I’ve been busy and a bit distracted lately but I didn’t want February to pass without wishing everyone a Merry Christmas in February. Since Christmas in February is a holiday that my family created 16 years ago I don’t expect most of those reading to even realize I was late in the first place .

For those reading that have never heard of Christmas in February, it’s pretty much what you’d guess it would be.  The impetus to start came from the realization that there’s always Christmas cookies left over and normally a turkey (or ham or Cornish hens or some other holiday-type meat) that was bought cheaply during the holiday season still in the freezer and no real good way to finish them. So,  for fun, my family started with picking a day in February and having a Christmas-style dinner but, as things normally go, we slowly increased what we did for Christmas in February – we got a small 2 foot artificial tree and started decorating it then my parents started buying a small, inexpensive gift for us all. Which snowballed into a bigger Christmas tree and the $5 dollar gifts have now gotten to be $15 dollar gifts and now we invite extended family members to come .

One of the nice things about Christmas in February is that we get to pick when in February we want to celebrate it – this year, it was on February 19th but next year might be the second Tuesday or the last Saturday of the month. Another nice thing is that it gives the dreary month of February a holiday that’s fun. There’s also a near 100% chance of having a white Christmas in February though this year was the first time we had a green Christmas in February. Also, since it’s not the official Christmas, it has all the nice parts of the holiday without any of the stress.

This was only about a third of the leftover cookies that needed eating.

And since this is an anime blog here are some Christmas themed anime pictures:

Filed under: anime, general anime interst, other news

It’s been almost five years since I’ve last seen the anime blogosphere go so completely head-over-heals for an anime like what’s currently happening for Puella Magi Madoka Magica. That last time was for The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzimiya and it pole vaulted everything from it’s voice actors to it’s animation studio into instant super-stardom. This time it’s the well-known combination of the Shaft animation studio and it’s super-director Akiyuki Shinbou. Which is a bit surprising, given the prolific nature of Shaft/Shinbou; there isn’t that blank slate to work their magic on which KyoAni had with Haruhi.

And much like Haruhi, the PM3 fascination is well warranted; even for this long time Shaft/Shinbou fan, I was astonished how quickly this anime become special. The logical next step for a blogger would to blog about it but did I really want to be the 89th person that pointed how just how creepy Kyubey is or how dark and twisted this world is or how Shinbou was deconstructing the magical girl genre. The answer probably should have been yes since the alternative – coming up with something slightly more unique – took more work.

I eventually thought of something and all I needed was to call on the power of graphing and Gurren Lagann and an idea that’s been bouncing around in my brain for awhile.

The idea started out awhile ago when I realized, when doing my weekly anime review posts, that splitting an anime series into smaller intervals (individual episodes) and focusing only on those smaller intervals it gave an incomplete picture of the series as a whole. I needed the equivalent of calculus to find the area under a curve when all I had was a handful of rectangles to use.

Conversely, looking at just the final grade for an anime series was helpful in a different way but so much was hidden behind that number. A series that started out great but then coasted could get the same grade as a series that tried to be ambitious and missed the mark by just a little or a series that was mediocre at the start but built up to a thrilling conclusion.

I had a half-formed thought about using some sort of graphing but when my weekly anime posts stopped, I stopped really worrying about implementing a new system. For Puella Magi Madoka Magica, I dusted off these ideas with the view of that I needed a good way to quantify how good I thought PM3 was and how quickly it had gotten good.

The result is the graph below. It’s still not perfect but it’s much closer to what I want then just saying the first four episodes of PM3 have all been 12/12 perfect episodes. Basically, the colored areas overlay my numeric grading system and correspond to levels of achievement that are possible once an anime displays a certain level of quality. These levels are progressively harder to attain and are a reflection of watching enough anime that I can accurately grade an anime. A note for clarification, the stripped triangles for each anime series shows my guess at the future potential of the show.

Photoshop is helpful when trying to make a graph look pretty but it makes generating the graph difficult.

I used Gurren Lagann to compare the new series to because it is my number 1 show and the yard stick to compare all other anime series; though, the path Gurren Lagann took to reach number 1 is very interesting by itself. For instance, the big jump it took at the very end where it goes from being a fringe Top 10 anime to being my favorite anime corresponds to episode 26, aka the best episode of anime ever.

