search engine. It was from an anonymous person with a Google link to ChillingEffects.org explains the request when you search for the site. From my knowledge this has never happened before and this contradicts all of Google’s past behavior. Google is in conflict with China over censorship and so far did a lot to help find middle ground. Because the request came from an activist likely, they surely had good intentions. The site that this involves does know the laws that relate to this and even pointed pointed out that Chilling Effects hasn’t fully kept up to date to how the laws for this are set up. “This definition does not apply to depictions that are drawings, cartoons, sculptures, or paintings depicting minors or adults” which can be seen here. The link is to the current version of Title 18 of the US Code passed by Congress in January 5, 09. Even if you don’t support such content or media, this is still censorship and it is subjective.

Yotsuba

One problem which was stated by co-blogger EhNani is fighting back will only draw more attention to the issue. With more attention you’ll have more coverage from average people who won’t understand the whole scoop of things, its culture of origin, and context. The best a site can do is privately discuss reconsideration with Google. Perhaps this entry itself isn’t helping matters.

Edit: The sites content could still be considered illegal for being obscene, see Raiga’s comment bellow.
Edit: Decided to include the link. The linked page is fine, but the rest is not safe for work or school.

Author:
• Sunday, April 11th, 2010

Heroman is a show even more patriotic than Fox News. If the red, white and blue wasn’t a dead giveaway, the alien bad guys always have red energy floating around their every being. This is a clear message that Heroman is in fact an ally of justice and aliens are communist pigs trying to destroy capitalism and the spirit of freedom, as displayed by the master-and-slave relationship between robot and outcast boy. Heroman stops the spread of their ethnocentric socialist beliefs across the heart of America (the west coast) and the free worlds of Earth (all five of them).

The actual show is about some boy whose robot toy gets struck by a magical lightning from one of the alien’s weapon of mass destruction. And like straight out of the textbook of superhero 101 turns into a nigh-indestructible robot bigger than Yao Ming and his commie friends.

I guess the main reason I like it so much is my friends and I decided to play a drinking game where we take shots every time an American Flag pops up on screen. Five minutes into the first episode, my friend was nearly wasted and I was puking in the closet. Let’s hope this successful first episode spawns many more to follow.

I don’t really know if there is a story to this show… but when you have America at every corner, who really needs one? Did I mention Stan Lee came up with the original concept? That crazy kook is up to something again!

Author:
• Sunday, April 04th, 2010

We have this site in it’s newbie unprofessional and stripped down form here where you can even view the forum index and gallery. The forum doesn’t show its past layouts as bots that crawl sites only saw the basic one.

If you kinda want to see past versions of other sites:
Tiamat’s Manga Reviews
JanimeS – This site dates back from forever ago and it shows. JanimeS has come a lot way in many countless ways and remains modern.
Baka-Raptor – Great 2006 navigation bar there, sir.
Nico Nico Douga – Streaming video site with user comments on the video.

The Wayback Machine site is a bit buggy, slow, and often times unable to work. You also have a lot of Java-script, Flash, and similar missing. Just enter a URL in the URL address box and you’re set. Neat stuff.

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