The New Matthew’s Anime Blog

Shugo Chara! Crunchyroll vs Raw

I was quite excited when Shugo Chara! was announced as being one of the shows that Crunchyroll would be streaming one hour after airing in Japan. Usually, these types of shows don’t get licensed here, but I suppose it got a chance since the manga is out here and it seemed to be pretty popular on Crunchyroll. So, it was with anticipation that I paid my $60 for a year’s membership (since Shugo Chara! will be on for a while) and waited for the first not quite “simulcast” episode last week… and this is what I was greeted with, and very slowly at that:

For comparision, here’s my usual raw source:

I believe you can see the problems here. Some kind of chroma (the color component of the image) ghosting along with lower image quality than the raw. What you can’t see is the frame stuttering probably caused by a bad deinterlacing filter and frames dropping during certain sequences. (The badly upscaled non-720p “720p” doesn’t apply in this case since Shugo Chara! isn’t broadcast in HD)

What makes this worse is that the sample video provided by Crunchyroll exhibits none of these issues. It’s generally not good business practice to deceive your customers. Many are already complaining on the forums of the same issues and demanding a refund, but that seemingly won’t happen since the TOS doesn’t allow for refunds.

Now, with a new service, and certainly one gathering as much attention as this, I would expect there to be bumps in the road. I appreciate that Crunchyroll seems to be taking some steps to correct some issues such as site slowness. However, first impressions count, especially since this involves a high-profile companies like TV Tokyo and others offering access to shows legally. One would expect the quality of videos and subs from the producers of shows themselves to be better than that offered by fansubs, but that hasn’t been the case here so far. People won’t put down money for an inferior product, especially when they’re used to paying nothing for the alternative.

It really is disappointing since I would like to see Crunchyroll and its partners succeed in this experiment and prove online distribution (through a subscription model or otherwise) can be profitable. Anime fans get the shows they want right after they air in Japan, the creators and producers of the show get paid, everybody involved benefits. I am hoping that Crunchyroll and its staff will get their act together and take some action on these concerns soon.

Tags: Anime, Crunchyroll, Shugo Chara!

Shugo Chara! 66

Watch it on Crunchyroll (members can watch now, everybody else’ll have to wait a week)

  
  
  

Due to Crunchyroll changing things around again, it’s hard subs so I couldn’t turn them off and get clean caps. It’d be nice if they’d work on improving the video quality to match what they’re advertising before messing with other things, but oh well (^^;;

Anyways, back on track. Ikuto is still staying over at Amu-chan’s house, meaning more sleepless nights for Amu-chan, and more trouble trying to keep him a secret from her parents and everyone else. At the Guardian meeting there are rumors of a cat-eared person going around and making a fuss — someone from Easter, maybe Ikuto? After school, they find out that it’s actually a girl named Chiyoko (but call her Choco-tan after her otaku parents’ favorite anime character, Magical Choco-tan) that’s cosplaying as nekomimi heroine Cat’s Eye Ear, dealing justice to those who… don’t deserve it? Ooops. Turns out that Choco-tan’s doing it since she wanted to draw more attention than her usual quiet self gets.

Upon returing home, Amu-chan is greeted by the sight of Yoru and Ikuto tangled up in yarn… cats will be cats (^^;; Certainly doesn’t help things, as Amu-chan would prefer Ikuto out.. quicker the better so she can get a good night’s sleep.

The next day, Chiy.. Choco-tan is up to the usual as Cat’s Eye Ear, this time targeting someone drawing graffiti… or simply a street artist performing live. Oops. Depressed from messing up yet again, this is the perfect time for Lulu to(ry

And it’s Ran-chan and Amulet Heart this week… again… Not that I have anything against Amulet Heart (like the outfit), but c’mon, give Miki a chance once in a while, okay? (^^;; After Amu-chan’s usual lecture (thank goodness it’s not as long as Touma@Aru Majutsu no Index’s lectures), Chiyoko realizes that she’s been doing things the wrong way and goes back to normal cosplaying. The kids love it.. and so do the ooki na otomodachi watching.

