Decided to do a more-frequent Saimoe update - a couple of friends were asking me if there was an RSS feed of the results, and well, here's an RSS feed (thanks, Pixy!) I'll be posting the results from the Animesuki Saimoe thread. Can't promise super up-to-date timeliness, but I'll try to stay on top of it, and it ought to be faster to find it here than to troll through the thread. (If you're actually voting, for the prelim rounds at least, take a gander through the thread anyway - it's easy to miss a character out of a list of 150, and someone's post might remind you that they're in the round too.)

As always, big thanks to "ando" for the updates from the Japanese site.

I'll keep the results under the fold - don't wanna spam folks. ;p
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Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 02:40 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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So the boffins over at 2chan are starting up this year's Saimoe tournament. Never heard of it? It's pretty obscure and being run in another country, almost entirely in a language I don't speak, so it's more like, how'd I hear of it?

Basically, it's the "Saishu Moe" contest - same abbreviation style as Saikano, so "Saimoe". It's an attempt to find out which female character of the last year's anime was the most moe through polling. But a single poll would be boring, and the Japanese magazines do that anyway, and measuring a single poll question doesn't really give anybody an idea of the depth of people's devotion to the characters. The Saimoe tournament takes the question to the opposite extreme.

The entire month of July will be spent on the preliminary rounds. Six days a week, 150+ characters from a random selection are presented, and voters place ten votes; the top eight advance, while 9-32 go on to a second round of preliminary voting. All in all, 288 characters actually advance to the tournament bracket, which is in groups of 3 for the first round and then one-on-one until the finals, which are scheduled to occur in November.

Last year, foreign participation was okay but not exactly welcome - part of the fun is the insane politics, revenge voting, bloc voting, preemptive strike voting, wedge voting, and general silliness involved whenever a few thousand otaku do something like this, and if you can't speak the language you aren't really going to be interested. But this year, they've basically invited English-speakers to join in the fun, so it'll be one big polyglot mess. They even set up a rules page which is almost totally un-Engrishy, here.

It's not exactly easy to vote - you have to go to a page, refresh it 2 hours later or so, and copy a text string along with the voting string (the character name in Japanese, so the parsing software can read it), and whatever cheering-on text you feel like adding in. But it's pretty fun to follow along, even if you're not motivated to vote for anybody that particular day, and it can run pretty close - the early rounds last year generally had only a thousand voters a day or so, and there were plenty of times when popular characters ran very close to each other - I think that Eri from School Rumble ended up winning over one of the Sonozakis from Higurashi by five votes, heh.

At any rate, I won't bother relaying results from the prelims (oy, the text spam!), but I'll probably be commenting from time to time. Should be a big, fun mess this year - the Rozen Maiden characters are still eligible, what with the new OAV, new Nanoha, more School Rumble, Zero's Familiar, the return of Kanon (!), plus stuff like Lucky Star and Hidamari Sketch.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 01:11 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Ani-nouto responds to an interview with ADV's Ledford here.

Not sure where to begin, honestly. It's tempting to start with "your conclusions about the business model are fallacious", but it's not really an argument I want to get drawn into, because I hate defending a position on the basis of information I can't share. I can say that no, the situation's more complicated than that, and while it's possible to decipher the whole thing from public information, you'd have to be a lucky genius to manage it.

I can say that the reason ADV is more worried about the performance of "B" stuff (the niche titles that some people enjoy, even if you personally don't) is because they operate much more comfortably IN that niche than the other companies. Because ADV runs its own production studio, its costs of production are significantly lower than the studios which contract out most of their work. Thus, they can turn a profit on marginal sellers where another company would post a loss, and they're more likely to pick up a marginal title because of this - in fact, having enough titles to keep busy is more important in that situation (and ADV, unlike most of its competition, can't count on its Japanese parent company to hand it licenses if the well runs dry.)

In that situation, wouldn't you -expect- them to express concern about a particular pattern that affected marginal titles negatively?

As far as the data goes, I mean, I didn't run a multivariable regression on it or anything (didn't learn to do that until after I left, heh.) But I've seen the figures and they -really do- suggest that conclusion. Again, it's not like I can parade them in front of anyone to convince them, but I can point out that I myself concur.

Finally, there's a very limited number of true hits available - and out of that, there's an even smaller number that are open for bidding. (Bandai isn't going to hand off Gundam, for example, and a number of titles are already licensed even as they enter the production phase - can't bid if one of your competitors was in on the ground floor!) All the companies bid heavily for those titles, because there's an order-of-magnitude difference between a hot seller and an average one. Nobody wins the bid every time. Nobody could AFFORD to win the bid every time - shows are overbid all the time as it is, and not just hot shows, but even crappy stuff that rational people would ask "why would you have paid any money for this show?" So if your anime company can't put out a show that's not a runaway hit, it's doomed in the long run anyway...

