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Created By Adam

New York Anime Festival Mascot Contest

The New York Anime Festival is moving to October! Taking place October 8-10 in the Jacob Javits Center in NYC beside the New York Comic Con, NYC's celebration of Japanese popular culture will be bigger and better than ever, but before the 2010 New York Anime Festival can take place, it needs a mascot – and the New York Anime Festival is looking for your help!

In 2008, NYAF put a spotlight on Chibizilla, a minute giant monster. In 2009, NYAF's mascot was a shiny, sparkly bishounen taxi driver. In 2010? It's up to you! Wouldn't you love to see your character at the biggest anime festival in the North East? Thanks to Del Rey Manga, theOtaku.com, Kinokuniya Bookstore, and the New York Anime Festival, you can!

Between now and May 20th, Kinokuniya, theOtaku.com, Del Rey Manga, and the New York Anime Festival welcome artists and anime fans from around America to think about what “Anime”, “New York City”, and (because we're in October) “Halloween”, mean to them and draw these thoughts into an original character. Whether it's big, small, a towering mecha, or chibi, we want to see your entries!

Once all the entries are in, Kinokuniya, theOtaku.om, Del Rey Manga, and the New York Anime Festival will be selecting ten finalists that will be put on display at Kinokuniya Bookstore in NYC (1073 Ave of the Americas). Kinokuniya visitors will vote for their favorite, with the character receiving the most votes crowned NYAF's 2010 mascot. On June 26, as part of a day of anime events at Kinokuniya, the winner will be revealed!

Sounds good? What are the rules?
1. You must be 13-years-old or older.
2. You must be a US or Canadian resident.
3. Your art must be original. (No using the characters from Negima.)
4. Your art must be at least 300 dpi.
5. Your art must be in JPEG format.
6. Your art must be accompanied by your full (real) name, e-mail address, age, and phone number. (Use this form to fill in your information)

What about the prizes?

This is your chance to get your artwork in front of over 20,000 anime fans! The 2010 New York Anime Festival mascot will grace the convention's program guide and appear on signs throughout the event, and to make sure the winner's name is known, he or she will be profiled in the New York Anime Festival's program guide beside the mascot.

And, there's more! The creator of the winning New York Anime Festival mascot will receive a copy of all of the New York Anime Festival's swag with the mascot appearing on it (T-Shirts, Posters…) and take home 10 weekend passes to the 2010 New York Anime Festival!

We're not done yet, as Del Rey Manga will be giving the winner an instant collection -- 50 volumes of manga!

Our nine other finalists will each receive two weekend passes to the New York Anime Festival and one volume of manga from Del Rey.

So, break out the pencils, fire up the Photoshop, read through the official rules, and submit your original mascot right here!

Chat and Comment Upgrade

One of the biggest concerns members bring up when they use chat, is the inability to make a room until they've been a member for a year. Since we have a lot of members who enjoy role-playing and having duels between their fictional characters, this made it difficult, if not impossible for them to use chat as it was intended. To this end we have now added general purpose rooms to chat that are open to everyone who wishes to use them.

Another concern, that is often brought to my attention, is the restriction on how often you can comment in a row to respond to people. To help make it a little easier for you to thank people for their kind comments on your world, fan art or any other area, we've expanded the number of replies in a row from three to five.

Special thanks goes out to all of the members who took the time to bring these concerns to my attention. Thank you for your wonderful input.

theOtaku.com Anime Podcast VII - ...And Thanks For All The Fish

Batou, we'll be here for when you get back, whenever that is. 'Til then, you take care, you big blinky bastard (what can I say, it was comforting to see someone else with the same eye thingy as I have). Also, just for you:

Happy trails, man.

Music - So Long and Thanks For All the Fish from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

The following podcast may contain some coarse language that may offend some listeners. Discretion is advised.

For a link to Anime Pulse's theOtaku.com World, go here.
For a link to The Watercooler World, go here.

And finally, you can find Ichigo's travel log over at the Anime Pulse website (under the "features" tab). He's gettin' some crazy adventures over there. Go read. Right after the podcast.

Obligatory Instructions:

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Once subscribed, you'll get each week's episode automatically delivered, whether you visit us or not.

So let's start! To listen to our podcast, click the play button above. You can also download the mp3 directly by clicking here.

Caption Battle: With All The Strength Of A Raging Fire...

"It's that time again..."
"To learn that Harvard bars don't have equations and stuff on the walls?"
"To finish the caption battle before the podcast?"
"No... it's time for... oh wait..."

But first, last week's winners:

In third place, with a good joke but dropped by (now-fixed) spelling mistakes: xfishyx!

And thus Amu learned what she had done on her drunken night out. On another note, Rima learned that she loves Facebook.

In second place, because the internet is scary: Shinmaru!

Rima told Amu to do a Google image search of herself with the filter turned off. The results were not pretty.

And in the coveted first place out of sheer universality... FaithlessFighter!

No ANYTHING BUT THE FILLER SEASONS!!!

Good job, guys. And for the rest of you all who didn't bother to see if people before you had already used your idea, well... consider yourselves on Cone of Shame(TM) warning.

So this week, I want to get rid of an old screencap that's been staring at me for years in the screencap folder. Comes from ye olde archives, comes from the anime Naruto, and features none other than Maile Flanagan. Now come and help me with my hard drive spring cleaning:

You know the drill: type up the funniest, wittiest, most original caption you can think of for the screencap above in the comments below. Also, if any of you would like some tips on writing a great caption, you can find those here.

And like always, theOtaku is open to all submissions and suggestions for weekly feature content. You have a screencap you want used, you can PM me and we can do somethin' about it. So good luck, and remember: "surprise buttsex" has a win record of 0.0% in these caption battles; stop using it.

theOtaku.com Anime Podcast VII - Ep. 26

Technically, the French colours are referred to as blue, white and red. More importantly, Batou fans take heed - there's important Batou news this week. So listen carefully - may be a while before the next time you hear him.

Music - We're Not Alone by Coldrain from Rainbow ~Nisha Rokubou no Shichinin~