Amu-chan herself realizes that she was making the same mistake as Choco-tan and comes home to apologize to Ikuto… but he’s not there anymore.

---

Wait a sec, there’s stuff that still has to happen before Ikuto leaves Amu-chan’s house (like the rest of volume 7). Given how things have been structured so far, they’ll probably be picked up later, after or during the course of more fillerish episodes as this week’s (yes?). We’re catching up rapidly with what’s been done in the manga (even moreso with PEACH-PIT on sick leave now), so there’s not much choice but to fill.

However, I’m not really complaining since Shugo Chara’s fillerish episodes tend to be cute and entertaining in their own way while throwing some of the main story progression in (you won’t complain about anything so long as Amu-chan’s cute, will you?). I would prefer if more episodes were done without the usual Lulu -> ? egg -> battle -> Amu-chan lecture -> x egg -> Open Heart (yeeesh, it’s still embarrassing to watch that), though. Well, they had to do something so they could sell more goods to the target audience… speaking of target audience, I wonder what the actual target audience (and their parents) would think of recent developments… a high school guy in the same bed as a 6th grader. Not to mention the key and hole thing from before (^^;;;;;;;

Next time, looks like another another fillerish episode. But the guest character seems cute, so all is fine (is that all you care about?).

…ah… I haven’t gotten volume 8 of the manga that came out last month (^^;; I still haven’t gotten any more of the first season DVDs besides the first boxset. I really wanted that Amulet Angel wallscroll that comes with boxset 3 (the one that comes with boxset 2 is a bit too suggestive… as in haitenai), but the boxsets are expensive to begin with and the exchange rate being < 90 yen = 1 dollar really isn’t helping out. Oh well…

Tags: Anime, Shugo Chara!

New anime for 2009: Munto, Tears to Tiara, Minamike, and more!

[Cross-posted from Japanator]

As this year gets closer to ending, info on the new anime awaiting us next year has started to flow, starting with something of a surprise. Kyoto Animation will be completing their original OVA series, Munto, as a TV anime starting in spring 2009. Sorry Haruhi fans, but you’ll have to wait a bit longer. Those who haven’t seen the OVAs (yes, they are licensed) shouldn’t need to worry about being lost, as the TV anime will include a “director’s cut” of the OVAs with new content.

Next up, AQUAPLUS’s Tears to Tiara will be starting spring 2009 as well, lead by director Tomoki Kobayashi of Utawarerumono (also based on a game made by Leaf/AQUAPLUS) and animated by WHITE FOX. The cast for the consumer PS3 release of the game (including Yuko Goto, Mai Nakahara, Ai Shimizu, Rie Tanaka, and others) will remain the same for the anime.

The third season of Minamike will start in January, made by the staff of Minamike ~okawari~ studio Asreed, but with some changes — Hiroshi Ogawa will be director and Rie Koga will handle series composition. I’m hoping that it won’t be an okawari of okawari.

Other anime starting in January of next year include the second season of Tetsuwan Birdy: DECODE, a new Hajime no Ippo anime, Kurokami The Animation, Slayers EVOLUTION-R, and VIPER’S CREED.

[Thanks to MOON PHASE for the info]

Tags: Anime, News, Spring 2009, Winter 2009

New, but not really new

Hey, y’all~! It’s been more than a few months since I last said anything around here… not that I had anything interesting to say then or now, but I figured I’d try out this WordPress thing that everybody else is using along with trying to post just a wee bit more. The old pages are still around so any links should still work just fine. Now to try and figure out a decent theme…

I would try to blame the lack of posting on my almost full-time job working the phones at the University of Georgia HelpDesk, but there’s a lot of downtime there (enough for much Nico Nico-ing) so that wouldn’t pass… Once you stop doing something it’s hard to get back into the habit. I’ll try posting more than once a month as a start (^^;;

Anyways, moving on now… here’s my viewing schedule for the season, along with my best attempt to sum up how I feel about each in approximately one sentence… or paragraph, maybe.

