Well Holloween come and went I hope everyone got sick of eating candy like I did.
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Funimation's Revenues Drive Navarre 2Q Financials
Navarre Corporation, the parent company of the anime licensing and distribution company FUNimation, has announced that second quarter net sales for all of its units grew 18.5% from the same period last year. The total figure for the three months from July to September was US$170.3 million, compared to last year's US$143.7 million.
Navarre CEO Gary Deacon said that there were "significant increases in sales of anime content" within Navarre's publishing segment that includes FUNimation, Encore, and BCI. Net sales for the segment were US$28.8 million, up US$1.8 million, and FUNimation accounted for most of the increase. This was driven by the acquisition of a number of new licenses, as well as the rights to distribute series previously licensed in the United States by other companies, such as Hellsing Ultimate and Devil May Cry. FUNimation's aggressive pursuit of deals to make its series available for digital distribution via YouTube, Joost, iTunes, the XBox Live service, and other channels also had a positive impact. Year-to-date sales, however, stood at US$56.2 million, somewhat below last year's US$56.7 million.
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FUNimation Sues CA Retail Sites over Alleged Bootlegs
The North American anime distributor FUNimation Productions is suing a group of related companies in Southern California for allegedly selling counterfeit DVDs of its licensed anime on a website. FUNimation is alleging that a California resident named Hae Yong Ro and four affiliated businesses — N Trading, Inc, Discount Anime DVD, BuyDVD.com, and DOES — infringed on FUNimation and its licensers' copyrights and trademarks by selling unauthorized copies of Fruits Basket, Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragonball GT, and Fullmetal Alchemist. Some of the DVDs are said to have included English dubbing.
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Bandai Ent. Posts English-Dubbed Code Geass R2 Trailer
The North American anime distributor Bandai Entertainment has posted an English-dubbed trailer for Sunrise's Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2 sequel series on its official website. The first episode, "Day a Demon Awakens," premieres on the Adult Swim television network on Sunday morning at 5:00 a.m ET/PT. The series just ended in Japan last month. Bandai Entertainment announced at Otakon 2008 last August that Code Geass R2 will run on Adult Swim immediately after the last episode of the first Code Geass series.
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-fallenangel8
New Prince of Tennis Manga to Reportedly Start in March
The December issue (on sale on November 4) of Shueisha's Jump Square magazine will reportedly announce that Takeshi Konomi will start a new manga
series for The Prince of Tennis in the April issue (on sale on March 4). The purported advertisement from the Jump Square issue says that everything in The Prince of Tennis up to now has been "prologue" and that "a new legend for [the main character] Ryoma and the others will begin." Konomi ended the original manga series in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine last March after almost nine years and 379 installments. However, he has been soliciting new assistant artists since early August.
Jump Square already announced that a new "tribute" manga called Hōkago no Ōji-sama (The Prince of Afterschool) will launch in the December issue on November 4. The same issue will have a poster, the launch of a new series of feature articles on The Prince of Tennis musical, and a giveaway for musical tickets. The second volume in the third animated video series shipped this month, and the musical version continues to run in Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea. Viz Media will publish the 28th of the 42 manga volumes in North America next month.
Source
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Weeeeee time for the first installment of theOtaku.com 2 Cents I want this to work out but I can't do it without the help from all of you so from Someguy here is his news or as I am going to call Stuff from Someguy. (I am bad with coming up with titles)
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Here's all the interesting video game politics stories Kotaku did from the past little bit.
This Is How Game Misinformation Spreads
The Gist: Faith Reporter for blog "The Republican American" makes a grievous, grievous failure to not do the research re: Little Big Planet (and, conversely, Spore, the game she confused it with).
Important Because: The whole Little Big Planet recall story was already pretty insane as is; a licensed song in the game featured a couple lines from the Qu'ran, and some Muslim groups are upset about this. In turn, Sony quickly recalled the game and patched it to remove the song. In turn, the song's composer - a devout Muslim himself - basically said that it wasn't that big of a deal in the long run. Also, a Muslim community leader has already spoken out against Sony's censorship, basically saying that "equality and religious freedom doesn't work this way." Finally, the lady who wrote the post (who has since apologised profusely for her grievous, grievous failure to not do the research) is posting more imaginary video game dramas that we always get tired of seeing; whether the fact that she blogs on a site called "The Republican American" should suggest anything, well . . .
Fallout 3 Ads Make DC Metro Rider's Butt Hurt
The Gist: Letter written into The Washington Post about how Fallout 3's advertisements with DC in flames and stuff like that are apparently forcing America's worst fears onto its people's daily commutes.
Important Because: People are stupid. Also, getting upset about video game ads in public transportation don't work out so well.
Refreshing Comments From an Elected Official
The Gist: British member of Parliament makes statement that vilifying video games and such is stupid because they play a large part in the UK economy.
Important Because: someone is getting the picture. We just need more forward-thinkers like this to get into a good place.
So that's that.
There was also a story about Activision's former head of PR for Guitar Hero quitting so she could become Playboy's Miss November - and how she also admitted to liking Rock Band a whole lot more. But somehow I think the kiddies might not dig this one quite as much.
Cheers.
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We also have a review of Ouran High School Host Club the FUNimation dub from baka no hanyou. Also please try to keep a open mind when reading the review. Don't forget to pick up the first 13 episode boxset this Tuesday.