Finally, stow the venom, 'kay? I'm hardly a Ledford worshiper - any grudge you might have with him, well, it ain't a patch on getting laid off by him. But as oddball as he is, when he's talking about something on which he's got data, and you don't, and he happens to be -correct-, there's no reason to call him names just because you don't like how the argument's going.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 12:04 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Spent a good bit of today marathoning Nadesico - hadn't watched in a while.

For me, the show's an old, old friend. It was one of the first series I ever saw, back when it was new. I picked up fansubs of the last few episodes, literally, the day ADV licensed the show. I ended up subbing the back half of it or so after I got hired, then put in a lot of work on the first DVD release (oh god, lemme tell you about the fun in synching subs timed with DF/NDF mismatch sometime) and authored the second release myself.

It's just got the feeling of a very comfortable easy chair; I can just sit back and relax with it, and not worry too much about it. It did occur to me, though, that it was one of the first examples of a parody anime - not many shows took on their own genre back in the day. But it's not a parody anime in the same way as Excel Saga or Hayate no Gotoku; I enjoyed it even when I was a new fan and hadn't seen anything that it was parodying. That's generally a sign of pretty good writing.

And yet, it's still kind of a mish-mash. Lots of guest directors, lots of pure filler episodes, lots of romantic comedy, with the mecha taking a back seat for a lot of the show. The ending is kind of weak, and the transition to the movie... ugh, it's just not comprehensible without a lot of information presented neither in the TV episodes or the movie.

Still one of the more enjoyable shows in the collection, though. It's not a show about robots so much as it's a show about robot-lovers with robots... but it never descends into "lookit the smelly otaku" jokes, the way even otherwise-respectful shows like Comic Party do. And it has Megumi, one of the few real-life to anime conversions I've seen that worked...

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 10:42 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Turned 29 this week. Definitely the first birthday I've felt more or less ambivalent about; in a very real sense, as far as birthdays go, it's all downhill from here.

Put in a resume for temp work. I'm not actually that good at job hunting - most of the jobs I've had, I got through sheer luck and right place/right time karma. And my resume is a bit of a turnoff - I have experience in an office environment, okay, but at an absolutely bizarre company that has little in common with anybody else. (Sure, working on anime actually had a pretty heavy technical component, you know that, I know that, but your average HR guy...) So I'm experienced enough to be a long shot for an entry-level position, but not specifically experienced in a way to help me get something that's NOT entry-level. At least I have a degree, this go-round... At any rate, if someone's dying for some help around the office, lemme know - working only two days a week is boring the heck out of me.

Watched a few eps of Lucky Star and the first few of Skull Man, which looks like it has some potential. Good licensing news out of the convention this weekend - so far it's Nanoha S1/S2 from Geneon (well, there we go, Steven), and Gurren Lagann from the home team, and otherwise nothing anybody's really worried about. Still haven't heard from Bandai or Funi, so who knows?

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 09:42 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Remember the upcoming Japanese witch-touching game? It's coming out next week, as evinced by this giant billboard in Akihabara. Rated C (15 and up, essentially)... I can intellectually accept the presence of games where you touch little girls, okay, it's Japan. But giant advertisements for the same?

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 05:58 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Co-worker's pick - I had an ep tossed on to a DVD full of Gurren Lagann, and he was interested enough to try it out; we then hunted down a few more episodes and watched. Interesting, but scattershot... Moving below the fold, no specific spoilers, but I'll talk about the show a bit.
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Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 12:42 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Finished rewatching this earlier than I was expecting to - used it to kill time today while the co-worker was late, and he got in right as the last episode's credits were rolling.

I've been trying to keep spoilers out of the reviews, but it's hard to talk about A's at all without spoiling some of the first season - just throwing around a couple of names lets you get a really good idea of how the first season turned out. If you haven't watched any of the first season, don't read below the fold - just scroll down to the season 1 review, and keep in mind that everything that's good about the first season is even better in A's.

Or, if you're like me and spoilers don't ruin a show for you, you could actually watch an episode or two of A's -first-. Total accident - downloaded the wrong episodes, started watching, said, "Hey, this show is throwing a lot of characters at me like I should know who they are..." "You're watching A's, stupid." "Ohhhhh..." With many shows, this would be a major turn-off; with Nanoha, it was something of an advantage, because the start to A's is VERY strong, especially compared with the first season. But a little confusing, so ideally you should watch it the right way around.

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Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 06:52 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Just a quick recap of what I've been watching over the last couple of days. Hayate no Gotoku 12, Claymore 12, Gurren Lagann 12, Lucky Star 11. Bored and the rum hasn't kicked in yet. ;p Spoilers after the break.

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Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 11:08 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Just finished rewatching this. I'm normally of two minds on magical girl shows - I loathe Sailor Moon with an unreasonable, burning passion, but pretty much everything else is okay. I even worked on Wedding Peach! But Nanoha's not that kind of show.

