AnimeNation Anime News Blog

Not being the creative type, my title for this (my first) blog may be somewhat lame. However, I will do my best and be hopeful that someone will read it and let me know what they think. Constructively, I hope! I will be posting in installments, though I don’t know how many yet. Not that you care, but this was a trip planned by three best friends, though only Jax and I were actually able to go.

3 squares and a cot

We stayed at the Keio Plaza in Shinjuku. Highly, highly recommended. There are less expensive places to stay, but the location is a short walk to the JR station as well as the subway lines, with lots of places to eat close by. It’s really expensive to eat at the hotel ($25 for breakfast, $50 for dinner), though the Poppins Bakery has great food for cheap like croissant-wrapped sausage, bacon bread, and almond croissant. I recommend checking out the basement of Odakyu or Keio department stores (they sit on top of Shikjuku station) for a great selection of Japanese food, from dumplings to tempura to sushi…YUM! And the huge selection of sweets was fabulous, too. Close by is Yoshinoya on the main road south of the station. Awesome beef bowls and really inexpensive if you need to eat on the cheap to save money for other stuff.

Day 1…Explore!

Due to severe jet lag (13 hour difference, Tampa to Tokyo), we were up very early our first morning there. Our room faced east in the direction of Shinjuku Station right on the pedestrian street.

Since it was so clear, we went to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building first. It’s located directly west of the hotel and has observation decks in both towers for free. We went up the south tower and got a great view of Mt. Fuji and Tokyo overall.

From the TMG building, we went exploring east and west Shinjuku. We also attempted to find Nakano Broadway, and though we walked for a couple of hours, we never found it. Yeah, wrong station, not once but twice! I will be posting detailed directions in my next installment.

Well, that’s it for this posting, I hope y’all like what you see. Please stay tuned for my next installment early next week…thanks!

If you’ll direct your eyes to the right for a moment, you’ll see that our “Contact Us” page is up again. Submit newsworthy info, critique our blog or website, or drop me (John) a question!

I may not know every little thing about anime and manga, and I’m not always right, but if you’ve got a question that you think I can answer for you, or you’re curious about my opinion on an anime topic, “Ask John!” Regrettably, I don’t always have time to respond to every e-mail I receive, but I do try my best to reply to every message I get.

(And my reserve supply of “Ask John” articles is pretty slim right now, so help me out!)

I doubt that this will ever happen, but it occured to me that it would be very interesting if a site hosting official “open pricing” episode downloads had a public tally of downloads, contributors, and amount of money donated. It would be interesting to see if the web’s anime fan community really is willing to put its money where its mouth is, or if only a small handfull of contributors actually donate. Furthermore, I think that a public system like this would be a fascinating and useful way to literally reveal exactly what American fans want. For example, perhaps episodes with unusually high animation quality reveal more donations or larger amounts while “filler” episodes or episodes with noticably poor production quality get significantly fewer donations or smaller monetary amounts. Production studios could look at those results and easily see what fans like and want to support. At the same time, fans could see that their contributions are literally expressing their precise thoughts about the quality and content of individual episodes.

On a side note, I’m amused that Crunchyroll’s downloadable versions of Blassreiter and Druaga are described as “DRM-free” while the download pages also state, “Please do not share this file illegally! Information will be embedded into the downloaded file that can be traced back to your purchase.” Since the file has identifiable digital rights information encoded into it, it’s not DRM free. I don’t object to Gonzo protecting its property, but I do object to Crunchyroll’s false advertising. Furthermore, I find it highly ironic that Crunchyroll demands that downloaders not share video files illegally while the site itself continues to share thousands of video files illegally.

It was just this past February when Tokyo Anime Center executive Masakazu Kubo said, “After the April 2008 television program schedules are laid out, the drop in the number of animated programs will be clearly seen.” Really? By my count there were 46 anime series premiers in the 2007 spring season, and there are 45 anime series premiers this spring season. (Actually, there are 47 new anime this season if you include the continuing third season of Kirarin Revolution and the Soul Eater Late Show, which I didn’t.)

The full list of this season’s new Japanese anime follows.

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