I put Puella Magi Madoka Magica into the “High Quality” level right away. It was during episode 1’s conversation between Madoka and her mom in the bathroom that I just knew. When the second episode showed no signs of letdown but only continued to impress me, it was upgraded to probably one of the best shows of the season (as measured against a “normal” season). The surprise at the end of episode 3 pushed the show into most likely earning the top spot for the winter season, assuming the rest of the series didn’t see a decline in quality, and moved it very close into earning a spot as one of the best series of 2011. (Again assuming a “normal” year, with this being just the beginning of the year, I’m using the past seasons and years as a guide in estimating.) The fourth episode didn’t disappoint either and Shaft/Shinbou made it clear that it had plenty of tricks left to play; meaning, PM3 is now all but guaranteed a spot on my top anime of 2011 list.

In picking the upper and lower bounds for how PM3 potentially turns out I decided even though it’s currently far surpassing where Gurren Lagann was at this point in time – it probably doesn’t have the spiral power to beat out Gurren Lagann in the end. Instead, I used the highest position of a Shaft/Shinbou anime series (Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei) as the probable cap. I could be wrong and it could go higher but I think PM3’s episode count being only half will limit it. For the low end, I just don’t see the show imploding and finishing any lower then maybe #3 for the winter season. My guess as to it’s most probably course would be for Puella Magi Madoka Magica to land in the top 5 – maybe 3 – of 2011 and just outside of my top 10.

I could have stopped here but there was plenty of space to graph several other new shows of the winter season.

The most talked about show behind PM3 is Fractale, the latest creation from disgraced anime director, Yutaka Yamamoto. Some have loved it, some have panned it, some just note the high degree of similarities it has with other well-known anime works. I see it’s potential but it hasn’t impressed me in the slightest, especially since I don’t think Mr. Yamamoto has learned from his previous disappointing efforts. I don’t mind the recycling of ideas used elsewhere if Fractale was going to do something interesting with them. And I don’t mean – “hey lets do a Miyazaki movie but add in fan-service and potty humor”. Better story-telling would help it’s chances, like getting us to like a character before the director kills him off. The result is, unsurprisingly, that it’s been hovering around my drop line (anything below a 6/12 B- is in real danger of getting dropped) and I don’t see Fractale ending that high. Maybe if it does everything right then it might just creep up to around a 9/12 A- level but I don’t think so. It’s more likely to finish in the 5/12 C+ to 6/12 B- range.

Currently keeping Fractale company is the “comedy” Rio –Rainbow Gate– from Xebec. The mere possibility that Rio could finish higher then Fractale is mind-boggling. I don’t think that’s going to happen; I thought the latest episode of Rio signaled that the creators were fast running out of entertaining ideas (the gate battle in this episode was so boring) but the possibility still exists. The problem is that it’s too difficult being unintentionally hilarious week-in and week-out; eventually the animators figure out how to just be generic and that ruins all the fun. Which is a shame because having visited Las Vegas twice, I sort of wanted this anime to be a success.

Another show I wanted to succeed was Mitsudomoe 2. The first season was inconsistent but ended strongly and I had a feeling that a second season would be awesome. So far that’s been pretty much the case but it has a problem as well – it’s only going to be 8 episodes long and I’ve already seen half of them. That makes Mitsudomoe have to work much harder just to keep up with shows like PM3 and Level E when there’s such a difference in episode count. The last episode, in particular, seemed to display the animators at the top of their game and it reminded me of the splendid work they did on Minami-ke S1. If the remaining four episode can stay at that level, Mitsudomoe 2 might just land near the top this season.

The final show I graphed was the anime that most astounded me this season for being actually good – Level E – and the only anime that I think that has a shot at beating PM3. Not a great chance but it’s not zero, which would be enough for Simon from Gurren Lagann.  It should be mentioned that it bears no connection to any other anime that has “something E” in the title, which was why I initially passed it over – I thought it was a sequel. Nor does it rip-off the central idea to Men in Black because the manga actually predates the movie by a couple of years. It’s a SF/comedy series from the pen of the author that wrote Yu Yu Hakusho (which really deserves a new adaptation itself) and it’s refreshingly entertaining. Level E also has the largest potential range because I’m torn between how good it’s been so far and worrying about things that could drag it down. I wonder why this hasn’t been adapted in the 13+ years since it originally came out and if it’s short length (only 16 chapters) means that it doesn’t have a good ending and will the comedy hold up.

At this point, I figure putting any more series on this graph would just be overly messy looking so this is were I’m going to stop for now. I might revisit this graph with different series in the future but we’ll have to see. And in closing, I’ll say it again – Kyubey is freakishly creepy; though, I wonder if Kyubey barbecue tastes good.

