Yeah, so much for updating more frequently eh? Well, I suppose this is a bit sooner than the once a month routine I was in before.  Anywho, life goes on as to be expected with me goofing off an' not really getting anything done.  Getting classes at school was an utter failure with both my earlier procrastination and the state budget cuts working against me... not to mention my dire lack of motivation.  It seems like the only thing that gets my spirits up these days is watching a good anime or playing a nostalgic video game -- and even then I can feel my attention span wavering and I do not like it.  However, I'm at a loss as to the solution here.  I realize that it's as simple as trying... but things are looking dismal and my "try" has all but run out, as little as there was in the first place.  I could complain about my situation all night and it would do nothing to help so I'll just leave my rant here and pick up on it at a later date I suppose. lol

Moving on to anime news, there's so much to report on.  Let me start with what's fresh in my mind -- I went to see Evangelion 1.0 up in San Francisco on Friday, the first showing of opening day.  Now I know a lot of you out there cringe at the thought of anime dubs, but I must say that this one surpassed my expectation.  It's not often that I think  that an anime dub feels fluid when translated into English because sometimes either emotion or meaning (sometimes both) is lost in the process, but the dub of the new Eva movie left me with the same feeling as when I watched it for the first time in Japanese.  It was quite astonishing to get that feeling and I'm not sure if it's simply because I'm such a hardcore Eva fan but I am saying loud and proud that the English version of this movie is excellent.  Of course, if you want me to be a stickler I could pick at the fact that they took quite a few liberties in the translation and actually added some lines and inferred specific meanings in places where it was originally intensionally vague then so be it, but I am inclined to defend those changes because, since we're talking about a dub here, it made it flow so much more naturally in English.  Also, it's nice to see Spike Spencer reprising his role as Shinji in this version and doing a much much much better job as compared to the original TV series =)

Next up, even though I'm a few weeks late here, I wanted to mention that ADV films has shut down.  While this is shocking news to some, I must say that I've seen it coming ever since they made a less-than-solid business deal with an overseas company which could've cared less about ADV's overall wellbeing.  And though the company many American Otaku have come to know and love no longer exists in name, many of the original staff have transferred over to Section 23 which has neatly picked up all of the productions held by ADV with very little in terms of loss there.  It seems to me like this move was more of a severe restructuring of the company under a new name and without any sticky hands of outside parties in the cookie jar this time.  I wish them the best of luck and look forward to seeing what the old guys under new names have in store for us! 

Well, that will be all for this update.  Till next time folks, PEACE~!

Yeah, that's right, you can watch the first 12 episodes of Haruhi on YouTube, posted and subtitled courtesy of Kadokawa.  This posting comes synchronous with the re-airing of Haruhi Suzumiya on Japanese TV.  But get this folks, there are NEW EPISODES mixed into this re-airing.  One of them is even available on YouTube -- the title is "The Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody" and it is considered episode #8 in the re-air order.  This may not be news to people who have been following the series as it airs but for those who expected from the annoncement that Haruhi would be back on TV that Kyo-Ani was up to something this will certainly be a reaffermation of faith. lol This has been the scoop straight from the mouth of your friendly neighborhood Otaku!  Till next time, PEACE~!