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I don't know much about philosophers or classic literature so I have to wiki some of the references. Nice it's there, but I am afraid I'm too stupid to follow along outside of easier ones like Daedalus. Either way, it's not hindering my enjoyment of the show. The automated council represented by Michelangelo statues named after famous philosophers who are try to reach a judgment from multiple sides is a nice touch.

 

Ergo Proxy is a strange beast, but I've always had some fondness for it. It's also one of the few shows where I have a set of the fansubs still burned somewhere while owning the official release, because Shinsen's work is vastly superior to what Geneon did. At the end of each episode, they have multiple pages of text explaining all the important references and a lot of the incidental ones.

 

It looks like this Tumblr has screencaps of them all, if you can wade through all the posts of (totally justified) Re-L love.

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Was Ergo Proxy the one where the heroine was a dead ringer for a very popular lead singer of a emo rock band? I seem to remember at the time finding a bit "meh" but maybe my pallet has changed since then.

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 At the end of each episode, they have multiple pages of text explaining all the important references and a lot of the incidental ones.

Ah cool, I might see if I can torrent those just to read the text at the end, I'd be interested in knowing what they have to say since there's not really fan sites around for Ergo Proxy.

 

Was Ergo Proxy the one where the heroine was a dead ringer for a very popular lead singer of a emo rock band? I seem to remember at the time finding a bit "meh" but maybe my pallet has changed since then.

Yeah, she looks exactly like the singer from Evanescence but only on the album covers. I'm not sure if it's intentional honestly, but I would like to know. It seems a bit off for the show to lift a character design from a singer to a band that doesn't really fit the tone of the show outside of the aesthetic, especially when Re-L is drawn from multiple angles anyway so is not always head on like hte album cover. I don't know, maybe they just wanted the look. I like the look either way. The appearance of the lead singer is about the only thing I like about Evanescence.

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Guys, why do I watch Shaft show after Shaft show (Arakawa Under the BridgeBakemonogatariDance in the Vampire BundMaria+HolicNatsu no ArashiNegima!?Paniponi Dash!) when only Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei (and maybe Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru) is any good? It's even worse than my GAINAX loyalty, which has been a heavy burden since Gurren Lagann.

 

Ah cool, I might see if I can torrent those just to read the text at the end, I'd be interested in knowing what they have to say since there's not really fan sites around for Ergo Proxy.

 

As far as I'm concerned, the fansub community I knew and loved died in mid-2009 when FUNimation cease-and-desist'd Shinsen Subs into oblivion over Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. These days, it's those cowboys in gg and Commie, who are philosophically against translation notes, doing all the work and getting all the glory.

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Arakawa Under the BridgeBakemonogatari

I really like both of those. ):

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Okay finished Ergo Proxy staying up way too late last night marathoning. I constantly had to know what happens next. Also the Sayo Yamamoto episodes preceding (Quizshow and Smile Land) were unexpectedly wacky, but a nice fresh break from the show. I appreciate that they show runner was not afraid of such episodes. Great stuff.

 

The only big disappointment the whole series was just how little animation there was and the amount of shots filled per episode that were just stills and pans were a bit unbearable sometimes. The lack of character enunciation when speaking dialogue was a bit of a let down considering the amount of kinetic acting (and action) I've seen well animated in the two other Manglobe series I've watched. I kept thinking maybe they were saving their animation budget for later episodes as tend to happen with some anime shows and most other cartoon series around the world, but I could see no apparent place any extra animation budget was splurged on in the way Samurai Champloo was obviously saving up for action packed episodes after a slower one or two. It's possible that Ergo Proxy was a project with a smaller budget (or maybe they wasted a bunch of money licensing Radiohead :)) or that a lot of time was just spent on the still drawings and the look and tone of the surroundings, which is inexplicably well done.

