With the lose of Newtype I lost contact with much of the info pertaining to
current anime releases in Japan. I loved having the inside scoop on what was showing and would eventually be licensed in the US. So please fill me in on what new series you've discovered and I'll do the same.

Demise of PiQ

When I first decided to start this page it was to criticize what ADV did by cancelling their Newtype USA and starting that trash called PiQ. Since then I discovered that i will not get a August issue of PiQ littering my mailbox since it has already been cancelled. Ye, July was the last issue if you haven't heard. They wonder why there advertisers dropped and their circulation dwindled. Well, more than 80% of their advertizers were anime and otaku based but only 3 or 4 articles were geared towards the people who were interested in the products being advertized. I'm no marketing geniuos but apparently I'm still smarter than they were. I guess the proof was their dwindling circulation. As I understand, they went from 100,000 readers to only 15,000. That alone speaks volumes. I guess it's no secret why they weren't willing to give refunds to subscribers when they changed over formats. They were nice enough to tell me that they would cancel my subscription but would not give me a refund. In my oppinion they did everything wrong from the start. I'm glad I was able to contact my credit card company and get half my subsrciption cost back before they went under. I might just try again to see if I can get the rest. You never know. I don't need the cash, it's just the principle of it. In the end I blame ADV for how all this was handled and their abandonment of the fans that buy their DVDs. If they weren't such a huge supplier of anime I would boycott them. Maybe someday a future ADV CEO will start up Newtype again. Hey, a man can dream.

What I'm watching now and recommend

Like many of you I'm watching D.Grayman. I'm 82 episodes into it and still intrigued by the story. I love the fact that Allen Walker's character is constantly developing thoughout the series and unlike many animes, his outfit is changing with him. I always appreciate when a character doesn't wear the same outfit for an entire series. In fact, I'm attending the Toronto, Canada Fan Expo on Aug. 22 in both Crown Clown guises. He doesn't acquire this attire until episode 70 but so far I like these outfits the best and the weapons ain't too shabby either. I've downloaded up to episode 92 so I'm hoping to catch up this weekend. Another short series that I recommend that has not yet been released in the US but has been licensed is "Ghost Hunt." I've watched a lot of horror type animes (Elfen Lied, Boogiepop Phantom, etc.) but none of them made my skin crawl like this one did. I hope the dubbed version doesn't ruin it. After what I heard them do to the concert scene in "The Melancholy Haruhi Suzumiya" I guess they can ruin the best scene in any feature if they try hard enough. Here is the original version if you've never heard it . Well, this is it for my first ever blog. I'll be writing more this weekend.