Quad News Time SMASH!

Lets see, it seems like I had 4 things to write about, what were they...

Well, to start out with I finished the show Speed Grapher. At first I just thought it was an interesting look at the dark underside of the perverse corruption of the rich and powerful, but by the end I realized that it was about that AND being free from the corrupting effects of greed and money. Its kind of unfortunate that some of the monsters they threw in felt forced and unnecessary, but then it was the anime version, maybe the manga had better backstory for them. Anyway, very good.

Item number 2 is that I ordered and received my wonderful Nana Best DVD/CD collection that might be the best collectible for a fan of the anime version of Nana. The best part of my order is that I thought it was JUST the CD, but then I found out there was a DVD with. Whoa, it was really a great surprise, especially since I'm still not sure when the show is coming stateside.

While we're on anime, Anime Expo '08 was this past weekend. I didn't go, but I was reading some of the stuff associated with it through ANN. The most intersting item is definitely this: Fansubs - The Death of Anime?. Its an hour long panel discussion about the problems caused by illegal distribution and subsequent subtitling and then redistribution of anime. One of the most interesting statements was this: "We're seeing anime fandom and convention attendence steadily increase... And yet DVD sales are 20% lower than last year." The analysis of the problem is also interesting, something like "This wasn't a problem back when fansubbed material was hard to come by, like when you had to know a guy who knew a guy with a VHS tape. Nowadays you can say 'Hey man, go home a watch the new Naruto. Just click here and here and make sure you've got bitTorrent.' In other words, we've got a generation of anime fans who think anime is free." And thus why fansubs all over the net is a problem. But, until anime companies are bringing subtitled anime fresh from Japan to the states within a few days of broadcast through legitimate channels and in equivalent formats... Well, the fan who wants to keep up with the Jono-san's is going to have to keep tapping illegetimate sources. So right now people like Funimation, ANN, Bandai, etc. are focusing on educating their largely high school and economically ignorant fan-base on the fact that, yes, anime costs money to make, and if you don't pay for it then its going to stop being made.

My final note... Oh right I saw The Orphanage (El Orfanato) which was produced by "Pan's Labyrinth" del Toro. Its very good for a horror movie. Why? Because its doesn't rely on a lot of blood and gore. Its not incredibly scary really, to me anyway, but I think most people would enjoy it even if the ending is a little strange... Touching, but strange. I also saw Wall-E this weekend. As to expect with Pixar, very good. I liked that the auto-pilot resembled the HAL 9000 and the repeated revelations that they have a pool on the ship. My only complaint really is that its hard to understand the robot speech at times, but generally you don't miss anything too important.

Well, while writing this I composed two other posts on other forums, so I'm done with the internet for tonight.