Halloween Nerdery

I love Halloween. This year I decided to go as Ed from the anime Cowboy Bebop, and of course Odo went as Ein the data dog! He looks so sleepy in these photos



I used to love anime when I was in my preteens to early teens. I watched some pretty terrible shows back then, so now I'm really picky about the anime I watch today, and I look at the genre with more of a critical eye than I did before. Cowboy Bebop is one of the few I still love. It was my favorite when I was younger, and I used to stay up late every Saturday night to watch it (it came on around 1am if I remember correctly). The series is only 26 episodes long. It's concise, stylish, has great music, and has an excellent story. It can be problematic at times, but I think it's one of the best anime series out there. Beyond Cowboy Bebop, I love pretty much every Miyazaki film ever made, plus a few select series like Mushishi and Samurai Champloo.

Back on the Envelope: Kill La Kill Episode 2

Like everyone else cool on the anisphere (look at that peer pressure), I'm watching Kill la Kill this season. So I thought I'd chip in my two cents on some stuff in episode 2.



I also wanted to showcase my newfound discovery of the joy of screenshots instead of Google image search!

Anime Hype: Space Dandy Dubbed For Toonami Starts January

Space Dandy, the anime from the same team that brought you Cowboy Bebop is going to start broadcast already dubbed in English starting in January on Toonami. That might be the fastest I've heard of anime being dubbed for an English audience, the show will be coming out on Japanese TV at the same time. No voice cast infohas been released yet, but no doubt Steve Blum is somehow on board. Funimation is the US distributor of the series.



Synopsis:Space Dandy is a dandy in space! This dreamy adventurer with a to-die-for pompadour travels across the galaxy in search of aliens no one has ever laid eyes on. Each new species he discovers earns him a hefty reward, but this dandy has to be quick on his feet because it's first come - first served! Accompanied by his sidekicks, a rundown robot named QT and Meow the cat-looking space alien, Dandy bravely explores unknown worlds inhabited by a variety aliens. Join the best dressed alien hunter in all of space and time as he embarks on an adventure that ends at the edge of the universe!*About "Space Dandy":Get ready to blast off with Space Dandy, a dazzling new anime from the entire creative team behind Cowboy Bebop! General Director: Shinichiro Watanabe ("Cowboy Bebop", and "Samurai Champloo"), Director: Shingo Natsume ("Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos"), Screenplay: Kimiko Ueno (Movie "Crayon Shin-chan"), Dai Sato ("Cowboy Bebop", "Eureka Seven"), Keiko Nobumoto ("Cowboy Bebop", "Wolf's Rain") and many others, Character Design: Yoshiyuki Ito ("Star Driver"), Spaceship Design: Thomas Romain (Satelight) ("Basquash!"), Theme Song: Yasuyuki Okamura. Animation Production: Bones Inc. ("Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood", "Soul Eater", "Eureka Seven AO").

Ninja life skills: 7 tips to make learning Japanese that little bit easier

Posted: 18 Oct 2013 05:53 AM PDT



Despite its apparent difficulty, Japanese is fast becoming one of the world's most desirable languages to learn, with more and more Westerners studying it every day. Eventually, though, we all hit a wall with our studies and feel like we're not making any progress. The books you threw yourself into with such enthusiasm to begin with start to become a chore to open, the army of kanji characters you have yet to study stare back at you with mocking disdain, and despite all the hours you put in you still can't quite keep up with that anime you were determined to watch without subtitles. It happens to the best of us, but there are ways to break out of this rut, not to mention rekindle that love for studying Japanese, or any other language for that matter.

Space Dandy To Air on Toonami

A brand-new anime series headed straight to Toonami? Without months or maybe even years of delay between its Japanese and American release? Please tell me this isn't a dream.



According to , this isn't our collective imaginations at work. The upcoming Space Dandy anime series (from Studio BONES and Shinichiro Watanabe, who you might recognize as the director of some humble little series like Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo) will premiere on Cartoon Network JANUARY 4TH, 2014 AT 11:30 PM. According to their post, this will mean that the show is premiering in North America before it does in Japan. Seriously? How can you not be excited to hear that? It's about time we got something before our Japanese friends. This almost makes me a little less bitter about all the manga I'll never get to read and all the otome titles I'll never get to playokay, maybe not. But it helps.

