2chan.us

Over Christmas, I went to the village of Shirakawa-go (a.k.a. Hinamizawa) with some people I met on the internet. Not having brought any reference material, I didn’t get the angles quite right, but there’s still enough material to do the traditional anime pilgrimage post.

The scene from the Ogi-machi viewpoint:

And the trail up to it:

I looked for the bus stop and picnic spot up on the mountain, but under the foot-plus of snow it was a bit hard to see anything.

The Shirakawa Hachiman shrine seemed to be closed up at the moment:

The ema board and offering box were still out; despite the apparent emptiness of the shrine, the board was full four layers deep of ema, and every single one of them seemed to have been left by passing otaku:

More starting here.

The Furude house (actually just some guy’s shed) and the clinic:

The village itself, having been named a UNESCO World Heritage site due to its many traditional houses, has mostly turned into a tourist trap, with many of the homes turned into gift shops or bed and breakfasts, and many of the residents being elderly and retired (not unusual for Japan). I also wonder how they manage to walk in the winter, as I slipped and fell down about eight times in 24 hours.

If you’d like to see what it looks like when not covered in snow, here and here have some more reports.

I changed the title of the blog. Never really liked that one anyway.

In between the not posting, I managed to pick myself up and go to Japan, where all the authors of this blog attended Comiket 79 and made sure not to stand in the Nanoha line. More about this soon, assuming all my mail gets back to me.

P.S.: Don’t stand in the 07th Expansion line.

Out of admiration for http://dump.colonydrop.com/ (a fine RSS feed of pictures of robots), I have created the following tumblr: http://img.2chan.us/

However, they have self-respect and I have no self-respect, so instead the theme turned out to be “vaguely related images I think are mindblowing”. If you’re lucky you’ll get some of the jokes sometimes!

Note: I frequently encounter people complaining that cheap moe/fanservice anime are being made because they sell better than “serious” anime. However, these shows typically sell extremely poorly – I hope this list will help improve your internet arguments. I’ve added a somewhat-accurate list of genres/original source material.

Source: Anime sales thread material repository on livedoor bbs, presumably from 2ch originally.

These numbers are per-volume averages, with each DVD in a box set being counted as an individual volume. (*) indicates series still being released when the list was made in 2010/05.

List of 2000-2010 TV anime DVD/BDs with 10,000+ sales

Who says SHAFT needs industry awards?

In the name of trying to keep up that “cultural exchange” theme, I’ll introduce an appropriate member of one of our favorite literary genres, the Touhou doujinshi.

New Hori-ZUN 2, 44p, by circle ddiction (http://ddiction.org/index_en.html)

New Hori-ZUN 2, part of a series whose first volume I totally forgot to ask my bro @nforza26 to send me, is an attempt at an exciting and highly educational Touhou-themed English textbook series based on New Horizon, an actual exciting and highly-educational English textbook I am completely unfamiliar with.

As you may recognize from some of the e-famous artist names, several of the authors of this book are actually American, which is completely different from being Japanese, and yet it is one of the higher quality doujin I have seen!

The authors have mastered difficult doujin techniques such as 4komas, Arial, having a circle name even though you’re the only member of the circle, and Yume Nikki references.

However, as far as textbooks go it’s a little undirected. The text (the usual character comedy Touhou lends itself to, although decent enough) is more complex than volume 1, but how will the reader know if he understands all of it? I think there should be more exercises. Of course, the less useful it is the more like the actual Japanese school system it is, so either way they win.

You can find this circle at the upcoming Winter Comiket. In the meantime, the authors can be found on the Internet.

Fushigi no kuni no Marisa (Marisa in Wonderland), by circle COSMIC FORGE (http://www.cosmicforge.net/)

Available via mail order from Manga Pal!

(Japanese translation available at tsurupeta.info)

From some video game or other.

Throughout the series, he tries to live his life normally while still facing against the many adversaries from the worlds of science and magic and the conflicts that follow. Despite his very bad luck, he has managed to get the interests and hearts of many ladies who are infatuated with him, which Aisa jokes about, that his life is like a dating sim where he is bound to unlock more paths to more girls.

When Mikoto was young, she was tricked into giving the city’s scientist her DNA under the pretense of finding the cure for Duchenne muscular dystrophy; their actual goal to create military-grade combat clones of her. When it was discovered that the clones didn’t have the same power level as Mikoto, they were instead used in an Project called ” Level 6 Shift”, intended to make Accelerator the first level 6 esper by having him kill 20,000 clones.

Accelerator’s unique ability make him the subject of an experiment attempting to create the first Level 6 psychic; according to the city’s best supercomputer, Tree Diagram (which was unprecedentedly destroyed by Index’s Dragon Breath)

However, on the same day he became the new leader, his gang was hired to kill Mikoto’s mother, Misuzu but were defeated by Tōma and Accelerator. Humiliated, he left the gang to his friend Hattori Hanzo

While she may seem normal, she is also known as “Deep Blood” and has the ability to kill vampires when they approach her, as her blood’s smell attracts them. However, it made her miserable because it killed her family and friends that were turned into vampires.

Gunha is one of the Level 5s in the city. He is also known as “Attack Crash”, he is commonly shown wearing a white headband, coat, and a white shirt with the Japanese sun on it

The Misaka Worst are a group of specially designed 2nd generation clones of Mikoto that appear in volume 20.

