We live!!!!! (Status of Spring 09 blogging)

Yeah... that's kinda how I felt like last week

Okay, so apparently I was on acid when I thought I could blog 4 series AND keep up w/ studies… This quarter was sooo hellish, I couldn’t even blog, much less WATCH a single series (save the occasional CCS and Tsubasa).  Thankfully, the quarter ended last week, and it’s summer break now.  My original plan was to catch up with all the series and blog posts these two weeks, before the summer season starts.  Alas, an emergency popped up and I’m gonna be heading out of the country tmrw for the next two weeks.

Spring 2009 Blogging Decisions

OMG, it’s done… getting through all the pilot episodes that is.  I ended up watching nearly everything that started it’s run this season, and as far as first impressions go, I’m quite impressed.  This might just have to do w/ the fact that my expectations were low.. but wateva…  

All the cool kids are doing it…

Either we were really bored or somebody sincerely thought this was a good idea.  Either way, the bloggers of Psychedelic SoulJam now have an official twitter.  Here tekky99 can talk about all the episodes he didn’t feel like writing a review about.  There, eNamorD can prime everyone for his epic Toradora finale post.  There, shiki can talk about manga to no end w/o worrying about pictures.  And most of all, there, Menma can curse like a drunken sailor about the state of shoujo anime today.  (Menma: I was unimpressed with the idea…and then I read that sentence. <3)

Yes, our twitter is a way for us to let loose and ramble on the internet.  (tekky99: I was gonna say ‘vomit’ but that honor is reserved for /b/). If you don’t have a twitter, simply keep an eye out for the widget in the sidebar (which tekky99 is fiddling with at the moment). And if you do have one, follow us and enjoy =D

http://www.twitter.com/psych_souljam

I have a winter regret…

...as if he could do anything...

But thankfully, It’s not one I have to live with. As you are probably aware, I’m quite behind right now on episode reviews. But now my quarter is done and I’ll finally have the time to catch up. That’s not the point, the point is, on a lot of the shows I’m blogging, I’m actually up to date watching them, just not blogging them. I’ve seen up to Episode 7 of Munto TV, Episode 23 of Clannad ~After Story, and most critically, episode 8 of Kurokami.

I’ve been growing more and more frustrated at Kurokami as the episodes have been progressing. The show has fallen into a pattern and the characters are honestly irritiating. I considered dropping the show multiple times already, but my counter argument was “There’s nothing to replace it”…

… until now. Earlier this week, I played catch up on a couple of shows. One of which was Asu no Yoichi, which I will say, is actually funny and not quite as bad as I initially thought. I also caught up on Regios, and I will say, after 9 episode, this show is REALLY impressing me. It’s got a great cast of character and a story that I’m really interested in. On top of that the setting seems to indicate a deeper back story that hasn’t been explored yet.

So, if blogging Kurokami has been my biggest regret this Winter, then now it’s one I don’t have to deal with anymore. Regios is a much more interesting show to me, and as such, I’ll be dropping Kurokami for Chrome-Shelled Regios. (starting w/ epiode 6)

_tekky99

Back from the Dead… kinda

Unfortunately, Kamina still isn't =_(

Apologies for the lack of activity the past couple of weeks.  I (as well as the other writers) just went through 2 hells weeks of school in a row.  Midterms+Major Projects+Club Responsibilities made the past couple of weeks the toughest I’ve had to face in my school life.  However, I only anticipate it getting worse in the next few years.

But I’m not here to talk about how hard college life is, I’m sure most of you already know this w/o me ranting about it.  What I am here to say is, the work is easing up this weekend, back down to normal levels.  As such, I will be able to catch up with posts.  It’ll be a daunting task, right now here are the reviews that I’ve got stacked up:

• Clannad ~After Story~ Episodes 18 and 19
• Munto TV – Episode 4 and 5
• Kurokami – Episodes 4-7

I’ve also gotten word from eNamorD that his workload has also eased up enough for him to catch up on Toradora posts.

Besides all that… Spring Season is near, which means I’ll start working on the Spring Season Preview soon, and it should be up 1-2 weeks before the season actually starts.

