James Andrews

Tonight I ventured over to Movie Stop and grabbed a disc I have been waiting to be released for months. It is the latest Hayao Miyazaki’s Chibli studios film “Ponyo”. A story inspired by “The little mermaid” (or so Disney has put on the outside box) of a little sea creature who is found by Sasuke a 5 year old boy who mistakes her for a gold fish, and takes her home. Ponyo however is the daughter of the sea goddess, and once she gets the taste of human food she uses her magic to transform herself into a human. With her transformation brings on strange events and their adventure begins.

Much like many of Miyazaki’s other films it is hard not to fall in love with the characters. Ponyo’s innocent playful manner. Sasuke’s serious undertaking of the job that he’s set out to do, along with the incredible character design and story makes for great family fun. Highly recommended.

Woke up later than planned and made my way to the Hynes for day two. Arrived and the place was packed. Registration was in great order from what I can tell. I think AB has fixed that problem. Yay!

I spent much time roaming the halls, talking to people I know. Stopped by the Funimation booth picked up Crayon Shinchan season 2 part 1. I’ll probably be watching that on Monday.

I didn’t go to any panels though. I guess I was just not enthusiastic about the selection. A lot of it is the same thing that you see year after year. Things like “How to make a plushy.” and “Lolliata Fashion” just don’t do anything for the male 36yr old demographic (ie me). Any of the panels that I would have been interested in seeing didn’t start until 8-9pm which kind of sucks for those who are in my age range who did pay for a badge (I did not, I was comped), that there may only be 2-3 panels a day that they may have any interest.

Now to be fair, most of the attendants are in a much different age group, and I am sure that the selection of panels suited them just fine. It just isn’t my can of Coke. (I don’t drink tea ).

I left early about 5:30pm, I didn’t feel like waiting around until 8:30pm for a panel that I might enjoy.

One last comment before I put Anime Boston 2009 behind me. This is more aimed at the Hyne’s covention center more than anything. The first year AB was in the HCC there was a cafeteria that had tables and chairs where people who bought food from the HCC vendors could sit and eat. Last year and this year, and probably back in 2007 as well the cafeteria has been gone. Instead they have set up vendors outside the area where the cafeteria was. There are no chairs and not tables, essentially no place for people to get off their feet and eat the meal they just paid $8+ for. It is absolutely ridiculous, these guys make a fortune off kids with ridiculous prices, and they won’t even set up a place for them to eat. NOT COOL!

With that I am done, enjoy the last day of the convention everyone, I have an attic to clean out.

Today was Day one of Anime Boston. I arrived close to 10am, and the halls were bustling with folk heading to registration, figuring out where and what things were. The usual day 1 activities. I walked around taking photos, lots of costumes I recognized, lots of others I didn’t Some were well crafted and others, well not so much, but you expect that from anime conventions.

Those of you who have not arrived at the con will be glad to hear that registration ran very smoothly. I peaked my head in there a couple times and saw little or no lines. The dealers room is gianormous, and artists alley is filled with a lot of neat items. I didn’t spend any money in the dealers room, and probably won’t but I spent money in artists alley, an may spend a little more tomorrow.

I made it to 2 panels. One was QA with “Laura Bailey” is the voice of a Shin Chan, one of my all time favorite anime characters. Very amusing woman, great sense of humor, and pretty much filled every request asked of her. During this panel the last person who went to ask her a question, said “I have a question, but it’s not for you.” He then turned and proposed to his girlfriend. How sweet!

Next I made my way to The Chibi Project panel. TCP takes destruction of toys to a new level. It all started around 10 years ago with a small PVC figure of the Sailor Moon character known as “Chibi Moon”. Since then TCP has been finding new and amusing ways to destroy toys. Tonight they even did a live experiment for the audience, but you’ll have to wait for the episode to air to find out what it was and if they succeeded.

So 1 day down 1 to go (for me anyway). I’ll report back tomorrow evening with more fun.

Last night I watched the 1st episode of the new FMA: Brotherhood series courtesy of Funimation. To continue on my future of television post. This is what I love about TV on the Internet. FMA Brotherhood Episode 1 was first shown in Japan 5 days ago. Funimation got it, had it translated and subtitled, in 4 days, and then had it online for the US anime audience.

It is located here in case you want to watch it.

The episode starts off with the same animation style that we say in the first FMA series. The general story telling seems very much the same as well. Ed gets all pissy about being called punnie, All the other members of the military seem to have the same mannerisms, not much different there. Within the first 5 minutes of the episode you can see that the continuity is off. Certain characters who you know should already be acquainted Major Hews his family, Ed and Al for example seem to meet for the first time here. When in the original series they had met before Ed became a state alchemist. In the original series Ed and Al even helped deliver Major Hews daughter who in the new series is already 2-4 years old. This really saddens me that they totally threw off the continuity. I am hoping there aren’t too many more similar issues.

So far it seems like it’ll be a fun series. We’ll see as they start introducing more characters.

Over the last 2 days I have managed to watch 102 episodes of a Japanese anime called “Naruto Shippuden”. I was able to do this legally online without having to pay to watch for each episode all thanks to the partnership between the Hulu and VIZ media corporation who are the license holders for Naruto in the US. There are a few things about this that really made me happy and I hope that some one somewhere in that industry reads this because I think they have a great thing going.

First off. I HATE Cartoon Network. As many of you may know CN is owned Time Warner when it was originally conceptualized the main idea was TW wanted a place where they could show all the old Hana-Barbera cartoons that they had purchased. That was all fine and good but it grew to be something more than that to the point where they were showing a lot of really great Japanese animation, as well as some great original material. Cartoon Network eventually started Adult Swim, which took control of CN’s airwaves after 10pm on weeknights and weekends. While they had some original programming based off of old Hana-Barbera media, they also had a nice collection of Japanese animation. Cartoon Network had become the leader in providing Japanese animation on TV despite ADV’s attempt at Anime Network.

Today’s Cartoon Network is a different beast. While they still do have some great original programming they have forsaken the Japanese animation even though there are still a lot of interest in Anime. With the exception of Pokemon which is played every weekday morning there is very little anime during the 7am-10pm hour. Adult Swim is a different story. For a while they had a lot of GREAT original programming. Aquateen Hunger Force which was my personal favorite and many others seemed to shine, but recently the shows have gone downhill in a menacing spiral and all anime has been pushed off to late saturday night/early sunday morning. A slew of [AS]’s mistakes include showing Family Guy to the point of it being unwatchable, shows like “Tom Goes to the Mayor” and “Tim and Eric good show great job”, and more recently the inclusion of “King of the Hill”, probably because some suit at TW felt that that horse hadn’t been beaten to death enough. They’ve basically ruined a good thing.

This is just one example of a television network screwing up and disappointing their viewers. Fox is notorious for scheduling changes that keep shows from becoming smash hits (ie Firefly/Family Guy), and I personally think that now is the time for the industry’s major overhaul.

NBC the parent company for Hulu is on the right track, but I still think they have a LONG way to go. Allowing the choice of what you want to view, when you want to view it is a great first step. Limiting the number of commercials per commercial break is AWESOME, even though I think they could do better in means of allowing the user a choice in the kinds of commercials that interest them. For example I don’t care about women’s products, don’t advertise them to me while I watch. The internet is empowering, allow the consumers the power to control what they want to see. There are so many times I turn on the TV and at 4am I can’t find a thing to watch because it’s all infomercials. Give me a world where I don’t have to watch banners at the bottom of shows advertising other shows. Give me a world where I don’t have to watch commercials about little blue pills until I need information about those little blue pills.

The state of television is dim, internet television’s future is bright, let’s do it right!