Everyone has one and there’s no surer way for other people to figure out loads of information about a person then from a person’s personal top 10 list. The genre of shows the person likes, the length the person has been a fan of anime, if the person is an elitist fan or a populist fan, what the person thinks about old anime being superior to new anime and vice-versa, if the person watches anime with fan-subs or dubs are just some of the things people can glean from a top 10 anime list. Even using some other number then 10 can be illuminating; a person doing their top 75 anime shows is saying something completely different then a person that only has a top 4 or top 6 list.

I knew this when I started blogging and I also knew that I didn’t have the breadth of knowledge needed to make such a list without being deeply embarrassed of it a year later. Therefore; I waited, read other people’s lists and consumed as much anime (current and old) as possible. I refused to rough out a list until I was done considering what important conditions I should set-up for the list because I didn’t want potential picks to influence my thought processes. The conditions that will constrain this list are three.

1. For an anime to be eligible, I needed to watch it at least two times.
2. No movies would be eligible.
3. For shows with multiple seasons, I could choose which seasons to include but no one show could be listed more than once.

The first constraint made a lot of sense to me. I’ve often encountered a show where the second time watching it yields a different response – either positively like Lucky Star or negatively like Azumanga Daioh or Witch Hunter Robin. Watching an anime that second time also reinforces the experience in my memory and helps ensure that imperfect recollections of a show don’t improperly help or hinder a show’s chances. The flip side of this constraint is that there’s a large number of shows that I can’t consider at this time that I’d love too. Kaiba, Natsume’s Book of Friends, Baccano, Cross Game, Clannad, Kanon, Kemono no Souja Erin, Spice & Wolf, Ga-Rei:Zero, Sora No Otoshimono, Hanamaru Kindergarten, Blue Literature, Hidemari Sketch, and Bakemonogatari are just some of the shows that I think could be competitive in making this list but have only been watched once.

The second constraint is there because I think series and movies are just too dissimilar to put into one list together; it would be like creating a top 10 list of the best cow and dog breeds. It might be possible but it wouldn’t be meaningful. And by carving movies off, I can make a companion list at some point of the my top ten anime movies.

Since most seasons (not cours) of anime are produced separately, I put in the third constraint in because it didn’t make sense to me to penalize an earlier season if future seasons stunk and were made just to bilk money from the fans or if later seasons improved from the earlier seasons.

Now with that out-of-the-way, let’s get to the list.

Vintage: Winter 2009
Director: Kazuki Akane
Studio: A-1 Pictures
Times Watched: 2

The first season of Birdy was a good show, one of the bright spots in a pretty weak summer season but there were weaknesses that prevented it from being great. I can be a very optimistic person so when the second season rolled around I had very rosy hopes. Imagine my shock when even these rosy hopes couldn’t match how good the second season was. The wooden characters from the first season were replaced with characters that oozed personality and depth. The story was grittier and more real; the building destroyed in the first season remained destroyed and the people who lost their homes were still homeless in the second season. No punches were pulled, the super-powered character with an understandable desire for revenge kills in a way you’d expect an angry individual out for revenge would. And I loved the animation style they switched to for the fights; if I had to describe it in one word that word would be “kinetic”. The characters looked like they actually weighed something and the sense of motion was unparalleled. It ended at a good point but one can just tell there’s still untapped potential with the bigger story so I’m still fervently hoping for a third season.

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Vintage: Summer 2007
Director: Takashi Ikehata
Studio: J.C. Staff
Times Watched: 4

The set-up for Potemayo (sentient unearthly creatures coming to life in a refrigerator) would have been the start of a horror film in probably every other country in the world but in the hands of J.C. Staff, we get a cute comedy/slice-of-life show with a very messed up sense of humor. Calling it unique would be an understatement and trying to make an accurate judgment about the show based solely on it’s animation style and characters is impossible.

I really didn’t expect Potemayo to make my top 10 list but the show holds up so well every-time I rewatch that I need to just accept that Potemayo is a great show.

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Vintage: Winter 2004
Director: Satoshi Kon
Studio: Madhouse
Times Watched: 3

I first watched Paranoia Agent when I was a freshly minted anime fan on Cartoon Network way back in the day when Cartoon Network ran animated stuff all day and wasn’t afraid to show anime before midnight. The realistic setting, the mystery behind Lil’ Slugger, the examination of the psychological effect Lil’ Slugger would have on the populace, the oddness that I’d later learn to be Satoshi Kon’s trademark and the interesting – often quite twisted – characters fascinated me and helped open my perception of what anime could do. Several years passed and I grew hesitant to watch Paranoia Agent again because I worried that it wouldn’t stand up. That had happened with Witch Hunter Robin and I didn’t want to lose another early anime favorite but my youngest sister stated bugging me about watching it. I pushed it off for a while but I eventually relented and we started watching Paranoia Agent. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have worried since I adore every other work of Satoshi Kon I ever watched and Paranoia Agent is no different. Many mystery type shows are only good the first time through but even knowing how Paranoia Agent ends doesn’t diminish how enthralled the show left me.

