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And now, onto the forums...

Columbia Pictures confirmed for Memories and Steam Boy
Early copies of Cowboy Bebop: The Movie have been making their way into the hands of happy fans. The trailers section includes trailers for "Memories" and Otomo's newest work "Steam Boy". It had been previously known that Sony had the theatrical rights to both films so this confirms the future home video/DVD release.

ShoPro goes for broke with Croket!
ShoPro Entertainment (Hamtaro, MegaMan: NT Warrior) are bringing over another of the "gotta catch 'em all!" variety.

"Scattered throughout the planet are magical gold tokens called Kinkas, which hold vast and mysterious powers. Fill your Kinka Bank, and the great and powerful Bank Wizard will appear to grant your wildest wish! A group of strong and fearless warriors travels the lands with a common mission - to obtain as many Kinkas as possible. The warriors call themselves……Bankers!"

(feel free to pause for a moment and laugh yourself silly)

Our hero (and banker) Croket is on a quest for those valuable kinkas. Rivals, adventures, and the goal to reach the premier Banker tournament on Macadamia Island is coming to America very soon.

Voices of a Distant Star (Website not as far away)
Makoto Shinkai's touching work has recieved a very fitting site thanks to ADV's Mark Clark & Brady Hartel. As with all creations from the dynamic duo, it contains background information on the OVA, desktop wallpapers, and some hidden omake via the cellphone game (hint: answer one is "24"). There are also several interviews available: Makoto Shinkai (creator), Steven Foster (dub director), Cynthia Martinez (dub: Mikako Nagamine) and Adam Conlon (dub: Noboru Terao).

Cherry Blossoms, Spaceships, and Fanservice… sites by FUNimation
In anticipation of the impending releases of the third Sakura Wars OAV, Tenchi Muyo!: GXP, and Kiddy Grade, FUNimation has created both pages on their site and series-specific sites for the shows. There’s little to be seen aside from some tentative release dates, but even that’s great news for some. Keep your eyes open for updates!

What’s that about the Sailor Moon sets being limited?
Well, they aren’t. David and Janice Williams have said so. Of course, nobody seems to have thought so before that confirmation anyway, since nobody seems to really put any stock in what the Save Our Sailors website has to say anyway, a fact made abundantly clear by the direction the thread went. You’d almost forget what the thread was actually about in the first place…

Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-ohki 3 OVA R2 Release Date
September 18th is going to be a happy day for many cabbit fans. Volume one will include 5.1 audio and the first pressing item will be a Tenchi Radio CD.

Maison Ikkoku Box One thoughts
The highly anticipated first box set for Maison Ikkoku has arrived into the hands of forum member "Rod Su". Reviews have been slightly mixed but more concerning song subs, extras, and box. The new masters are comparable with the R2 release and contains no hardsubs (to everyone's delight). Some classics are worth the wait.

This thread is still alive?!
Thanks to forum user “NefCanuck”, ye olde FMP rant thread has returned after a couple of weeks off. Anything new? Not really. But it certainly shows how passionate people can be about things like number of discs, episodes per disc, supposed licensing costs, and foreign anime markets, going by the number of new posts it has generated. Oh well! Bang on, kids!

His and Her (and a whole truckload of other) Circumstances
The original suggestion was for a special edition release of a couple of volumes of Kare Kano using the R2 masters, which differ in content from the broadcast version (which is what TRSI was sent to use). Many people new to the situation became confused, which resulted in different sorts of explanations and theories regarding the differences in content, TRSI, Gainax, Enoki, and the validity of the initial claim regarding differing content. Confused? Read the posts by user “StarCreator” and things should be okay.

Fanime (June 20-22) Forum Gathering
Fanime will be taking place over this coming weekend (expect news reports next issue). The plan is to meet at 9PM after the Synch-Point panel on Friday. Anyone whose intrested in meeting some of your fellow AoD forum members & grabbing a bite to eat better get your vote in soon on "where" you want to go. Isn't a con more fun if you have lots of people you know there?

Manga: Read & Enjoy
Another week, another batch of manga to flip through. If your wallet wasn't hurting before, it should be in a minute or two:

Comics One

TOKYOPOP

VIZ

New Manga Titles in Japan

“Year ends in August” says dlw, fans prepare for New Year’s parties early
It seems like ADV’s 10th Anniversary logo has been appearing on ADV’s discs for a while. Some people think it’s been a long time, while others haven’t even noticed it thanks to the “Menu” button. Silliness reigned supreme until David stepped in and clarified things for us. User “CuriouslySane” got one good response in, but it seems the issue has been resolved for the moment.