 

Other than that, I didn't fully understand every part of the show, but it is enough where it is obviously constructed in a way where the small gaps between story allow you to draw your own conclusions. I enjoy that thoroughly, it's certainly a far better way to do it than crap like Synecdoche, NY (I know lots of people love this movie and I can't even begin to fathom why). So while the jump cuts and holding of explanation in the show went up until the last episode, it made it very compelling to watch constantly, seemed similar to Breaking Bad in the manner of pacing almost. I was satisfied most questions were answered and had fun the whole way there.

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Everyone I'm sorry, I really must be fundamentally a bad bad person, because i just watched Kill la Kill episode 4 and found myself REALLY really liking it again.

 

The cheesecake though not entirely gone was hugely cut back (no shots that made me flinch to watch them as in episode 2), and we basically got a whole show of really well executed and relentlessly kinetic comedy. There were a few shot's of visual comedy that were just absolutely superb, where the art choices, framing, and animation techniques selection were about as good as I've ever seen in anime.

Add to that the throughout the episode it's slapstick timing was near flawless, and it kinda nailed every target it tried to parody too.

 

/sigh

 

Why oh why could we just not have got a whole series of this, it reminded me of Excel saga at it best.

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Okay I just watched said episode and now I REALLY know how you feel. By far the best episode, yet. Holy crap it just went completely overboard in completely the right way. (Though the transformation still made me cringe. But that's unavoidable unless I just stop watching the show entirely.)

 

UGHHHHHHHHH why why can't Japan just stop being so embarrassing.

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Everyone I'm sorry, I really must be fundamentally a bad bad person, because i just watched Kill la Kill episode 4 and found myself REALLY really liking it again.

 

The cheesecake though not entirely gone was hugely cut back (no shots that made me flinch to watch them as in episode 2), and we basically got a whole show of really well executed and relentlessly kinetic comedy. There were a few shot's of visual comedy that were just absolutely superb, where the art choices, framing, and animation techniques selection were about as good as I've ever seen in anime.

Add to that the throughout the episode it's slapstick timing was near flawless, and it kinda nailed every target it tried to parody too.

 

Why oh why could we just not have got a whole series of this, it reminded me of Excel saga at it best.

Okay I just watched said episode and now I REALLY know how you feel. By far the best episode, yet. Holy crap it just went completely overboard in completely the right way. (Though the transformation still made me cringe. But that's unavoidable unless I just stop watching the show entirely.)

 

Yeah, wow. This was what I thought the premise would be after watching the first five minutes of the first episode, and it's every bit as good as I imagined. Maybe the first three episodes of sexploitation and lorewank aren't going to be indicative of the show's arc, so it'll be like every other anime with a mysteriously weak opening. Right? Right?

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Okay finished Ergo Proxy staying up way too late last night marathoning. I constantly had to know what happens next. Also the Sayo Yamamoto episodes preceding (Quizshow and Smile Land) were unexpectedly wacky, but a nice fresh break from the show. I appreciate that they show runner was not afraid of such episodes. Great stuff.

 

The only big disappointment the whole series was just how little animation there was and the amount of shots filled per episode that were just stills and pans were a bit unbearable sometimes. The lack of character enunciation when speaking dialogue was a bit of a let down considering the amount of kinetic acting (and action) I've seen well animated in the two other Manglobe series I've watched. I kept thinking maybe they were saving their animation budget for later episodes as tend to happen with some anime shows and most other cartoon series around the world, but I could see no apparent place any extra animation budget was splurged on in the way Samurai Champloo was obviously saving up for action packed episodes after a slower one or two. It's possible that Ergo Proxy was a project with a smaller budget (or maybe they wasted a bunch of money licensing Radiohead :)) or that a lot of time was just spent on the still drawings and the look and tone of the surroundings, which is inexplicably well done.

 

Other than that, I didn't fully understand every part of the show, but it is enough where it is obviously constructed in a way where the small gaps between story allow you to draw your own conclusions. I enjoy that thoroughly, it's certainly a far better way to do it than crap like Synecdoche, NY (I know lots of people love this movie and I can't even begin to fathom why). So while the jump cuts and holding of explanation in the show went up until the last episode, it made it very compelling to watch constantly, seemed similar to Breaking Bad in the manner of pacing almost. I was satisfied most questions were answered and had fun the whole way there.