An interesting tidbit, Paranoia Agent is the only show on this countdown that I’ve never listened to the Japanese dub of it.

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Vintage: Summer 2007, Winter 2008, Summer 2009
Director: Akiyuki Shinbo
Studio: Shaft
Times Watched: 3, 3, 1

Having to bend my rules to include the whole series of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei has left me in despair!

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei really is an acquired taste. Looking back, I needed that first season and the months between it and the second season to really get the show and it’s sense of humor situated in my brain. And it eventually clicked because I instantly, and completely, fell for the second season and later rewatches of the first season left me with a better opinion of it. I’ve also learned the best way to watch Despair is to watch each episode twice; once with my finger posed over the pause button so I can read all the text in the background and the second time without pausing so I can focus on the foreground. This leads me into putting much more effort into getting this show than any other anime but I think it’s worth it.

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Vintage: Spring 2006
Director: Tatsuya Ishihara
Studio: Kyoto Animation
Times Watched: 6

At one time this would have been my #1 or #2 pick for top anime and seeing it drop this far makes me a bit sad even if I fully believe it deserves this diminished level. It’s very difficult to get into the old mind-frame for this show when the renewed Melancholy of Haruhi (2009) employed the Endless Eight stunt. It’s not that I particularly hated Endless Eight but back in 2006, I decided not to read the novels Haruhi were based on because I didn’t want to be spoiled before watching the future seasons of anime and I’ve been waiting for more of the story ever since and thought that time had finally come. I know this is a mend-able feeling, though, all I need is Kyoto Animation to animate a couple of seasons of Haruhi, reaching the quality level of the 2006 series,  and chances are I’d be pushing this back up.

One of the interesting things about The Melancholy of Haruhi (2006) was observing how hype effected fan reception. At the very beginning when there was no hype for the show, everyone (and I mean everyone) loved the show. I remember watching Haruhi work it’s way to number 1 on ANN’s top 10 anime list. As time and the hype increased, though, I noticed more and more new viewers react negatively towards it, wondering what the hype was all about. This trend continued and intensified when Haruhi was licensed in America and the non-fansub fans finally got to watch what the fansub fans had been incessantly talking about for over a year. Their reactions were even less positive and reading what these people thought of Haruhi made this fan’s blood boil on numerous occasions.

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That ends part 1. I’m curious if anyone can guess my top 5 before I post it in the next day or two.

With the timing of Al Gore and the intelligence of Joe Biden, the recent rant by Bang Zoom’s President about the impending death of anime is so sad, it’s hilarious. If it was a well-written piece I might feel like I needed to write a rebuttal but it wasn’t, not by a long shot, which leads one to ask – “Why are you bringing up Mr. Sherman’s rambling rant?” Well, I’d answer, there are some things I wanted to mention related to issue at hand and this is as good of a time as any.

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Where I Blame Mr. Sherman and Bang Zoom For Being 35% of the Problem Facing Anime In America

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I bought an anime DVD the other day.

Not a big surprise; I, like many people can be enticed to buy something even if we have access to it for free. That goes for my copy of the latest Dresden Files book and it goes for this DVD. What is this mysterious anime DVD that I, as a member of the dark underbelly of the internet bought? The complete box set of Baccano.

The big surprise to this purchase is that I bought the complete box set of Baccano for it’s dub. That’s right, I bought an anime DVD for it’s dub. Crazy, I know. Even more crazy when you start listing all the awesome Japanese voice work done for this series but here I am, giddy in anticipation over watching an anime dub.

Someone well acquainted with the past dub quality in anime might ask what makes this dub different from the years and years of mediocre dubs that American fans have had to put up with? Simply put, Funimation used voice actors that sounded right for their role, had genuine talent, and the drive to give a performance on par with their Japanese counterparts. I wouldn’t think it was possible but Funimation did it and if you don’t believe me, you can go to their website to watch the dub episodes for free.

