Editorial Content
[Editorial] Guys Who Shove the M in Manime
By Josh Dunham
They’re everywhere. They are rays of hope for the pasty pale-skinned and sickly frail otaku that read the pages of Shonen Jump. Paragons to all those that have the XY chromosome: They are men. The type of men that make all other men look like they aren’t real men. They make Hulk Hogan look like your great grandmother. Yes, we’re talking about manly men.
[Looking Back] Cased Closed on the Big Screen
Written by: Jason Fetters
Did you ever wonder what would happen if Conan Edogawa (Case Closed) faced off against Kira (Death Note)? Josh Dunham put both of manga’s greatest tacticians against each other in a winner takes all battle of the minds. This is the first new feature on A3K in our new video initiative. Click here to visit our new media section or go directly to the video.
Anime3000 is proud to feature a new column by John-Paul Natysin of fightbait.com. We hope to feature his insightful and often tipsy musing on anime and miscellany fueled by your inquiry. Please write any questions you might have want his take on to
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. Also, feel free to write in our official Dear John-Paul thread in the community section.
I’ve heard a lot of reasons for why Tite Kubo decided to title his manga Bleach. A common claim is that it’s a reference to Ichigo’s hair color. The worst explanation I’ve come across is that it refers to how the Shinigami’s cleanse or “bleach” souls before they’re sent to Soul Society. The most believable answer, however, is “just because.”
Anime3000 is proud to feature a new column by John-Paul Natysin of fightbait.com. We hope to feature his insightful and often tipsy musing on anime and miscellany fueled by your inquiry. Please write any questions you might have want his take on to
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
.
Written by: John-Paul Natysin
Question: So Fightbait, I know you hate moe titles with a passionate passion but is there even one that you are willing to forgive? What is your least bad moe show?
In the year that I've been podcasting, I've gained the reputation of being a moe-hater. I'm not sure why. It's true that I wouldn't consider myself a fan of the genre, but I don't actively hate it either. I just don't watch the shows because I tend to get bored halfway through the first episode. There are, however, a few exceptions.
Read more: [Dear John-Paul] What is your least bad moe show?
Written by: Jason Fetters
I first started listening to J-pop because I happened to be at the mall in Pinellas Park that had a Shonen Knife CD back in 1994. In the early 90s the whole grunge thing was going on and I honestly didn’t care for it due to the whiney lyrics and repetitive riffs that got old quick. I was looking for something different, so I picked up Shonen Knife’s Rock Animals (1994), which was a pop-laced punk album. I liked Rock Animals back then mainly because it offered something that grunge wasn’t.
My second exposure was as a college student during the 90s. Hiro, my Japanese roommate from college, had a girlfriend who was coming to visit him from Kyoto and he asked me if I wanted any gifts. That made me recall an old catalogue from Video Search of Miami that had an ad for the J-pop singer Chara. Wanting to look cool and in-the-know, I said I wanted a Chara CD. I got lucky with that one since she had a hit single, Yasashii Kimochi, high on the charts. I stumbled into that one.
Read more: [Looking Back] Beyond Theme Songs: J-Indies for the Anime Fan
The State of A3K: A Look at 2009
by Sean Russell
We started our podcast in August of 2008 and finally found the chemistry that our show so desperately needed in the New Year. I was proud of our consistency, almost too proud. Without an outsider’s perspective, we wore our ignorance like a badge of honor. This would continue until March 16th. This was the turning point of the Anime 3000 Podcast, as well as the beginning of the end of the show as we knew it.
I credit Anime World Order and This Week in Tech for getting me into podcasting. More importantly, I appreciated the overwhelming amount of knowledge they had on their shows. I will never claim to be a repository for anime facts and I am okay with that fact. It is why I have writers like Fernando Ramos, John-Paul Natysin and Bradley Meek on my staff. As many now know, when I invited Daryl Surat on the program, something monumental was about to happen.
Written by: Josh DunhamThose who are savvy in the way of the Japanese market might
understand how pricey Blu-ray and DVDs are in the land of the rising sun. Especially
compared to the United States, anime DVDs in particular are the polar opposite
of what the Japanese have, paying upwards of $50 USD for just two episodes in
many cases.
Despite this seemingly giant stumbling block for sales, discs
still move. A classic example is Neon Genesis Evangelion, which has a
long history of good sales. So it comes as no surprise that the best selling
Blu-ray disc in Japan is Evangelion 1.11: You are (not) Alone, which
sold over 49,000 copies in its first week. Of course, nowadays it’s nothing
amazing to hear of a long-standing series such as Evangelion selling.
What is amazing is that a newer series has managed to reach nearly the same
sales numbers that Eva has and wiping out the rest of the competition along with it.
Read more: [Editorial] Bakemonogatari - The Making of a Monster?
Written by: Jason Fetters
Causally reading various anime forums and hearing our recent podcast on if one should call themselves a otaku in Japan, I came to think about my own past experiences in the country.
While still in America, I shared
an apartment with three Japanese roommates. When they found out I was going to
be studying in Japan, they all gave me advice that would suitable for any young nerd going to the motherland.
One of them, my friend Junnichi, told me to
never tell Japanese girls that I like anime, manga, or video games and avoid calling myself an
otaku.
Written by: Fernando RamosAs the decade starts to close out, it never ceases to amaze how much things seem to change, yet how little anything actually does.
Back in the 1998, there was a very vocal outcry over how MIXX Entertainment, a little company run by some guy named Stu Levy, was utterly ruining manga for everyone by ignoring fans. Now, in 2009, there has just been another very vocal outcry over how Tokyopop, a very large company run by some CEO named Stu Levy, isgoing to utterly ruin manga foreveryone by potentially putting translations for some of its 'on haitus' series in the hands of fans.
Thanks to Deb Aoki forcollecting these tweets. With apologies to Moritheil, here we go:
Read more: [Editorial] Tokyopop and Fans - Lost in an Obvious Pun
Written by: Jd Banks
My former art teacher once told me, “When you teach a class how to draw fish your way you get a hundred fish drawn the same way.” My teacher’s words echo through my head as I delve into the pages of any “How-To” book I read on drawing.
Artists aren’t born from how many how-to books they read, yet many aspiring artists tend to fall for this myth. After all, if every person just went by a how-to book on drawing, there would be hundreds more of the same-looking manga in circulation.