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Now, I am all about Anime Equal Opportunity: I never judge a dub until I hear it. Sometimes, dubs have been really good. The 4Kids dub of Yu-Gi-Oh was better than the original, if I do say so myself. Every voice in the dub was unique, which is more than you can say for the sub. Yu Yu Hakusho was also really well done. Each voice fit the personalities of the main characters. Characters sounded Spanish, Irish, scary, bubbly, calm, angry, stupid and every color in between. Ever since Yu Yu Hakusho, I’ve loved FUNimation dubs because they seemed to always fit voices to characters as best as they could. Spiral was well done, as was Full Metal Alchemist. While most people refuse to even dubs, I say, “don’t judge an anime by it’s company.” I always try to hear a dub and sub before I make a decision to like or dislike it.
But the one thing I cannot accept is FUNimation’s dub of Ouran High School Host Club.
My friends got me into OHSHC about a year ago now. I read the manga online because America is too slow with their translations. I managed to finish the anime during Christmas break; shortly after that it was licensed by FUNi and it was removed from Veoh. I may not like where the manga is going, but I loved the anime; it was short, sweet, and to the point. Since I heard FUNimation got a hold of it, I was excited to see how it would turn out…until I started hearing the rumors that everyone wanted Vic Mignogna to do Tamaki.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Vic. I love what he did as Ed Elric, he did Ura Urashima in Yu Yu Hakusho, and I enjoy his part as Dark Mousy. He comes to our Boise, Idaho anime convention every spring. He’s a funny guy with perfect hair. But Vic’s voice is just not perfect for Tamaki Suou. Before I watched the OHSHC dub, just picturing Ed Elric having a Tamaki “freak out” just sent chills down my spine, along with my friends’ spines.
It seems to me that Caitlin Glass just went into OHSHC thinking, “wow, my first directing job…let’s bring back the cast of Full Metal Alchemist!” Do any of you know how depressing it is to look at an FMA calendar with Winry, Roy, Ed, and Al on it and know that those are the same voices that will be in your favorite anime? It makes your stomach sink. Justin Cook, how I miss your directing…
Let’s use Haruhi as an example: the female character that isn’t really gender specified. We all know she’s a girl, but she can pass off looking/sounding like a guy, which is what the sub does. Caitlin Glass did a good job of sounding like a guy…in the first five minues. Literally. At 5:23 seconds, Haruhi started to sound like a girl and continued to do so throughout the entire anime, until the last two minutes.
They also completely redid the opening and ending themes. Why would you even touch the themes when thousands of fans already loved it the way it was? Yu Yu Hakusho’s redone themes were wonderful. Spiral’s themes weren’t even touched, which was fun. Full Metal Alchemist’s weren’t touched either. Have we really become so dumb as anime fans that we can’t recognize when people are singing in Japanese? Or themes have to be redone for some odd reason?
Did the people who sang the Ouran theme remixes even know how to sing? I’m a music major and those songs hurt my ears with how out-of-tune they were.
Furthermore, I think to be a dub voice actor, from now on, it should be required that you have at least two years of Japanese. No wonder con noobs run around screaming “Ka-way naco desu!” Our dubs don’t pronounce Japanese properly in the first place. Tamaki’s name sounded oddly like “tamahawk” every time someone said it. Hearing that made me flinch and scream. Hekaroo is not his name, by the way. It’s Hikaru. And “Haru-CHAN?” I can’t even describe how wrong that “-chan” was, except it was loud, obnoxious, and totally mispronounced. Did you voice actors also know that “senpai” is with an ‘n’ not an ‘m’? And we can leave in the second ‘o’ in Ootori. It’s okay, our brains won’t break.
If I had had my fan way with OHSHC, I might have cast John Burgmeier as Tamaki. While I can’t exactly imagine him having Tamaki freak outs, he can at least sound sophisticated, which is what Tamaki is. Greg Ayres would have done both twins. They’re supposed to sound exactly the same, hence the “Guess which one is Hikaru” game. Jerry Jewell would have also made a good twin or twins. Chuck Huber might have done Kyouya, because he can pull off evil characters really well (Hiei) and Kyouya is the Shadow King. If Aaron Dismuke hadn’t aged at all, he would have been perfect for Hunny, but alas…I don’t really know who could have done Mori. Either Chris Sabat or Justin Cook, but that wouldn’t have been the perfect fit. Chris Sabat was cast perfectly as Kasanoda, and if Justin Cook were able to make his voice slightly deeper and rougher, then it would fit Mori. Cynthia Cranz would make the perfect Renge because she’s already played bubbly (read: crazy) characters before. Or Caitlin could do Renge, because I hate Renge. Seriously, her Japanese laugh makes me grate my teeth together.
And finally, FUNi is charging highway robbery just for these first 13 episodes. $60 for two disks with 13 episodes? No way. The Yu Yu Hakusho rerelease boxsets are selling for cheaper than that. Heck, I’ve bought previous DVDs that have 14 episodes on two disks for $20. The Ouran “boxset” is basically selling for more than $5 an episode. It’s not worth it.
I sometimes wish anime worked like Disney did: when Disney created cartoons, they made the characters fit the voice or vice versa. When animes are voiced nowadays, it’s just, “hey, let’s put this actor here because we can!” Yes, I know they’re audition, but it just doesn’t sound that way anymore. My friend is a big fan of Ookiku Furikabutte, and we both fear what FUNimation will do to this anime next. Again, I say, “I miss you, Justin Cook.”
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OK guys and gals keep the submissions coming I'll post new ones at less once a week.
