Shameful Otaku Secret!

You call it filler, I call it… blog tapas.

Nothing worth a full blog post here. So here’s a few random thoughts:

1. Nabari No Mo

Fansub group Rumi has been issued a takedown notice by Funimation, who has “obtained an agreement authorizing FUNimation to act on behalf of d-rights to prevent infringement on specific titles.” So no more than 6 episodes from the end of a series, I’m forced to stop watching it, “though these series have not been licensed to a local distributor in North America.” That means I may never see the end (you know, where the inevitable gay sex will be).

I have a couple questions here (perhaps someone like a jpmeyer or an Omo can answer them):

1. Firstly, is it not the distribution of raws that is the illegal part? So wouldn’t releasing a script (like an .ass) be a reasonable “circumvention?” Obviously, that’s up to the subbers, if they want to play it clean, they might not even want to enable people who obtain the raws, but if you obtain the raws you’ve already done the dodgy part… or am I wrong?
2. Second, how does the DMCA, and US federal copyright law, apply to a property that isn’t licensed in the US?
3. Does this imply that there will be a license for the series, and the other ones in the package (Bamboo Blade, Monochrome Factor, etc)?
4. Could someone pull a pirate bay and locate (their tracker) outside the jurisdiction of Funi and the DMCA? I’m not saying it’s a great idea, just curious.

Anyway, I can’t say I’m really that rootin’ tootin’ about the series, but now that I’ve come this far, it’s at least a rental. Provided it actually becomes licensed.

2. I am an extremist, and I enjoy seeing pretty girls being dismembered.

According to Author anyway.

Well… let’s not get carried away. I mean… are there robots involved? This affects my answer. I suppose I did caption that image “Fuck yes,” but really that picture was just enabling some fine-ass Kabitzin punnery.

And if what you meant was, “I would rather see some sweet spattering gore as long as it’s in a good anime than watch a bunch of underage nekomimi cavort around in their underpants for 24 minutes a week while pretending to be airplanes,” then yes. I am an extremist.

Anyway, I do understand the creators are in the place where they are through no fault of their own, but my 2 bucks doesn’t care where the blame goes. It cares when the new Blassreiter comes out.

3. I can’t find my Netflix.

This is irrelevant to most of anything, but people have been talking a lot about Netflix lately for some retarded reason. Here are some Netflix fun facts:

1. I have been on the service for 8 years.
2. I watched a lot of anime on Netflix.
3. The delay stories are true. You have to know just how fast to return your movies for maximum value. Not too fast, not too slow.
4. “Watch Instantly” is kind of a drag because the DRM requires Internet Explorer (and thus, Windows), there is a really small selection, and anime always shows the dub.
5. There is no big fucking whoop or revelation about Netflix, and if you’re watching anime using it, you are about the 8 millionth person to do so.
6. I have never once made a spreadsheet of my rentals.

Problem is, I moved recently, and all my boxes have finally been unpacked, and some miscellaneous disc-shaped things from one corner of one room are missing: The bonus music CD from the Home Movies season 1 box set, my RahXephon box, and two movies from Netflix. Possibly some candy. Kind of sucks.

4. That reminds me.

Primer is a really good movie. You should try it. Not sure you can get it from Netflix though. I hear some guy is hoarding it at his house. Weird.

Take a step back in time to the future

Sometime before the advent of translucent cels photographed in a sequence to give the illusion of motion, some folks in a country not far from anime’s homeland invented a revolutionary device that allowed stories to be told, stored, and possibly fansubbed.

It was called paper.

Somewhere along the line, young humans lost their desire to get their entertainment from the material, which I’m told was somehow plant-based. The flashy picture-box holds more sway these days. But in Japan, and the West, there remains a paper-style form of enjoyment that’s still popular with the kids.

I’ve never been a big comics or manga fan myself. I like the stuff, but three volumes into Battle Royale I realized I could have owned the DVD of the movie with the money they cost, and it’s physically impossible to watch a whole DVD film in the 8 minutes it takes to read a manga volume.

And the serial magazines that we get in the US pale in comparison to the choices the Japanese have. But now, we finally have something reasonable.

Yen+ is, unsurprisingly, from US manga publisher Yen Press. It’s a giant hunk of that paper stuff that will surprise you if you’re used to the tiny-sized tankoubon that we usually get over here. The pages are big, there are a metric shit-ton of them, and they’re printed on paper that’s a good deal better than Japan’s newprint issues.

The magazine is split in the middle: Read it from back cover right-to-left until you reach the center, and you get unflipped Japanese titles. Do the opposite, and you’re reading American and Korean comics. Which you enjoy best is up to you, because the titles are really varied and most are pretty good.

Readers on the fansub tip will recognize most Japanese titles right away, especially the cover piece, Atsushi Ohkubo’s Soul Eater. The American side’s cover is graced by the inaugural issue of suspense author James Patterson’s entry to the manga world, Maximum Ride. This is a big post for a big volume, so check out the review after the jump. There might be minor spoilers, but these are all first chapters.

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