 

I've been going through one of my patches of insomnia recently so after reading what you had to say about it I decided that Ergo Proxy could serve as my bedtime (animated) story of choice.

 

It feels like with a really good producer keeping the director in check you could have boiled down what was a rather rambling 23 episodes into something a bit more coherent and had a far better series(no to mention as SG hinted at they could have cut down on the animation short cuts).

 

The entire first half of the run seems to take it's self incredibly seriously, and pretty much suffocates the characters under the weight of the world building going on. So while it does do a good job of conveying the concept of a world that had been kept in stasis for millennia I do feel it labours over long doing so.

 

Something seems to happen after the half way mark though, the scene is, it seems finally set. And they are ready to let the actors step up onto the stage and do interesting things.

 

The Quizshow and Smileland episodes mentioned were both interesting in their own right but sometimes their humour felt a little forced, it was almost more as if they just ignored the rest of the series and existed in their own little vacuum.

 

When they finally do decide to have a episode that's pure unpretentious character interaction (ep16 where the ship is becalmed) it was my favourite of the bunch by a country mile.

In particular I loved the start of the episode. Where the directors execute a wonderfully paced piece of build up to a equally great little deadpan comedy moment, it caught me totally off guard with what had been a previously unevident sense of comic timing and ability to be self deprecating.

 

Again in their defence there's probably a case that if the characters previous interaction hadn't been so focused on moving the plot forward, then a a episode where they just talk and goof about wouldn't have been as interesting or refreshing.

 

There's definitely moments that make it a flawed gem of a series worth spending time on,  but i don't think it does anything particularity original or really shows any great technical artistry.

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I still can't tell if the gross stuff in KILL la KILL is taking a back seat, or if I've just gotten much better at ignoring it. This episode felt really good? But the pacing as a series whole is all over the place, I don't know if that's intentional.

 

There's definitely moments that make it a flawed gem of a series worth spending time on,  but i don't think it does anything particularity original or really shows any great technical artistry.

 

I think the things that let Ergo Proxy punch above its weight at the time were 1) Good character and production design, with more money on display than was usually the case for 2006; 2) Philosophical elements that were much more explicit about their origins and influences; and 3) An interesting female protagonist with real weight and strength. None of those things make it that original or impressive, especially the latter one since Seirei no Moribito came out the following year, but as a product of its time it was well above average.

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re: Kill la Kill: It's probably the latter, although they are much more equal opportunity about it than most anime that go down this avenue. Goddamn love the teacher.

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re: Kill la Kill: It's probably the latter, although they are much more equal opportunity about it than most anime that go down this avenue. Goddamn love the teacher.

 

And the male nudity in the sports Deva transformation sequence! It's way more extreme than any of the females, probably because the censorship lets them, but still... That stuff can't play great in (much more homophobic) Japan.

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Yeah that transformation was fantastic.

 

It kind of upsets me that I can laugh at the dude getting all naked but when the ladies do it I just roll my eyes.

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It kind of upsets me that I can laugh at the dude getting all naked but when the ladies do it I just roll my eyes.

 

Maybe that's just the magic of the patriarchy! The teacher dude is hilarious, especially how it turns into a porn/music video whenever he's left alone with Ryuuko, but a female version would make me super uncomfortable. Oh wait, GAINAX already did that, it was the shotacon teacher from Mahoromatic and she was terrible.

 

Actually, I think my favorite character is Mako, Ryuuko's friend. But I might just like dumb (as in lazy/stupid) characters in anime. They're the hardest to pull off, so I still find them really refreshing, wherever I do find them.

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Mako is fucking hilarious. She's also my favorite, heh. Every time she goes on one of her rants about Ryuuko, I can't stop laughing until it's over. She's so over the top and dumb.