_tekky99

FUNimation announces Last Exile

Taking another show that was previously licensed (by Geneon), FUNimation’s 5th show in their 10 day licensing marathon is GONZO’s steampunk adventure, Last Exile.  I recently finished this series and I loved it.  Unfortunately I haven’t been able to write a review of it yet, but I recommend each and every one of you to watch it.  I’m excited that I’ll be able to buy the DVDs now.

[SOURCE: FUNimation Main Page]

Happy Thanksgiving! (Site News)

Happy turkey day people in the states!  I’m writing this from the comfort of my own bedroom ^^.  I thought I would give some updates about the blog.

So I, like most other bloggers around this time, am starting to feel the pressure of finals breathing down my neck.  Don’t worry, I’m not gonna go on hiatus, just be advised that posts may be a little bit delayed.  On the contrary of going on hiatus, I’m about to unveil some end-of-the-year projects for this blog.

- The Winter 2009 Anime Season Preview - In the works, I’ll be following the same format I had for the Fall preview.  As well as getting some different guest writers.  I might add OVAs to the list this time… though, nothing is confirmed.

- The 2008 tekky99 Anime Awards - This, by itself, would be a monumental task.  However, I decided to post up new categories and nominees every week, and announce the winners in the first week of the new year.  Also I’ll be experimenting w/ polling and having an “readers’ choice” award as well as my picks.  Expect the first category/nominee listing in the next few days.

Neither of these projects are exactly easy.  In fact they’ll probably be more time consuming then the episode reviews.  And as I do have work that I need to do, I need to cut something back to be able to manage time.

As such, I am going to drop Bounen no Xamdou from my blogging repertoire.  The show hasn’t been interesting me as much as it used to anyway.

Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving, and for you students, good luck w/ your studies!

-Tekky

PS Yes, I’ve started watching D.Gray-man

NEWS (10/20/08)

Sources: ANN

There isn’t really a lot of news besides licensing announcements and release plans.  2 of the 3 news blurbs are old.  These bullets are ordered from oldest to most recent

- The second movie in the Rebuild of Evangelion tetralogy is set for release early summer 2009.  The movie is entitled: Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance.

- ADV announced the distribution of numerous animes licensed by Sentai Filmworks.  Among the list, Tsukihime, Mahoromatic, and most notably, Clannad.

- FUNimation announced the licensing of GAINAX’s currently airing anime, Shikabane Hime: Aka. FUNi plans on releasing high quality subbed versions of the episode free-to-stream (pay-to-download) on YouTube, Hulu, and Joost starting on October 24th.  This means that the free streams will only be three weeks behind the Japanese airing.  It is unclear whether FUNimation has also licensed the planned sequel series: Shikabane Hime: Kuro.

Please comment if you notice some wrong information or if you just feel like commenting.

-Tekky

NEWS (10/5/08)

Not a lot of news this week, but some big announcements.

- Shakugan no Shana is likely to get a third season.  No official confirmation, so it may end up as a rumor, but this is based off of an annoucement at Dengeki Bunko’s Fall Festival.

- Spice and Wolf is green-lit for a second season.

- Light novel Asura Cryin’ is getting an anime adaptation.

 

Comments: I’m not terribly surprised by the Shana announcement, they had an open ending again.  Not to mention, some of the best parts of the light novel have yet to be adapted.

Site Updates and NEWS (9/23/08)

NEWS

- Natsume Yuujinchou is getting a second season that is set to air in the 2009 Winter season.

- Shugo Chara!’s second year is going to be entitled

  Shugo Chara! Doki!. Speculation is that the episode count will restart.

- The Slayers series gets another series entitled Revolution

- Cartoon Network’s Toonami block has been dropped from the programming schedule after 11 years on the air.

- Tonari no 801-chan was cancelled only weeks after it was announced.

- New series announcements:

• Steel Shell Regios
• Black God (manwha adaptation)
• Shangri-la
• Slayers Revolution
• Da Capo IF (D.C.I.F)
  

 

Site Updates

So again I fell behind with blogging, but this close to the final episodes I can’t restart w/ the current episodes. So instead, I’m writing abridged reviews. I’ll take the summaries from Wiki and only have 4 images. I’ll still have the full episode thoughts

The other thing is that, as you’ve noticed, I’ve started a Summer 2008 Finale Review post. You can read how it works in the post itself. As for shows that I’m blogging, I’ll write the actual full show review in the Finale post.

Until next time…
-Tekky