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!

Tegami Bachi is an ongoing stylized fantasy manga by Hiroyuki Asada. Also known as Letter Bee, the story is of government letter carriers known as Letter Bee who risk their lives in a dark land called Amberground. A Letter Bee named Gauche Suede finds his letter to deliver, however this time it’s a living person named Lag Seeing. Lag is a special young kid who desires to become a Letter Bee himself and to know what happened to his missing mother. Lags mother was actually taken and is believed to be in the capital city that the artificial sun hovers over. Danger arises between cities as deliveries are often interrupted by large beetle like living armor known as Gaichuu that attack them. Luckily for Letter Bee, they are equipped with special guns (Shindanjuu) that fire hallow bullets (Shindan) that are filled with the shooter’s heart.

Wonderful characters and strong words are well supported by the many attempts to get emotions from the reader. Words like amber, love, and heart are used a lot. Volume one gives the impression that Gaichuu are remains of people who’ve corrupted their hearts and that taking of Lag’s mother was planned so Lag can become strong. Memories are openly revealed when a Shindanjuu is fired and that’s what makes Tegami Bachi special. I am emotionally attached to this world of endless night.

Each volume has lush purple, silver, and cream colors support the feel of the environment. Perhaps repetitive coloring is used on purpose for keeping a nightly vibe while you read. The artwork is stable and characters are fairly close to the mangaka’s colored illustrations. The author makes a pretty interesting comment about how he hopes you read Tegami Bachi enough to where pages are worn. The guy keeps his favorite books nearby whenever possible.

Volume one is out in English by Viz with two chapters. There is a 28 minute anime special from a Shounen Jump tour that was streamed officially with English subtitles titled Letter Bee: Light and Blue Night Fantasy. Hopefully the anime will be distributed by Viz soon after episodes air with the upcoming TV series this fall.

Hakugei Densetsu: Legend of Moby Dick is a 26 episode space adventure based on the Herman Melville book Moby Dick. Abandoned floating ships are called whales and many times are of the shape of whales or other sea creatures. Many character names and themes are shared, but after that this anime deviates pretty far.

The story starts off in the Nantucket Nebula on a massive space station in the year 4699. There whale hunters gather materials, loot, and ship parts from whales. That space station was a project by a government for its people, but its location had a strong gravitational pull that brought dead ships and scrap from all over. An odd bunch is the crew for Captain Ahab, the highly thought of leader of a small while hunter crew. Every character is pretty much explained or given some sort of history in the beginning except for the 14 year old Lucky Luck. All that is shown is that he wanted to be a while hunter, but nothing is presented to really why or what his background is. The only semi-spoiler I’ll give is Ahab saves Lucky Luck as he is being unofficially tested to become apart of the crew. A gold coin is thrown into what was thought to be water and Lucky Luck dives in to get it. Shortly after the captain saves him with Lucky Luck unable to swim in the dangerous liquid. His hand opens up revealing the coin as Captain Ahab grabs him from the deep bellow.

Extra points are earned for the spray that allows people to go into space without suits, the small ships the crew flies on to travel outside their main ship, and that they actually try spearing ships to catch them in order to board them.

The animation is very old school in a good rough way much like Outlaw Star. This anime deserves to be watched in dub form because Captain Ahab has your stereotypical pirate voice with a robotic talking parrot to top it off. Lucky Luck plays a solid role as the narrator for being an optimistic character instead of an unknown voice. Only a couple moments where the lips and voices noticeably don’t sync well. Hakugei Densetsu: Legend of Moby Dick is for you if you’re wanting a refreshing old school space adventure with 1980s like characters designs.

ADV Films has a six disc box set with extras. One of the nicer extras is the interview with the directors Osamu Desaki and Matsuzono. I’ll be watching this to the end.

Just what nation would build a 111 meter tall copyright violation and think it’s a great idea? Well, Korea doesn’t seem to mind. Someone sent me a link to an article over at Plastic Pals briefly describing this venture and the only thought that came to mind was, “ugh”.

I grew up watching little to no Korean animation, despite my upbringing by an overly zealous Korean Fascist… and I thank God every night for sparing me from this one pain. Besides, what kind of name is Taekwon V anyways? It sends shivers down my spine just stuttering the sounds that comprise that name.

Well, good luck to Korea, and I assume this is a lot better investment than buying decrepit F-14s from America. By the way, Robot Land is the stupidest name for a theme park, right next to Ireland Land.

