May
14
Congratulations to Ishikawa Masayuki for winning for Moyashimon!! Finally, they notice the genius of processed foods and the power that bacteria has in our favorite foods!
The 32nd Annual Kodansha Manga Awards has just been announced and Moyashimon got an award for Best General Manga. It also won the grand prize for the Tezuka!! Yay! I’m not so sure if the anime played in its popularity or at least exposure, but a lot of interesting things did happen to the manga last year so it’s quite amazing that way. :3
Another personal favorite of mine won. It’s called Kimi ni Todoke and it won for Best Shoujo. I’m not so sure if it’s licensed yet, but yeah, this is another great shoujo story and I hope it gets translated in english too. Its story is similar to The Wallflower without being too repetitive and stubborn. Its delightful without containing too much drama from shoujo mangas.
Manga awards are a great way to find titles outside your usual haunts. Some people are always iffy about award-winning mangas because some think it’s for those with sophisticated tastes and all that. However, it would never hurt to understand why it was shortlisted or why it even won for that award. I was a Naoki Urasawa fan and was pleased to see Pluto win for a Tezuka before. That same year, there was that shortlisted manga named Nodame Cantabile that got me curious. After checking it out, I was blown away with Nodame’s insanity. That experience convinced me that there’s a greater world out there other than those deemed as ‘popular’. So don’t be afraid to check these mangas out if you can. It’d be quite an experience. :3
So for a short quip, congratulations to Moyashimon for winning the lot this year!!
みんな！かもすぜー！
Apr
23
Yotsuba and Danboard, the environmentally friendly robot, wants to remind you some environmentally friendly tips that otakus like you and me can do to make the earth breathe every now and then.
- Turn your PC off tonight. Make it rest. Someone will still be seeding those torrents tomorrow.
- Got some old issues of Shounen Jump or Ace lying around that you just bought for knack but never read? Tear them up to pieces and use it as bed for your cat or dog.
- Reuse all those amazon and yes asia boxes. You can store all your undisplayed figures and outgrown mangas there. lol.
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Stand up from your desk and have a walk at the park. Turn off your PC while you’re at it.
- Use a bike going to work pray that somewhere in between your home and work, you go into a time slip.
- Don’t use your aircon for a day and give some lovin’ to the earth by opening your window for fresh air.
We otakus can take a part in saving the environment despite our dependency on technology and material things. It’s the least that we can do before some alien further destroys our earth and we go to an epic journey of finding a way to get rid of them.
Apr
15
Again, another interesting thing popped up in my e-mail again. This time, it’s from Laura Hale and she’s co-maintaining a site called fanhistory.com. Now I really thought that it was all for naught, but it seems to be quite an interesting site on the history of online fandoms and how they were built. They have a short preview on how the fandom was born. And it lists almost all writers in fanfiction.net. Yeah, even feeble writers who haven’t written since 2002 *cough*. And it’s even more fun because it even lists like prominent fandom places, such as, in my case, the aoshimisao mailing list, an ML for rabid Aoshi x Misao fan. Of course… on the side even I enjoyed a bit of BL with Aoshi x Saitou, but in my heart of hearts I loved Aoshi and Misao.
I think their effort is as gargantuan as wikipedia itself so if you know one or two things about your fandom, feel free to make entries. If you want to… (lol) update your author profile (SERIOUSLY! IT’S BOUND TO BE THERE!) then go ahead and scribble it down and write the fanfics you have written that’s not in fanfiction.net. Or change your history altogether and place a different fandom profile for yourself. Even add a few info for those who are curious. lol. If you’re not there, adding yourself wouldn’t hurt, would it?
It’s quite nostalgic browsing through the site. I’ve been passing it to friends and it’s like “OH GOD! THOSE WERE MY FANDOMS!? WHAT WAS I THINKING THEN!?” lol. My generation of anime fans have seen how the internet and fanfiction has totally shaped anime fandom as we know today. So much has changed back then and even the community feels slightly different. Fandom History might be able to at least grab a bit of the old days back and make us ponder on how silly and innocent we were back then. When we were like what… crazy 16 year old kids!?! lol.
Apr
11
All for knowledge!
Filed Under News | Leave a Comment
I got an interesting e-mail from Dirk Haas, a Belgian psychology student at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. His research is about how people around the world view Japanese animation. Now, he is in dire need of Asian respondents. So if you guys live in Asia (or maybe you’re an Asian living abroad), please give him some help and answer his survey at www.toba.lu/memoire.
The thing is, you guys need a really good connection to view it. Those with dial-up connections might as well give up. But those with DSL or Cable or Broadband net, as long as your torrents are not running to get this’s season’s latest anime, take a shot in taking this survey.
I took the test earlier today and it turned out to be quite interesting… I’d like to see how this research goes all out. :3 If you guys have any questions about the research mail him at this address. Good luck Dirk!
Apr
9
Jump History and Fujoshi (4): Move aside Son Goku, it’s all about Rukawa x Hiei x Kenshin. TOTALLY!
Filed Under Features | 5 Comments
1990 to 1994 can be considered by many as one of the strongest periods of Jump. The title that carried this period was an epic intergalactic superhuman masterpiece named Dragon Ball Z. It was so popular that no one in this world could not have encountered this anime. However, despite its popularity, the fujoshis focused their attention towards the other titles that were also great but somehow fell under the cloud of Dragon Ball Z.
For the Fujoshi, Goku and his dragon balls did not spark a fire to their fragile fangirl hearts. Instead, they looked at the bishounens from other Jump titles. The era of androgynous men have come to an end. In this era, it was all about the handsome boys of Jump.
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Otaku Champloo is...
a small serving of bittersweet manga bits by a manga addict named Khursten.
She currently digs mangas about boys who live to be men. -
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