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Mako is fucking hilarious. She's also my favorite, heh. Every time she goes on one of her rants about Ryuuko, I can't stop laughing until it's over. She's so over the top and dumb.

& this week she basically got her own episode!

Overall I feel KLK has kinda levelled out now after some really variable episodes and now is going along at a reasonable pace.

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Overall I feel KLK has kinda levelled out now after some really variable episodes and now is going along at a reasonable pace.

 

Yeah, I agree. When I watched the prelude to the first episode, I thought I knew exactly the type of arc the anime was going to follow. And then it didn't! But mostly in a bad way. And now it's on the arc I thought I knew, a few episodes behind schedule, but I'm glad it's leveled out anyway.

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I'm not sure what's brought this about but Lovefilm (Amazons uk dvd rental & stream arm) seem to have just added a crap load of anime to their collection. It's still mostly in their dvd section but i've got Porco Rosoo, Musashi, and PATLABOR (god i love the 1st film i really don't know why I don't own it) added to my que. While it remains frustrating that so few older anime films and series are available by streaming, i'm gonna take this chance to watch a few things i've been meaning to get around to for a while.

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After finally breaking down and paying way too much for the second Blu-ray set (it's how they get you, having the first set on sale for super cheap before release), I have finally finished Michiko and Hatchin. What an amazing show. I guess it's competing for the top spot of my favorite animated show. I have heard a few people say it just sort of ends abruptly because the series was cancelled, but I can't seem to find anything confirming cancellation. I mean there's no cliffhanger in which to speak of an everything for at least the previous six episodes led directly in to the final episode.I figured it was like a lot of good TV series where they know when to end it instead of just ruining the whole damn thing. Nothing worse than a TV series that can't end.

 

Anyway, what a great show with some very honest but also fun characterization.The art direction is very soft and shows urban decay with beauty, much like Tekkon Kinkreet, but with less cold pastels and more warm colors. The two main characters are incredibly defined from their art direction, facial expressions, actions, right down to their clothes. The director, Sayo Yamamoto, put a lot of work in to having outfits frequently change for so many of the main characters, even though this tends to be incredibly taxing on animators (comic artists have no excuse). There were a couple of instances where the Michiko's outfit changed so frequently from one scene to the next that I was kind of confused on how she had time to change and why she would have felt changing was appropriate in that instance. Seemed more for comical effect either way. Also according to the interview with the director on one of the discs, much of Michiko's outfits were licensed by (or based on?) a Brazilian fashion designer.

 

I can't recommend this series enough to pretty much everyone. With all this constant arguing on the internet nowadays about feminism and what way a woman is depicted in this or that or if it's wrong, it's a very interesting series to examine, even though it created about five years ago. You could sit around and slut shame Michiko and say she's just dressing how she dresses for boys or attention or to attract male viewers, but she's just really in to fashion and is in no way an actual slut. There's one possible romantic encounter she gets mixed up in and ends up feeling guilty and confused. Hatchin goes from cute anime stereotype to full on tomboy but is never played as a typical comical relief moe character in either incarnation. All of these choices were made by Sayo Yamamoto, which is not to single her out because she's female but to give food for thought on how a female animator (in Japan even!) would like characters to be handled. On the interview on disc, Yamamoto said she was not looking to make an anime for otaku.

 

I guess the show fails the Bechdel test because it's about looking for Hatchin's father Hiroshi, however without spoiling too much, Hiroshi becomes the least important thing between the two leads. It's funny how much I was a little bit bummed that the series was so similar to Samurai Champloo in it's structure and driving plotline, but it is very much a different perspective on the same kind of journey.

 

And a very important part about this is the animation. Having come off Ergo Proxy which tended to be a lot of well art directed stills and pans, Michiko and Hatchin has all of the great art direction of good animation like lighting, composition, color, texture etc., but has so many great dynamic action scenes animated with incredible force. They really conserved their animation budget well and did not skimp on the last three episodes one bit. Also the expressions were well done, probably partly because of the character design, because most anime has this ugly stock face with the gargantuan eyes that they just copy and paste among the whole cast. In animation like this where the faces are individual tailored to the character, you get a lot of good range where the animators are forced to think how one will look in each situation. But I guess that's just a quality separator really and explains why I avoid most things coming out of Japan the second I see a typical anime character design.