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Tags: Anime, Fall 2008, Random Stuff

DVD Review: Shugo Chara! Amulet Box 1

As y’all know… or probably don’t know since I haven’t been blogging that much lately… I’m a huge fan of Shugo Chara!, both the manga and anime. Unlike a certain other anime that Satelite made last year (Kami-chama Karin), Shugo Chara! turned out so well that I knew I was going to get the DVDs only a few episodes in — so there goes my DVD budget for the next few months with the purchase of the Shugo Chara! Amulet Box 1 last week (though I didn’t pay the price that’s listed on the box since I got it from Amazon), including 13 episodes plus other extras.

Now let’s go through the goodies inside, starting with this:

An almost life-size wallscroll of Amu-chan (much bigger than the Sakura ones I have) — extremely kawaii as advertised. At first, they were going to include an Amu-chan “big towel,” but decided otherwise (I wonder why…).

 

The box includes 4 DVDs with 13 episodes in total, each with a different shugo chara on it, a DVD with special features, a drama/radio CD, and a soundtrack CD. A 23 page color booklet has summaries and staff comments for each episode, character profiles, and an interview with director Kenji Yasuda (Shugo Chara! is the first show that he’s directed). He talks about how he was offered the job to direct and also what he does to make the show interesting and easy to understand for its intended younger audience. The storyboard for Amulet Heart’s transformation bank is also in the interview.

 

The special features DVD includes an interview with the voice of Ran, Kana Asumi (AKA Asumin), who most of you probably know better as Yuno from Hidamari Sketch. It’s pretty much the usual questions about her role, what character she likes, so on, but still a watch for her fans (like myself).

The pilot film is rather interesting — Kenji Yasuda talks about how he made it to show the staff at Satelite what exactly they’d be working on, and also get a idea of the general look and feel of show (such as the textures used for clothing). Some of the cuts were later touched up and reused in the show itself, like the cut above which was used in the OP.

The actual DVDs are pretty bare bones but with excellent picture quality as expected, with the first including some interesting commentary from Kanae Itou (Amu), Kana Asumi (Ran), and director Kenji Yasuda on the first two episodes. Kanae-chan and Asumin seem to be quite big fans of Suzuki-kun, and even Yasuda-kantoku said that Suzuki-kun might be the star of an episode sometime soon. Anything on when we might find out what his name is?

And that’s the first of four DVD boxes to come for Shugo Chara!. Yes, buying the individual DVDs would’ve been a bit cheaper, but I’m glad that they decided to put out a box every 13 episodes to make things easier to manage. We’re just about done with the second batch of 13 episodes — next week’s episode about Nadeshiko looks very interesting (I’ll keep quiet for those who haven’t read the manga) — and I’m looking forward to seeing where we go the second half of the show.

And, Amu-chan kawaii yo Amu-chan! (of course you’d say that).

Turning First Graders Into Moe Otaku? The Hatena Yousei (Question Fairy)

And after the Cheetahmen boom now we get this. Last week, somebody uploaded an anime to Nico Nico Douga from a DVD that came with this “First Grade Challenge” material published by Benesse (mostly to promote their own products, of course), where an upcoming first-grader, Yuki, goes through these various challenges to get him ready for school. It seems pretty normal until the second challenge and the はてなようせい hatena yousei — Question Fairy — shows up. Check the video after the jump to watch.

The Question Fairy’s character design is something you would expect to see in a moe anime — yaeba (cat tooth), loli, mahou shoujo, some blush on the cheeks, seiyuu Megumi Toyoguchi (Honoka@The Third, Winry@Fullmetal Alchemist) and just plain cute… and haitenai (as in not wearing anything under the dress) as well, apparently. Of course, the people hanging around Nico Nico tend to have a lot of free time so illustrations and videos started popping up there and elsewhere. There are now 900+ hits on pixiv (site for Japanese artists. Fanart and such) and 150+ videos on Nico Nico.

It seems like the boom has slowed down some, so we’ll wait for the next one to come along. I would’ve liked to have joined in on the matsuri (festival), but since all I can do is compose music that sounds like it came straight out of a 16-bit console RPG there wasn’t really anything I could do (^^;;

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