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Anime Expo News & Views
LA was booming this 4th of July weekend with AX taking up a total of four days to keep people busy. License highlights include Detective Conan (FUNi), Wolf's Rain & Stratos 4 (Bandai), Narue no Sekai (CPM), Nurse Witch Komugi-chan (ADV), Gunparade March (Media Blasters), and Texhnolyze & Read or Dream (Pioneer). For everyone who says that this wasn't a big announcement group, do look that we're seeing alot more companies at AX then other shows so really it is a big group of announcements.

You can see why we split up the rest of the AX material into its own section. ;-)

Advent of Bailey Boxes
Living up to their name, Pioneer has utilized a new means by which to package and re-release shows. The so-called Bailey boxes are actually more of a plastic slipcase, with a thin cardboard art insert that leaves one side of the slipcase clear, to allow for displaying one’s favorite piece of cover art from that particular show. This provides a nifty bit of packaging while avoiding multi-disc keepcases. Of course, fan opinions are mixed.

Pencilboards: Reloaded (or not)
Another Pioneer disc, another game of hit-or-miss with the pack-in extras. Chobits volume 3 is hitting the stores, and once again, people in search of said pack-in extras (a pencilboard, in this case) are upset, frustrated, or just plain bewildered. An apparent lack of method to Pioneer’s madness has led to there being no certain source from which to gain the pencilboards. The easiest thing to do seems to be to scour your local B&Ms and hope you get lucky.

Dub Cast Round-Up
S-Man has been a busy troublemaker this week with news from all ends of the spectrum. Thank god he only hits cons once in a blue moon. ;-)

In other related news, Animaze/ZRO Limit Productions are working on both Wolf's Rain & Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.

And finally, Janice Williams is about to run another guessing game/contest. This time covering CLAMP title "Angelic Layer".

Trials and Tribulations of the Sailor Senshi
ADV’s subtitled release of the first season of Sailor Moon is beginning to appear in DVD players everywhere, and the fans are disgruntled. The next episode previews are absent, the episode previews/prologues are placed after the OP sequence instead of before, a variation of the OP sequence is missing, the audio quality is inconsistent, no extras are included, and so on. Some fans don’t care. Other fans care way too much. The rest are either somewhere in between or are out searching for Pioneer pack-in extras. Register your personal rant here:

User “Thanatos” took the time to compose a straight forward and neutral query to ADV, and received an equally concise response from ADV’s David Williams.

Despite what some consider to be major problems with the release, some fans are still excited and positive about things, as evidenced by this thread to help get user “NorbJunior” off the fence about purchasing the set.

And ADV’s Janice Williams took the time to inform everyone that a packaging art problem with ADV’s upcoming release of Sailor Moon R had been resolved, as well as letting us know about two pieces of newly commissioned art by the original artist to be used as cover pieces for the set.

Study says fans have short attention spans; fans begin to protest, then lose interest
Yeah, Anime Expo was great… but now what? Some people were disappointed by the licensing announcements while others simply felt that a couple of things were missing. Speculation has led some to begin predicting what news may come out of Otakon in about a month’s time. Kodomo no Omocha? The third Tenchi OAV? The Macross movie? Gotta shake things up so the fans will stay hyped for two weeks instead of just one!

Zeta Gundam Box Set
Already false news is popping up over Bandai's plans for the US release. Read, learn, tell your friends the right info.

Making the grade
Thanks to users “Flood” and “B-Rad Lascelle”, we’ve got some report cards up and running for the R1 anime market in the first half of 2003. Post your thoughts, and see what the rest of the fans think!

A light in the dark (for AX licenses)
User “Njr Scrawl” offers up a simple question about the new shows licensed at Anime Expo: “What are the really good ones, if any, so far.” With so many titles available nowadays, it’s sometimes hard to keep track of everything, and sometimes equally as hard to care about anything if you’re a bit burned out from trying to keep up. So, why are the AX licenses special?

It's a bird.. it's a plane, no wait.. it's MANGA!
While Onegai Teacher may be the only thing that kept S-Man sane on the trip to and from LA, there are other issues out this week. As a small bonus, anyone who wants 10% off their order at ComicsOne.com just type in the code "AX2003". But if he hears "My Sassy Girl" one more time, he may go nuts... talk about beating a subject to death at AX.

Central Park Media

Comics One

Raijin Comics

TOKYOPOP

Viz

General Anime – The Week in Review
And, in the General Anime forum this past week, a wide variety of threads were started about this crazy thing called anime that we all care about so much. User “Schmavid” got people thinking about the most sincere couple in anime, while user “piano_cello_conducting” did likewise regarding everyone’s favorite confessions of love in anime or manga. The rather prevalent occurrence of single parents or missing parents was brought up by user “Lodoss420”, and PCC dared to question those wacky folks at GAINAX by wondering what the deal was with all the telephone poles and electrical wires in their shows. Still keeping busy, PCC went on to ask what everyone thought was the most amusing depiction of Americans in anime. “GanChan” lamented the fact that the older anime fans are being outnumbered by the younger crowd. “JAlan” mused about possible titles for the R1 release of Hikaru no Go. And “vanpang” posed the interesting hypothetical question of which studio everyone would like to animate The Lord of the Rings.

Anime In Your Future
User “millionsknives” brings up an interesting issue: do you think you’ll still care about anime somewhere further on down the great road of life? Or do you think it’s just another hobby that’ll get dropped before you even know it? Or somewhere in between?

Learning just a little bit…
User “SkinnyCat” is at it again with some interesting questions about you. Yes, you. Not him, her, or the other one, although they may factor into things later.

Not to be outdone, user “Schmavid” poses a question of his own:

And, while not quite in the same vein as the other threads, user “Ballz” has some interesting and rather pertinent relationships questions that are still quite rooted in how you happen to live your life:

What are you reading? (July)
User “steppinrazor” has started up a new literary query thread for this month. Tell us what you’re reading, and if you’d recommend it, then browse other posts to look for something new that might strike your fancy.

MegaTokyo leaving IC Entertainment
Popular webcomic "MegaTokyo" is breaking away from IC Entertainment which has been publishing the series in paperback form. They are looking at continuing to publish the series in paper form but the current Book 2 orders are being canceled and refunded.

Bandai Japan's new Eva action figure in review
"Rhodes" has posted up his thoughts on the first of a series of new Eva action figures that Bandai Japan is working on. Each comes with heavy details and a load of gear to toy with.

You want NewType USA DVD Covers? You got NTUSA covers
S-Man has finished the first of a series of NTUSA DVD covers. Currently up is May '03 Standard case size (ThinPak has been submitted) and June '03 is next on the list it looks like. He's also looking at doing covers for the new ADV & Pioneer trailer DVDs for 2003 while covering the newer and older NTUSA discs.

Advice on Japan --> USA foreign exchange programs?
Since many US anime fans would like to try going to Japan, we're throwing this in for all those curious on the different exchange student programs around. If you have any knowledge in this aarea, please feel free to contribute your own experiences.

Quote of the Week

"Unless they're cute girls. Then I am very concerned with what they think of me." - yoichitaba

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. Jetlag sucks! On the other hand, I read Onegai Teacher manga 1 four times flying to LA and then picked up Onegai Teacher manga 2 for three reads on the flight back. Needless to say, I really can't wait until this fall when Comics One releases more material for the show. Now if I could just get the artwork on the front/back covers of each manga turned into a wallpaper. Anyone got a good source or some high res ones done? -- S