For being an anime site, I’m going to have to jury rig the reason why I feel like I want to talk about website design. When one visits a site for something to read, you want an unobstructed view of the information. So if you want lovely animu boobs/dfc, you don’t want any censorship. The current modern censorship technique in anime is a blinding shaft of light that gets in the way of the scene. It can be hilarious, but it is also incredibly stupid as it destroys the presentation. It’s a definite mood ruiner. The only exception is when the censorship is part of the anime, meaning it is obviously intentional.

I recently visited a couple of Livejournal-esque pages with their content squished in narrow columns barely larger than 400 pixels, on either side of the screen. Instantly closed the browser tab and didn’t bother. On my widescreen monitor (1680×1050), that is over a thousand horizontal pixels wasted. This is a thing that I get angry over, and by you visiting my site, you’ll already notice I love using up the horizontal space. Sure, I understand the need to frame the text. Centering the content, or being considerate to those with small monitors. That is something I don’t mind.

But to those whose content is any smaller than 500 pixels and squished to either side of the monitor: fuck you.

-maserbeam

Being director aware is something relatively new to me. The last 3 years of my anime viewing career has steadily ramped up in looking up staff credits to find out who is doing my favorite series. This initiates the activity that I like to call data hopping — when a piece of information leads you progressively towards other data, which may link back to the initial data. While doing data hopping for a recent series named Tamayura, I ended up looking at information on Cowboy Bebop. How do these have anything in common? And why is there a picture of the Aria Company building above? I’ll tell you why. In a very roundabout way.

Junichi Sato is one director that has affected my personality permanently. The show Aria — directed by Junichi Sato — is flooded with heart-warming scenes, and has a relaxing atmosphere like no other show — barring Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou. Sato does his directing with a stylistic flair that manages to stay subtle. But had it been someone else, I don’t think it would have had the right sense of timing and photographic angle work to really capture the series. Once you’re relatively in the groove of finding hints who is directing a show you may be watching, Sato’s mark is distinguishable but still rather stealthy.

Click click.

-maserbeam

Yay E3. My opinions in particular can be rather baseless, but they’re opinions and I’m not trying to persuade otherwise. This E3 was a joke. The only person who seemed comfortable with themselves on the stage was Cliff Bleszinski. Oh, and I almost forgot Mr. ‘Kevin Butler’, but he’s just silly. (In a good way.)

First off, I’m already miffed at Nintendo flaunting how much crap they’ve sold. You can watch the Nintendo conference anywhere – just google it or go ahead and visit your favorite site for gaming media. They’ve sold more? Good for them. I couldn’t care less if they sold 15 million more units than the PS3. But aside from that, the Nintendo conference had Reggie and his fellow corporate buddies speaking to me like I was an idiot. Sure – they have to speak to an audience with a wide range of journalists and just.. people. The way they spoke and delivered their wares seemed that there had to be some applause after everything they said. I felt annoyed after watching the Nintendo conference, uninterested with Microsoft, and angry at Sony. And the 3DS announcement was underwhelming; please get an English speaking person next time, Nintendo. Even then, I don’t think that would have improved it, so I’ll count my blessings for now.

The only thing that made me happy from the Sony conference was Portal 2, and Gabe’s few opening statements were pretty funny. And as much as I may be excited to see another Dead Space 2, I was hoping for a different game. It wasn’t in the conference, but I’m also on the lookout for FFXIV, since I’ve played FFXI and actually stuck with it for a while to realize it’s probably the best Final Fantasy game I’ve ever played.

And meh to Microsoft. Please enjoy the picture of Sakuya watching Ryuu getting his arse kicked.

-maserbeam

The image above is of the “new” Hatsune Miku designed by Crypton Future Media which graced the cover of the box for the virtual idol’s second release entitled “CV01 Hatsune Miku Append”. Crypton is widely accepted to be the leader in the VOCALOID world when it comes to vocal quality and merchandising, so when Crypton made the unexpected announcement that they would be changing the pictures for all of their characters with the new releases, people were generally displeased.

It is not the fact that the image has changed that makes this so big a deal, it’s the principle of the matter. Put simply, Crypton made an unforgivable mistake. They forgot that their entire operation is 100% community-driven. In the VOCALOID world, making a change in what a character looks like is tantamount to changing the words to a national anthem. It’s true that it may not be that big of a deal on the outside, but it changes the heart and soul of the thing. Crypton’s decision to change what Miku looks like came without researching how the community would react, and now they feel the consequences. Sales of Hatsune Miku Append, though expected to be high due to very advanced technology and sound-quality, came short of what was expected and now Crypton has some serious decisions to make.

The main problem VOCALOID fans now face is, “Which one is the right one?”, and to a lesser extent, “what about the old images?” Crypton’s misguided move has possibly made tens of thousands of fan-created images incorrect, and more than this actually causes damage, it makes the community feel less attached to Miku, which is terrible news for Crypton indeed, given that their largest income comes straight from the people’s love for the virtual singer.

I understand that playing hardball in the business world is necessary, especially when it involves idols (virtual or not). But this is not the normal business world; this is a business that took off after a joke video that became an internet meme, and is supported entirely by a cult following. There is really no margin for error.

For now, the question remains unanswered, “Does this mark the beginning of the end for Crypton and Miku?” Possibly yes, and possibly no. Crypton still has enough income to stay afloat after a haphazard mistake like this, but if they continue with their previously-stated plan to re-design all of their VOCALOID characters, who knows what could happen?

Close-up of the new “Hatsune Miku Append” Figure

-Koda-P

When hearing Japanese from various sources,  you can eventually listen in on the language itself. I call this listening comprehension. The better you get at listening comprehension, the more the words form separately in your head. This mostly leads to actually understanding the words itself as opposed to a foreign language being unintelligible technobabble.  An obvious source for many people is anime. But can anime alone be enough to improve listening comprehension?

That’s inconceivable!

-maserbeam