At least their Engrish is tolerable.

It’s 9/9/2009 in the time zone that this is posted and the Sega Dreamcast was released in North America 9/9/1999. The Dreamcast was ahead of other consoles with online play, Internet browser, Internet service provider, modem, powerful hardware, and unique controller. Games ranged from all sorts of genres, inbetweens, and a ton of arcade action. Only failures were Sega’s past and lack of a DVD drive.

Hardware for the Dreamcast is built strong and the machine itself isn’t suppose to be a huge multimedia center with glitches and rings of deaths. The controller fit perfectly into your hand and the analog triggers is great for driving games. You can connect with SNK’s Neo Geo Pocket and games if you had both. Later on Sega allowed online players to play with PC players.

Jet Set Radio – Graffiti roll blading action game which couldn’t be compared to Tony Hawk at the time…since it’s action and not trick based. This game has style and amazing music Guitar Vader, Jurassic 5, and more. Graphics were bright blazing cel shaded which so few game used. The analog stick when in grafficti mode was used to paint on walls, so you had to be fast. Jet Set Radio Future cut that feature for more speedy gameplay. Clearly Air Gear had some inspiration…

Test Drive V-Rally – Another arcade like rally game, but with a map maker and pretty good soundtrack. Of course I took advantage of that and made a map as high and low as possible. Watching the insane pop in is quite amusing.

Skies of Arcadia – At the time this game was meant to be a traditional old school RPG, but given modern treatment. There was a VMU mini-game where you fly your ship, special memorable attacks given at the end, and a large beautiful world where you wouldn’t mind getting lost in. Skies of Arcadia has a very Last Exile feel.

Grandia II – Character story is abundant and so many characters are not as you think they are. Areas are detailed, the game included the sountrack CD, and attacks are outer space massive. Battle system has a real time turn based gameplay with a bar listing next attackers. I stayed up late at night and skipped sleep couple times just to play this game.

Bangai-O – 2D mecha side scroller shooter by Treasure, but you aren’t limited to what direction you want to go in. You have a special attack that send out more bang if there’s more enemy projectiles. The screen can be filled with wonderful circular patterns of what you fired. There’s a newer Nintendo DS version which includes a level creator.

Gundam Side Story 0079: Rise from the Ashes, Red Dog, Evolution, Mars Matrix, and Berserk are great plays. Options are larger if you import games like Ikaruga, Rez, Hundred Swords, Shenmue II, Segagaga, and even an Eva typing game called Neon Genesis Evangelion: Typing Hokan Keikaku. There’s still a few games I wish to play like the first person sword fighting Persona looking Maken X and the supposedly weird arcade shooter Charge ‘N Blast. Project Gotham fans would like Metropolis Street Racer since it’s basically the same game series from the same developers. Kudos system included.

There are still new games coming out every once and a while from indie developers. Most of them are shooters like DUX and Last Hope: Pink Bullets with no region protection. Most games can still be found pretty inexpensive on Ebay and Play-Asia.

Nothing but fond memories of Dreamcast. Happy 10th birthday Dreamcast.

This is in response to a blog post posted on another blog, but it won’t be mentioned further due to it being clearly troll bait. It’s pretty crazy what people can come up with to rationalize with themselves for being a tightwad. On with the show.

1. Anime companies get that people want their anime now, not months from now. English companies and sites have began to place shows online or licensed and released on DVD much earlier than years before.

2. The official subtitles are almost always superior to the fansub subtitles. Fansub groups come and go and vary greatly in terms of quality, professionalism, and accuracy. You’re far less likely to run into poor English grammar, spelling mistakes, goofy multi-colored subtitle fonts, and over the top explainations of why a word was used.

3. Good quality English dub voice acting and the choice between dub, sub, or neither. Some people like their anime differently and voice acting has come a long way in recent years. Anyone who’s bought much anime knows that.

4. Supports the anime industry and the workers to put the anime from an idea to animation. Generally speaking, you give your support if you like a form of media or a particular artist. It’s natural, shows your appreciation, and shows you want more of something.

5. Easy and convenient. Just drop by your local store, order online, rent, or barrow from a library. Plenty of ways of getting your anime.

FUNimation and others get it (it being the expectations and wants of the viewer) and and that’s why there have been so many changes with the anime industry.