Time for another round of Q&A! Small comment that I should make first. I'd like to say that I'm sorry for the rather erratic frequency of my columns lately. I've kind of had a few things going on, like a couple of doctor's appointments, getting hooked on a story site that I'm now writing on, putting more RAM in my computer, refinancing my car loan, and getting plans for a wedding going, and Guilder to frame for it. I'm swamped. ;-). So I've been a little busy. But I'll try to be a little more consistent at least. I promise. J Also. I know there are a few people out there reading this who are probably relatively new to the site. I'd like to let y'all know that there is an archive of all my previous columns on this site at http://www.animeondvd.com/specials/ladycat/index.htm. And I've also got a site set up at http://members.xoom.com/redjaque/index.htm, with all the columns arranged by topic.

Well, if you head on over to Anime Village's great Gundam section, http://animevillage.com/home.cfm?HandStamp=Tourist&PageID=gundam there's kind of an explanation for it. The Gundam series are all separated in different timelines: UC (Universal Century), AC (After Colony), FC (Future Century), and AW (After War). These are all basically reworkings of ways to tell time, based on significant historical events (check out the explanation of which event starts the timeline--it's either man arriving on the moon in 1969 or the year 2001, depending on your point of view). Gundam W is in the AC timeline. So, unless there's some other sort of a meaning to it that I'm just not catching on to, it literally means, "The year after Colony 159 is established". What the significance of Colony 159 is to make it so momentous is something else altogether, which is not explained (as far as I can tell) on the Anime Village site. In relation to the series, as it's being shown on Cartoon Network, it doesn't really matter what the year is. It's more of a reference point in relation to the entire series.

I did a search on the Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com) and the results that I came up with were a little confusing. There was a listing for "Flint: the Time Detective", and it does show that the country of origin is Japan, but there are no cast/crew credits for the Japanese version. Usually, IMDB is really good about putting the original credit information on the info page, and since there's only the English credit info available for this title, I'm wondering if this show is animated (in an anime-style), but not anime, as such. But since I can't really find any solid info about the title, I can't confirm or deny my guess.

You've probably noticed some English VAs doing other stuff, like K.T. Voigt doing the Progressive Auto Insurance commercial. I've heard other voice actors on the radio doing other spots. So you might want to look at doing voiceover spots for TV and radio to start off with. And if you look up English VAs on something like the IMDB (http://www.imdb.com), you'll see their names listed on other things, such as live-action feature films. If you look at it as another acting job (which is probably how they look at it), I think you'll be in a better frame of mind. I'm pretty sure that you can't just walk in off the street and say that you want to be a VA, especially since the quality of the English dubs has drastically improved since the dawn of dubs. I'm sure they're looking for people who have a good solid background in some kind of acting. But if you have an interest in anime, I'm sure it would help when you go in for the casting call.

But here are a couple of sites that do translations: http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Ginza/1861/index.html

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/6655 (this one's a little old)

[Puts her paws to her temples] Mmmmmmm . . . I sensed you were going to ask this question. So I have already posted an answer here: http://members.xoom.com/redjaque/shows/shows.htm. J