psipsy

I saw the AnimeUSA commercial on TV, all the way up here in PA, at 2:30 in the morning. Smooth.

Venture Brothers: Ok, this isn't anime at all. But you know how it goes: You're watching an anime that's completely insane, laughing your ass off the whole time, not believing what you just saw, and when it's done, you're asking yourself, "Why can't we make that sort of thing here in the US?" We did before, and Venture Brothers shows that we still can. A scientist with two sons and a secret-agent-for-hire. Add in some butterfly aliens, a woman with a masculine voice to generate a strange love triangle, and general non-stop hilarity. The most recent episode is about a yard sale and lemonade stand gone horribly wrong. It's awesome on so many levels.

The new Gunbuster anime looks cool. It also looks like Gainax is riding high on the FLCL character design. And with bounce! Gainax is cool that way. Bounce is what put Gainax on the map, y'know.

Ichigeki Sachuu! Hoihoi-san: Here's another of the short attention span variety, the ten minute types. In the future, insecticides have no effect! The only solution for pest control is little robots designed to hunt down pests. Such as Hoihoi. This could work as another mini-series, but everything points to this being a one-shot. Yes, a one-shot that's only ten minutes long. I know budgets for anime can be tight, but this is ridiculous! Anyway, I hope they come to their senses and make more of this. I also hear there's a PS2 game, so that has some promise.

Ahh what else have I been watching/downloading... Not much, apparently. It's been a little slow in BT land for me, aside from a second episode of School Rumble and finally getting a sample episode of Tsukuyomi Moon Phase. I'll let everyone know what I think of it.

I need to fix my old Playstation. It can no longer play import/burned games. Methinks the modchip died, but at least it had the decency to not take the rest of the system with it. Plus, I still have an extra chip, and the skillz to install it.

This is a joint effort between

exedore (who did most of the work and thusly deserves most of the credit for this project) and myself. For the longest time, everyone that had a copy of this show all seemed have the same nth-generation VHS versions. Some of us wanted more. Well, we tracked down a couple sets of the laser discs. It had to be a couple, because in the first set, it came with a bum disc. (Anyone need a disc 1, 3, or 4?) But, they were selling rather cheap compared to their original prices, and it was only a matter of time (several weeks) before a second set manifested itself through Yahoo Japan auctions. It also had to be on laser disc, as currently there is no DVD release, nor is there one planned. Anyway, a few months ago this show popped up on BitTorrent, but it was the fuzzy VHS version, complete with the "PLAY" notation superimposed on the screen. While a bit unsightly to some, to me it brought back memories of when fansubs were distributed entirely on tape. Gave the whole process a more personal feel to it. But I digress, as that's an LJ rant for another day.

Now, I shall present a comparison between the fuzzy VHS version and the freshly-poured-from-LD-to-hard-drive version.

Old version!

New version!

Feeeeeeel the difference.

While I'm not knocking the effort the other group did in putting the show onto BT, as they also felt the rest of the world should be able to see this wonderful show, I simply feel that it served its purpose. For AnimeUSA, it will be the newer version that will get shown. As far as Murphy's Law is concerned, I have an odd hunch that either a R2 DVD release will come out, or it'll get licensed, or both. If the efforts for this serve as the trigger for that, then I can accept that.

Also, I now have a new LJ icon. Some of you may have already noticed. And maybe not a song in this entry, but soon! Yeah.