Final Fantasy: Unlimited Dub Cast Guessing Game
Janice Williams of ADV has another guessing game ready for the forum readers. FF:U has been handed off to their Austin dub studio Monster Island with Charles Campbell directing & Elena Carrillo writing. There are 16 characters left to figure out (Yu Hayakawa was announced last week) and character descriptions have been provided for those new to the series.

Legend of the Mystical Ninja (Goemon) Cast List
Speaking of dub casts, Janice Williams has posted up the main cast for "Legend of the Mystical Ninja". The studio will be Industrial Smoke & Mirrors in Houston and Scott McClennen will direct.

Please Teacher! (or not?)
User “Schmavid” wanted to know about Please Teacher!, and people answered. Generally good to great, with some comparisons being made to Ai Yori Aoshi as well as some talk about the manga. Contribute, agree or argue, or find out if PT! is right for you!

“Under the radar” recommendations
A couple of older shows and a couple of newer ones. Wondering if they’re worth getting? Then these threads are the places to ask!

If it's news, we want to know..
..and if it's stupid news, we really want to know! Scary enough, it's all real & fit-to-print. Take a gander at the serious & (many times) lighter side of the news world this week. Just because the site is dedicated to anime doesn't mean we don't take a peak outside every now & then.

Gungrave TV Series
Red Entertainment's violent "assassin" style game of 2002 is becoming an anime series. Very little is known at the moment but Madhouse will be involved again and Yasuhirow Nightow is providing design work.

The original game followed "Beyond the Grave" as the anti-hero taking on a large crime syndicate and in the middle of a strange family affair. Revived thanks to Dr. T, Grave freed the doctor from the crime organization. Crime boss "Big Daddy" then vanished from the syndicate leaving the evil Harry MacDowell to take over. With MacDowell's dream realized, Big Daddy's wife Maria gave her daughter Mika Asagiri a pair of custom hand guns named "Cerberos" and a mission: deliver the guns to Grave so that he may assassinate Harry. Now Grave fights to protect the daughter of the woman he once loved and end MacDowell's reign over the syndicate.

Seiyuu Appreciation Day... would you support it?
Sure, technically every day is "Seiyuu Appreciation Day" but that doesn't mean that the forum members can't focus their efforts more on one particular day. We've even included an older thread exploring the other common question in life: whatever happened to ?

Would you like to take a survey?
Aww, not more questions. Yep, it's as common on forums as knowing a red shirt will die on the original Star Trek series. Yet again, we've gathered the highlights that you should be playing with. Come on now, everyone has an opinion on who Tenchi will end up with. ^_^ We fear what next week will bring at this rate.

How to give your local manga & anime dealer a heart attack
OK, we'll forgive her about wanting to glue the figure to the dashboard. But it seems that everyone collects anime figures (umm, where are the MSiA peeps at?) no matter how old they are. Collectors & abusers have gathered for the free-for-all the thread has become. Do you keep yours on a shelf? Do you buy extra manga issues as a coloring book? Does your cubical look more like a preschool classroom then a workspace?

Why guys can't stand yaoi...?
Here's a twist of a question: Just why is it that guys get grossed out by showing a male/male relationship and yet more then welcome seeing a female/female relationship. The question does seem to explore those underlying thoughts of larger issues in the real world but for the moment let's stick with the anime side.

Who plans on skipping Hulk?
The movie isn't even in theatres yet and the backlash has been growing about the green menace. Ang Lee's work will hit June 20th, the critics started about a week or so ago, and the fans are confused which side to cheer for. Will it make money? Probably. Will it be well received? Only time will tell. It's time to register your opinion, just don't get angry... we don't like it when people get angry..

Newtype USA is ending Full Metal Panic! manga
The newest press release from Newtype USA reveals that July issue will be the final run of FMP. The original manga series from Dragon Comics ran five volumes so fans know something is "up". In comparison, volume 1 is 162 pages which NTUSA hasn't even gotten close to completing yet. Could there be a possible full manga release of the series in the works?

Quote of the Week

"if i lived anywhere else i could possibly afford a life." - osaka

When not stopping trouble (or starting it) on the AoD Forums, S-Man can be found working on the database project at Crystal Acids and asagiri2040 can be found not updating his Rising Sun Alternative website. Can't sleep.. clown will eat me. Can't sleep.. clown will eat me. Can't sleep.. clown will eat me. Can't sleep.. *gulp*