Fine, someone might now say, why does a sublime dub convince me to buy the DVD? Another simple question , Baccano’s dub gives the DVD a much higher value in my eyes then a sub-only DVD or a lousy dub DVD would. For instance, I can now watch Baccano even when it’s not possible to read subs all the time like while I’m cooking or cleaning or eating or, in the case of my sister, when she wants to do a bit of knitting. Also, most Americans don’t like to read subs so having a quality dub of Baccano means I have an anime to show those people when I want to convince them that anime can be awesome (without having to worry about the voice acting souring my chances with these potential converts).

I can hear the question coming at this point – what does Baccano’s dub have to do with Bang Zoom and the problems facing anime in America. At the time of reading Mr. Sherman’s rant I knew Bang Zoom was a dubbing studio but I didn’t know of what shows so I went to the ever informative Anime News Network. And according to ANN, Bang Zoom had nothing to do with the Baccano dub but they did do the Haruhi (my #1 top anime of 2006), Lucky Star (my #2 top anime of 2007), and Gurren Lagann (my #1 top anime of 2007) dubs.  A light bulb clicks on at this point. I have the limited edition Haruhi DVDs and found the dub just slightly better then mediocre; Haruhi’s English voice actor totally failed to make Haruhi as awesome as Aya Hirano was able too and the whole show comes off as a much lower quality show because of it. I saw the trailer to Lucky Star and was so turned off by the dub that I refused to even consider paying money for such an inferior product. In the case of Gurren Lagann, I watched it dubbed on the Sci-fi channel and was so infuriated when a poorly picked English voice for Kamina was able to completely change his character for the worse.

In all three shows I sensed a common theme – Bang Zoom pumping out a mediocre dub which might have saved a couple bucks but hurt the show in the long run. Consider what an anime DVD is worth if the dub track will never be listened to and watching it subbed means putting up with that ugly yellow font and poor handling of signs and watching it as a DVD means having to settle for the resolution a DVD offers? Even Mr. Sherman must know, in his heart-of-hearts, that an anime DVD like that isn’t worth very much. If, however, that same DVD offered a great dub then it’s worth would be much higher and as a result, more DVDs would be sold because the consumers would be able to get something they like in return for spending money that could have gone to a dozen different diversions and hobbies.

As I looked at it more the more I became convinced that Bang Zoom and Mr. Sherman have been more detrimental to anime in America then fansubs have ever been. Consider the anime companies Mr. Sherman mentions in his rant as having closed or suffered massive trouble. Two of those four companies (Bandai and Geneon/Pioneer) use/used Bang Zoom extensively to do their dubs – coincidence? Could it be, those market forces of capitalism that work in so many other industries to keep prices down and quality up have shown up here as well? Could it be, American consumers aren’t quiet the dumb sheep that people like Mr. Sherman think they are?

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Where I Show Mr. Sherman’s Statement That Japan Is “struggling to bring out quality titles” As Another Symptom of The Problem Facing Anime In America

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Assuming, of course, Mr. Sherman wasn’t lying through his teeth and he knows that Japan isn’t struggling to bring out quality titles. Which is a possibility but if one looks at what types of shows that generally get licensed and brought over then his statement fits into an idea I have.

I was looking at the those wonderful charts that chartfag has been putting together and I noticed something when I compared the 2008 chart with the 2001 chart. Here’s the charts, can you see it too?

If you look at the 2001 chart, it looks like the TV stations and animators where targeting young boys with the overwhelming majority shows being action shounen shows and the secondary market seemed to be young girls with the cute shoujo shows. Now look at the 2008 chart and something strange has happened. There’s still those action shounen shows and cute shoujo shows but there’s all these new types of shows: Aria, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, Spice and Wolf, Natsume Yuujinchou, Hidemari Sketch, Clannad, Natsu no Sora, and Kaiba to name just a few.

It’s almost like the audience watching anime in Japan is diversifying and getting older; shocking, I know. A look at the American anime market shows that, for the most part, it’s still a 2001 mindset. It’s very slowly getting better (thanks in part to fans refusing to accept business as usual from the DVD companies) but there’s still a wide gulf between how shows like Bleach and Naruto are treated in America as opposed to how Natsume Yuujinchou, Clannad, or Aria are. What must American anime company people like Mr. Sherman think when they see shows like Bakemonogatari as being top DVD/Blu-Ray sellers in Japan? Their years and years of relying and pushing action shounen titles must make it so they can’t comprehend how a show that’s hyper-stylized and spends all it’s time showing characters talking could ever possibly sell in America.