I remember seeing some promotional material for Pretty Cure a few years back, where the show's producers were saying that they were aiming for girls 5-12 and men 16-25 or so - basically, trying to make it a dual-use show that's good for the little girl market but also something that an otaku would want to pick up. Nanoha... is a magical girl show where the producers weren't worried about the little girl market. Review follows. (Spoiler free, just don't wanna clog the page.)
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Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 09:46 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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It's actually more wrong than Arafat's Nobel Peace Prize getting stolen, and that's saying something. Link. It's gameplay videos from Forza, with anime-themed cars. First video is most noteworthy for the background music, which is a fusion of the Haruhi OP and the Lucky Star OP. Second one is bizarre... Konata from Lucky Star theme car, with the engine noise replaced by Konata making an engine noise. (Hilarious when the driver misses a shift!) I only wonder if it was done from inside the game engine or not. Not enough to make me get a PS3, but if I had one, I would buy this game...

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 01:09 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Went a bit out of sequence, and watched the Appleseed movie (new one). Keeps the co-worker happy, and since the co-worker has a day job and only shows up here on the weekends for the anime, keeping the co-worker happy is quite important. ;p

Also, I find that watching stuff with him present gives me a good perspective on the show other than mine. There are plenty of shows that I enjoy, but he doesn't, especially if we're talking about comedy that relies too much on oddball Japanese references or things like that; at the same time, if an oddball reference crops up, I can generally field it for him. But it keeps the weekend viewing from going TOO otaku-oriented, which is probably a good thing...

Anyway, back before Appleseed had been produced, we got a demo tape of it, and my opinion was that I'd have gladly traded some of my favorite anatomy to have worked on it. Alas, wasn't to be. Review below the fold...
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Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 05:24 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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My current job is almost a sinecure - I'm working tech support on the weekends at the university on the evening shift. Ten hour shift, perhaps six callers the whole time... not exactly hustle and bustle, no? But it gives me plenty of anime-watching time. I've gone through the first twelve eps of Soul Hunter today, and in the last few days I've rewatched most of the first season of Nanoha; I'll do a write-up on 'em when I'm done with each.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 10:04 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Browsing through my archives today, I ran across a translated doujinshi of Archer with little-girl Sakura and Rin, nice and heartwarming and I can't believe I downloaded it and didn't read it, and I got to thinking...

Not too long ago, Steven mentioned that there are certain shows that he enjoys rewatching, and that those are usually shows that have a great cast - it's another opportunity to visit with characters that he enjoys, so to speak.

I get the same sort of feeling out of a lot of the fan works that get created around popular shows. Oh, sure, a ton of that stuff is porn, and very little of the remainder gets translated into English. And even when it does, it's not quite the same thing as the original - you're visiting with characters who are a little different from the original.

That's not always good - it's easy to take a character who had some depth and reduce one to a one-dimensional caricature. But it can go the other way just as easily, and THOSE can be really rewarding. Side stories about background characters, alternate scenarios, humor unburdened with the responsibility of maintaining the original plot...

Due to the proclivities of certain translators, it's a lot easier to find this material from some series (and, of course, the popularity of the original is a big factor.) I seem to find Fate/Stay Night and Tsukihime stories on a regular basis, more than everything else put together. These can be a lot of fun - the original continuity is fast and loose to start with, since we're talking about multi-path visual novels with not a small amount of harem potential.

I also run into a good number of Nanoha comics, but those are largely due to the efforts of one Japanese artist, who draws comics as a kind of response to the series as it's airing... more or less one per day. Not as good at expanding the show - he's a lot more likely to take a specific scene and make a joke based on an exaggerated characteristic of the character. Still quite good, though - you can find some translated ones here, though they'll spoil the heck out of the first season and A's if you haven't seen them already.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 04:08 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Well, decided to pick up a blog - if it's Pixy handing 'em out, shoot, I'd rather funnel ad revenue his way than to some anonymous corporate type. ;p [And use up his bandwidth...  -ed But I'm already doing that at the other blogs here!]

At any rate, introduction time. This is Andrew Kent, and I've been going by Avatar online for, oh... better than ten years now, I suppose. It's kind of silly to use a handle when it's not anonymous, but I've had good luck with it over the years - it literally got me a job, so I'm a little attached to it.

Said job was at ADV, where I spent just short of five years subtitling,
authoring DVDs, proofreading stuff, wrangling master tapes, and trying not to laugh too hard. Fun experience, very happy I did it. Getting caught in the big layoff was considerably less fun, but it did give me the opportunity to go back to college and finish a political science degree. Now I'm kicking around, doing some subtitling for the other companies out there, and looking for regular employment.

I'm also watching a lot of anime. Not a bad season so far this year. Watching Claymore, Hayate the Combat Butler, Heroic Age, Gurren Lagann, the new season of Nanoha, and Lucky Star on a regular basis, with a little Murder Princess thrown in. Might add one or two other shows if I get sufficiently bored, but we'll see, we'll see.

I'll try to keep a running journal going on what I'm watching without running into spoiler territory. Let's see how that turns out...

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 10:47 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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