 

Angry rant time: Funimation, fucking Funimation. Don't get me wrong, Funimation is great for finally giving an English release to this show and Sayo Yamamoto's Lupin series this year, but their whole dubbing culture really pisses me off. I have to watch all of the extras on DVDs/Blu-rays out of an OCD drive and the extras on here seem to be the most self indulgent I've ever seen. There are four episode commentaries with a bunch of voice actors saying next to nothing of importance about the show other than someone's a "bad ass" or promoting their own work on other anime. There's fan gushing and summaries of the story happening on screen. If they have no fucking insight to the show itself, why even record commentary at such length? Also interviews with the English voice actors (outside of the commentary) more than double the length of the extras with the actual directors and original voice actors. The original voice actresses interviewed have way more interesting words to say about the show in much less length and much less loud fangirl squeeing. What I've heard of the English dub is all wrong anyway. It's just the same old 10-20 people who live in Dallas and only dub anime because they are cheap and there's no way Funimation could afford voice actors with actual range. I guess that's fine since most of the anime released from Funimation is absolute garbage, but you can't dub a high quality show like Michiko and Hatchin with pisspoor voices. I would rather Funimation just never pay anyone to voice act in Texas ever again and put that money towards releasing more shows, but I guess forevermore people in the United States will be put off watching anything if they have to read.

 

And I guess I relate this issue again to the amount of sadness I felt on going to Animefest 2012 in Dallas, which I think Funimation puts a lot of money in, considering a bunch of junk of theirs gets promoted there. They flew in some big names from Japan: Dai Sato, Sayo Yamamoto, and Koji Morimoto (which was my main reason for going) and had them give multiple panels on their shows. I went to about five panels and and usually it was about five people, including myself, my fiancee (who didn't want to be there anyway), and a few other fans who knew why shows work in the first place. There was a ton of people there, but I guess they would rather show off their costumes or sell badly drawn fan art for ridiculous prices and totally dodge copyright laws. I checked out the plaque for one panel that reached full capacity for seating and saw it was for, "how to break out in voice acting." I then realized all of these disgusting fans are only in it for self promotion. These fans are all self promoting off of other people's works and yet when the same people who have had their hands in so many of the creations that made their way into the cosplays and fan art booths there, the same fans can't even show up. I guess they could make a case that they didn't know, but the itenerary on the website and the handouts of the schedules detailed who worked on what and why they are important.

 

So the Funimation DVD just reflected that. Jad Saxton who plays Hatchin in the English dub has an interview where she says. "I think because one of the directors is female..." While somewhat accurate, the series director and creator is that same female, she does not play the role of a staff director. Just seemed like she wasn't very informed at all on what she was working on. I don't know, maybe it's just because it's Texas. There's a high amount of ignorance that swarms around this huge state, so I wouldn't be surprised if a similar con played out completely different in California or New York.

 

Anger over. I hope anyone who loves the series isn't annoyed with me calling it "Michiko and Hatchin" so much when traditionally it has been called "Michiko to Hatchin." I think the "to" is a literal translation from the Japanese written title, but the actual title cards within the show and on a lot of the promotional material all say "Michiko e Hatchin" which translates to Michiko and Hatchin from Portuguese. Seems that translation is more correct (and the title Funimation adopted) considering it takes place in some sort of Brazil like place and the dates are all written in Portuguese, even if it could be argued that it is more of a stylistic thing.

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to is the Japanese word for and

 

pronounced toe

 

So, Michiko to Hatchin -> Michiko and Hatchin

 

Anyway yeah it's one of my favorites.

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Glad you came off that one on such a high. It feels like it's a very rare thing that we can talk about any show that we can unambiguously recommend to other people. It always seems to be some sort of catch, whether it's annoying Fan service, bad animation, or whatever.