So these American anime companies pass on shows like Bakemonogatari and wait for the next Naruto and complain that fansubs are killing anime because their waiting for the next Naruto obviously means something is wrong with anime. The funny thing is they might be right about the difficulty in their ability to sell shows like Bakemonogatari to America but let’s remember that it’s these same company executive’s limited mindset that has stunted the ability for the mainstream anime fandom in America to grow with their Japanese counterparts, causing a near incompatibility between the two.

To further compound this problem, American anime companies sticking to a 2001 mindset also cause yet more problems. People, including anime fans, get bored of watching the same type of shows over-and-over again; look at the cyclical nature to American prime-time television as a great example of this. So what do these bored anime fans do when they get tired of watching anime that bores them? Either become former anime fans or head to the dark, dangerous underbelly of the internet and find all the titles they’ve been missing out on. And even if you can find anime fans that don’t tire of watching the same type of show over-and-over, by watching only those action shounen titles targeted towards the younger audience it’s very probable that these anime fans will decide one day that they’ve “outgrown” anime because it’s meant for kids and, unless someone steps in and shows them the wider possibilities found in anime, they will stop being anime fans.

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Where I Mention Another Market That Alarmists Have Said Will Die “If Something Isn’t Done!”

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Print science fiction. Except in the case of print SF, people have prognosticated it’s immanent death since at least the early 1980’s. Hasn’t happened yet and it probably never will, provided great SF books/stories are still being written. So, I put little stock in any statement about the immanent death of anime as long as great anime is still being made and a quick look shows that plenty of quality anime is still getting made.

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Where I Remind Mr. Sherman the Easiest Way To Get Rid Fansubs Is To Put Out a Superior Product

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I asked earlier how much is a DVD worth if the dub track will never be listened to and watching it subbed means putting up with that ugly yellow font and poor handling of signs and watching it as a DVD means having to settle for the resolution a DVD offers. The answer is not very much and it looks even sadder when compared to the standard fansub I can find in the dark recesses of the internet put out by unpaid amateurs.

If anime companies in America can come up with a better way to give anime fans their anime then fansubs would go the way of the horse & buggy, the record/8-track players, the canals, the walkie-talkies and the elevator operators. Until that happens though, the anime companies in America will be the ones in danger of disappearing and not fansubs.

And will anime die if every single American anime company shuts down? To answer, I’ll first have to assume this scenario is possible because if anime is anything like print SF then as companies close down, new people with new ideas start new companies and pick up where the old companies left off and there’s never a point when somebody isn’t producing anime/manga/ print SF. So, assuming this worst case scenario, would anime die if every single American anime company shuts down? I’d have to say no, I don’t think so.

For all the bluster that Mr. Sherman displays in his rant – America don’t actually make the anime, we’re only a secondary market to Japan. If we were truly important to them then we’d be able to leverage better treatment from them. Remember how in the case of Haruhi the overwhelming amount of fans in America wanted the DVDs released in TV order and the Japanese license holder would only allow the TV order as an “extra” for the limited edition DVDs and only as a subtitled release. Or the continued reluctance of the Japanese rights holders in allowing us Americans to release anime Blu-ray discs. They couldn’t let the remote possibility of reverse importation mess-up their true cash cow even if that makes fansubs all the more enticing to everyone else.

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Where I Write a Conclusion and Hope Someone Has Read This Entire 2300+ Word Blog Entry and Derived Something Positive From It

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Let’s Recap: Mr. Sherman, President and CEO of the dubbing studio Bang Zoom writes a rant about the impending death of anime and I find it funny for being so out-of-touch with reality. It didn’t rate a response until I realized this was a chance to talk about how unexpectantly awesome the Baccano dub was (thanks Funimation!) and to snub Bang Zoom for screwing up three recent great anime shows by providing poor to slightly better then mediocre dubs and to talk about how the worth of an anime DVD changes drastically depending on the quality of it’s dub. I also realize that I can take this opportunity to voice my displeasure about the history of licensing only certain types of shows for America and to point out how these studio executives are too short-sighted and/or dumb to realize the consequences of their licensing patterns. And I realized I can mention what I think about all these Chicken Littles who want to make us believe the sky is falling and also to remind Mr. Sherman (who probably won’t actually ever read this post) that the surest way to get rid of a product is to produce a superior product and watch capitalism work it’s magic and let the inferior product disappear.

So after realizing all this, I got to writing this blog entry and here we are, a dozen hours of writing from me and 2300+ words written. I hope at least one person out there enjoyed this post and got something from it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some anime to watch.