Komoe Tsukuyomi (月詠 小萌 Tsukuyomi Komoe) – Her name is an aptronym as the character “小” means “small” and the character “萌” means “moe”.

It is later revealed that her full name is Telestina Kihara Lifeline

Thomas Platinumburg (トマス・プラチナバーグ Tomasu Purachinabūgu)

Underground organizations
GROUP
SCHOOL
ITEM
MEMBER
BLOCK

Anieze Forces
A group of over 250 Catholic Battle Nuns who are proficient in magic and combat.

He also uses a guillotine made of flour, a byproduct of the “Execution of Light” spell.

Elizarina (エリザリーナ Erizariina)
A blond, blue eye sorceress who rules Elizarina, a country named after herself that has recently gained independence from Russia

Aurrelus wields the power of the Northern Throne, and his power Hliðskjálf has been described as “imcomprehenisble and inexplicable”.

Why don’t I have my own JC Staff anime!?

Does Nabeshin do any work these days, or does he just sell doujin about his afro? (I bought one.)
In either case, please use these to imagine your own convention.

Read the rest of this entry »

Source: Nensyu Labo, compiled by them via publicly available securities reports and documents submitted for 2008.

Average yearly salary, in tens of thousands of yen. (100,000 JPY = roughly $1100)

1. Toei: 864
2. Toho: 837
3. Shochiku: 735
4. Tokyo Rakutenchi: 710
5. Gonzo: 654
6. Toei Animation: 651
7. TYO Productions: 620
8. OS: 620
9. Tokyo Theatres: 619
10. Subaru Enterprise: 615
11. Kokusai Hoei: 607
12. Aoi Advertising Promotion Inc.: 605
13. Tohokushinsha: 604
14. Flight System Consulting: 571
15. Marvelous Entertainment: 534
16. Sotsu: 518
17. Shizukatsu: 512
18. IG Port: 501
19. Omega Project Holdings: 490
20. TMS Entertainment: 485
21. We’ve: 483
22. Kin-ei: 444
23. Nakanihon Kogyo: 435
24. Musashino Kogyo: 430
25. Tokyu Recreation: 383

Sales Rankings, in hundreds of million of yen (100,000,000 yen = roughly 1.1 million USD). Number in () after studio name is rank in above list of average employee salary.

1. Toho (2): 2134
2. Toei (1): 1076
3. Shochiku (3): 949
4. Tohokushinsha (13) : 681
5. TYO Productions (7): 311
6. Tokyu Recreation (25): 277
7. Tokyo Theatres (9): 232
8. Toei Animation (6): 217
9. Aoi Advertising Promotion Inc (12): 167
10. Sotsu (16): 159
11. TMS Entertainment (20): 141
12. Marvelous Entertainment (15): 101
13. IG Port (18): 71
14. OS (8): 65
15. Gonzo (5): 63
16. Tokyo Rakuenchi (4): 37
17. Kin-ei (22): 37
18. Nakanihon Kogyo (23): 37
19. Kokusai Hoei (11): 34
20. Flight System Consulting (14): 30
21. Omega Project Holdings (19): 30
22. We’ve (21): 30
23. Subaru Kogyo (10): 24
24. Musashino Kogyo (24): 20
25. Shizukatsu (17): 11

JAniCA has just posted a press release announcing the four companies out of the sixteen that applied who will be given 38 million yen each in order to create a 23-minute original animation primarily utilizing young animators as detailed in my earlier post on this project.

They are as follows:

Company: Ascension
Director: Hongo Mitsuru (Dir. Spirit of Wonder, Outlaw Star, Reideen (2007), various Crayon Shinchan incl. 5 films)
Producer: Mogi Hitoshi (Prod. 7+ Crayon Shinchan films, Summer Days with Coo)
Provisional Title: Kizuna Ichigeki

Company: Telecom Animation Film (Also a wholly-owned subsidiary of TMS Entertainment)
Director: Takiguchi Teiichi (Dir., Anim. Dir., Kara no Kyoukai movie 4, Key Anim., The Cat Returns, Tekkonkinkreet, Whisper of the Heart)
Producer: Takeuchi Koji (Prod. Lupin III: The Fuma Conspiracy, Ramen Fighter Miki)
Provisional Title: Ojiisan no Lamp

Company: P.A. Works
Director: Yoshihara Masayuki (Asst. Dir., Eden of the East, Moribito, Key Anim., Ghost in the Shell series)
Producer: Horikawa Kenji (Prod. true tears, CANAAN, Angel Beats!, Series Comp., Popolocrois Monogatari)
Provisional Title: Bannou Yasai Ninninman

Company: Production I.G.
Director: Kise Kazuchika (Anim. Dir., Patlabor the Movie, Patlabor the Movie 2, Bungaku Shoujo, Evangelion 1.0, Ghost in the Shell, Key Anim., Evangelion 1.0/2.0, Ghost in the Shell, Rojin Z, SPT Layzner)
Producer: Terakawa Hidekazu (Prod., IGPX, Jin-Roh, One Piece: Defeat the Pirate Ganzak!, various game animation work by I.G.)
Provisional Title: Tansu Warashi