Which is all the more reason that when we do encounter such a show to sing its praises from the highest mountains.

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English versions of anime that keep a perfectly translatable Japanese name are my most hated of all things.

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Angry rant time: Funimation, fucking Funimation. Don't get me wrong, Funimation is great for finally giving an English release to this show and Sayo Yamamoto's Lupin series this year, but their whole dubbing culture really pisses me off. I have to watch all of the extras on DVDs/Blu-rays out of an OCD drive and the extras on here seem to be the most self indulgent I've ever seen. There are four episode commentaries with a bunch of voice actors saying next to nothing of importance about the show other than someone's a "bad ass" or promoting their own work on other anime. There's fan gushing and summaries of the story happening on screen. If they have no fucking insight to the show itself, why even record commentary at such length? Also interviews with the English voice actors (outside of the commentary) more than double the length of the extras with the actual directors and original voice actors. The original voice actresses interviewed have way more interesting words to say about the show in much less length and much less loud fangirl squeeing. What I've heard of the English dub is all wrong anyway. It's just the same old 10-20 people who live in Dallas and only dub anime because they are cheap and there's no way Funimation could afford voice actors with actual range. I guess that's fine since most of the anime released from Funimation is absolute garbage, but you can't dub a high quality show like Michiko and Hatchin with pisspoor voices. I would rather Funimation just never pay anyone to voice act in Texas ever again and put that money towards releasing more shows, but I guess forevermore people in the United States will be put off watching anything if they have to read.

 

And I guess I relate this issue again to the amount of sadness I felt on going to Animefest 2012 in Dallas, which I think Funimation puts a lot of money in, considering a bunch of junk of theirs gets promoted there. They flew in some big names from Japan: Dai Sato, Sayo Yamamoto, and Koji Morimoto (which was my main reason for going) and had them give multiple panels on their shows. I went to about five panels and and usually it was about five people, including myself, my fiancee (who didn't want to be there anyway), and a few other fans who knew why shows work in the first place. There was a ton of people there, but I guess they would rather show off their costumes or sell badly drawn fan art for ridiculous prices and totally dodge copyright laws. I checked out the plaque for one panel that reached full capacity for seating and saw it was for, "how to break out in voice acting." I then realized all of these disgusting fans are only in it for self promotion. These fans are all self promoting off of other people's works and yet when the same people who have had their hands in so many of the creations that made their way into the cosplays and fan art booths there, the same fans can't even show up. I guess they could make a case that they didn't know, but the itenerary on the website and the handouts of the schedules detailed who worked on what and why they are important.

 

So the Funimation DVD just reflected that. Jad Saxton who plays Hatchin in the English dub has an interview where she says. "I think because one of the directors is female..." While somewhat accurate, the series director and creator is that same female, she does not play the role of a staff director. Just seemed like she wasn't very informed at all on what she was working on. I don't know, maybe it's just because it's Texas. There's a high amount of ignorance that swarms around this huge state, so I wouldn't be surprised if a similar con played out completely different in California or New York.

 

I think the problem with FUNi is not so much its location in Texas as the factory-dub system it's perfected. With the demise of pretty much every other old-school anime licensor that poured money into good dubs, especially Geneon, they believe (rightly or wrongly) that using the same small stable of voice actors for the same roles in every anime is the way to remain profitable. Actually, they're probably right, although you're right that it produces shit dubs with shit tone and pacing. I'm beginning to prefer Sentai and NISA, who just release subtitles-only, but I know that they're giving up the vast majority of their market with such a choice.

 

And if I recall, Animefest was created mostly because FUNi felt that it wasn't getting the attention it deserved at Dallas' real anime convention, A-Kon. It's been almost five years since I've lived there though, so things might have changed since then.

 

English versions of anime that keep a perfectly translatable Japanese name are my most hated of all things.

 

Whaaat, like Rurouni Kenshin or Haibane Renmei?

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