The Daily Almanac: A Brand New Feature!

Hey Peeps!

So in my quest of ever expanding this blog and gaining new readership, I occasionally try out something different to test out the waters a bit. Last month, I experimented with the whole comments thing, since people have been telling me for years that it is necessary for every blog to have comments. But honestly, it didn’t make a difference at all in the month I had them open. So comments are gone again, and for the next month, I’m testing out a new feature on the blog: The Daily Almanac.

If you’ve been following my Twitter feed, then you pretty much know how I like to do anime news bits. I link to a webpage with a worthwhile news item, and then provide a line or two of my witty, thoughtful, and often sarcasic analysis. The Daily Almanac will essentially be the same thing, only not broken into 140 characters. These posts will be shorter and far more casual than my normal reviews and features.

Many other blogs do this type of reporting, and they all do it very well. Will my unique take of the day’s news stand out among everyone else? Well, we’ll find that out a month from now. So let’s get this started with all the news from today!

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Bandai has begun their huge Gundam push today by streaming a number of the classic series on various anime video sites. Crunchyroll will be running the original Mobile Suit Gundam series and ANN has the Z Gundam series. Bandai had already been streaming the Gundam 00 series on YouTube for the past year.

All this promotion is for the upcoming release of the newest OVA series, Gundam Unicorn. UC will be seeing a global release on March 12, and fans in America can buy the first hour long episode on Blu-ray from Amazon.com.

Yup, one episode with MSRP of $50. And that’s actually really cheap compared to the normal price of Blu-ray anime in Japan. That’s like the cost of an R2 anime DVD.

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Jason David Frank, better known to otaku as the original Green / White Power Ranger Tommy Oliver, made his MMA debut in Houston Texas on Saturday. He won via submission in the first round. But in all honesty, if the Green Ranger was able to take on thousands of the Putty Patrol henchmen and giant Japanese monsters, did his MMA opponent even stand a chance?

Random fact: Did you know that the character Tommy Oliver was named after Bang Zoom voice actor and anime dubbing director Tony Oliver? In fact, Oliver was the executive producer of the first few seasons of Power Rangers and is pretty much the man responsible for the English adaptation we’ve come to know and love. That’s why you’ve seen former Power Rangers, like Johnny Yong Bosch and Patricia Ja Lee, doing work with Bang Zoom dubbing studio these days.

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Examiner.com’s Susan Hamaker wrote a very interesting article on Reni Mimura and her maid show last week. I met Susan at the show and we spent a long time talking about otaku culture. It was hard trying to explain to her why the maid costumes weren’t necessarily some kind of sexual fetish.

It’s amazing that Reni has been doing these maid shows for a full year now. In case you have yet to read it, check out my article on her from last April.

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Warner Bros. is holding a contest to promote their new anime release Halo Legends. Grand prize is a behind-the-scenes tour of Microsoft’s 343 Industries and other prizes include an Xbox 360 Elite and copies of the Halo Legends anime DVD and Blu-ray.

That’s great that they’ll give you a Blu-ray copy of the movie and an Xbox system to play it on.

Oh wait…

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Tickets for the New York International Children’s Film Festival are now available for purchase. They will be screening Summer Wars, Mai Mai Miracle, and Oblivion Island as well as a couple of anime shorts. I will be covering the festival this year, so you can look forward to reading more about these films towards the end of this month.

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Some hardcore Eva fans did a 3 hour long video review of FUNimation’s release of the You Are (Not) Alone movie. Damn!

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Chu-bra episode 4 is now streaming free to everyone within America. I really felt the plot come together with this episode, especially since I remember what it was like to hold the first meeting of a club I created on my own. Granted, it wasn’t an underwear club when I did it… but still, it’s good to see a good plot form in order to run a show full of fan service.

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