Great Anime

I realized yesterday that its been a while since I've seen really good anime.Kamisama no inai nichiyoubi was pretty good, but it wasn't epic the way I had hoped.Shingeki no kyoujin is.But the problem is, as good as the plot may be, I discovered the manga first, and so I knew what was going to happen the whole season.The animation and framing is enjoyable though.Last year katanagatari, anohana were the best ones I saw that I can remember off the top of my head.But a lot of what I watch isnt that memorable.Watching new anime as it comes out is directly exploring, which is good.I watch the raws for those, so I get japanese practice out of it regardless.But there are 25~ series at least, every season.Some of them are continuations, but the rest are new.Ive watched and dumped quite a few this month already.As time passes, it gets easier to tell which ones were good and which ones weren't worth watching.To a point.Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann scored a 7.8 on one sight, but I thought it was a 9.There are anime that fill certain slots in an otaku's life.My generation had the sailor moon thing, now its precure, maybe?.hack is now SAO.You watch one, and any after it seem the same, because you saw that one first.This is usually where ratings and my impressions dont match up. That 3 episode rule, sometimes its good, but I believe that in the first episode, you can get a feel for the whole thing.Madoka Magica doesnt go all dark until the third episode, but in the first one someones trying to kill off the mascot, and the feeling is already there.Samurai Champloo, 1 episode was enough.Some, the first episode is the best one.Ga Rei Zero had an awesome first one.The series was pretty good, but the beginning tops the whole season.I wish I didnt know what was going to happen when I watched it though.Thats the other thing.I have a sort of neurosis about which way I experience a series, because once you know the plot, theres no going back.Watch a crappy anime, and when you switch to the manga it makes it harder to read sometimes.Though, if you insist on watching the junk one, do it first.Like, dragon ball legends, that live action, probably isnt as bad if you dont know what dragon ball is.
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Tenga Toppa Gurren Lagann review

Heyo everyone, Amp here bringing you another review



So if you have read the title i assume you know which anime I'm reviewing yeah TTGL (Tenga Toppa Gurren Lagann) is one of those shows that only come round once in a while. Many feels were shed in that anime and many brave otaku ventured into the world of TTGL .

Walkure Romanze and Too Many Women in Anime

A few days ago, I watched the preview to a new fanservicey show titled Walkure Romanze.It must be admitted that seeing bevies of knightly beauties performing martial exercises and stretching afforded pleasure to my eyes.Actually, the fact that they were knights was not apparent until I saw the women jousting in full plate later in the preview.Until two other thoughts intruded themselves upon me, I contemplated adding this show to my watch list.But, these two thoughts killed any desire for me to watch this show: 1) Could they not have animated Tactics Ogre, Vinland Saga, Gunka no Baltzar, or any other good war or medieval manga instead? Or remade Ivanhoe, Le Morte D'Arthur,Parzival, The Mabinogeoon, any other medieval romance, or a viking saga into an anime?And 2) Why do Japanese shows increasingly or even the greater proportion of the time place girls in roles meant originally for men?



Here are two of the beauties.

Samurai Flamenco

Samurai Flamenco is perfect for Noitamina: aimed at adults, creative, great characters, and really well written. I mean, Silver Spoon and Galilei Donna were nice and all, but this is going to be the next really big hit from the timeslot again after Psycho Pass.



There are two reasons why this show stands out. First of all is the characters: they are amazing. Pretty much the best of the season along with Kyousogiga. I can't really say which are better at this point because both series have completely different ways in which they use their characters, but the chemistry between them is just amazing. Every character works well together.

Anime Season Begins

Well, I'm watching a lot of shows this season, even more than last season, about 20. So I'm going to split this post into two parts, the first will go live today, and the second will likely go live in a couple of days. I will not post this sort of list every week, certainly not for this number of shows. I intend to cut down the amount of shows I'm watching to 10-12 by next week or the week after, to leave me more time for other things.



There will be spoilers of episode 1-2 of the shows discussed, but that's part of the premise, honestly.

Anime Power Rankings: Fall 2013 Week 2

RANK

ANIME (FIRST PLACE VOTES)

STUDIO

Otaking 11

I had just finished watching the crazy anime series Gurren Lagann.



The commercial stills...nuff said.

My Top 50 Anime

Well it's been nearly two years since I last updated my Top 50 Anime list - a ridiculous amount of time to leave it untouched really.I decided to completely redo the list, it is remarkable how you can completely change your mind about a show after a while - some shows went up in my estimation, some went down and I had two years worth of new shows to cram in somewhere too!But I did it and now



But I didn't want to lose some of the entries so here's what's out and what's in.

Space Dandy coming 2014

We interrupt you regularly scheduled program for a post about an upcoming anime. Coming in January of 2014 Bones, The studio behind Kids on the Slope, Eureka Seven and Darker than Black will bring us the newest work of Shinichrio Watanabe (the director of Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo and Macross Plus).But before that they've released a music video featuring the show's main theme by Yasuyuki Okamura. While little of the plot is known at this time I think thesets up the series as a whole; "Space Dandy is a dandy guy in space."



This is looking to be another great anime from Watanabe.