Bakacast Briefs – Revenge of the Bookworms

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We’ve got a new co-host this week!  We call him Glen, but you might better know him as Nagato, a long-lost friend and one of the original founding members of Project Haruhi. With him by our side, we start off by discussing Oxford’s hilarious and misdirected attempts to understand anime culture. After that, Chris gets all nostalgic about his very first manga, Love Hina. Finally, we move on to this week’s anime reviews.

WARNING! If you are the kind of fan who blindly worships any anime he enjoys, you might want to go elsewhere. We don’t hesitate to criticize these shows in the snarkiest fashion possible, which means a certain degree of intelligent and critical thought is required to fully appreciate our reviews. If you’re going to accuse us of being haters or trolls merely because we didn’t like one of your favorite shows, just don’t bother. I’m sure a site like Sankaku Complex or 4chan would be more amicable to your tastes.

[Music used in this episode is “Let’s Go to Tokyo” by J. Arthur Keenes.]

Love Hina Manga Returns!

The story that inspired a generation!

Nine years after finishing Love Hina, Ken Akamatsu has decided to publish a small one-shot of the romantic comedy manga in the next issue of Weekly Shonen Magazine. The one-shot will include six colour pages featuring Keitarō and Naru, however any details beyond that are sparse. This will also coincide with the 300th chapter of Negima!, another of Ken’s works.

If you are anything like me, then you too are now reveling in acute feelings of nostalgia. Savour them, and try not to feel old. Although Love Hina started back in 1998, I was first given it to read in 2005 whilst undergoing my first year of university. Up until then, I was completely ignorant and skeptical of manga in general, not to mention anime. To say that Love Hina turned my world upside down would be an understatement, as from that point on I was 100% addicted. So that’s where it all began for me, and as such the manga occupies a very special place in my memories.

But enough with the history lesson! What is your opinion of Love Hina? Have you too got a soft spot for it? Or have you moved on completely in your life and couldn’t care less?

Bakacast Briefs – OneManga’s Doom

First off, sorry for the lateness of this Bakacast episode. Since Dustin is on vacation this week, I got to try my hand at editing the podcast, and it took friggin’ FOREVER. On the plus side, I did get to pick the theme music this time around…

Anyways, this episode features a greatly expanded cast. Although Dustin is absent, I brought in Konata (aka Jeagle) and Shamisen (aka Larry) to fill his place. That means you’re getting twice as many bakas for the same low price!

As always, you can download it directly, subscribe to our RSS feed, or let iTunes do all the work for you.

We start off with a discussion about the demise of One Manga, as well as the new Seven Seas licenses. Then, after drooling over recently-announced sequel series to Avatar: The Last Airbender, we get into reviewing this week’s new anime.

And that’s pretty much it. See y’all next week!

Yen Plus Offers Free Online Manga!

Yen Press, the US publishing company that holds the rights to titles such as Yotsuba&K-ON! and Highschool of the Dead, has launched the online version of their monthly anthology magazine Yen Plus this week, replacing their now-defunct print edition. To celebrate this event, the August issue of the magazine is free, while any ongoing subscriptions will be $2.99 per month. The fact that this move occurs in the same week as the death of One Manga is perhaps only a coincidence, however with other publishing houses like Square Enix also putting content online, we may be seeing the beginning of a major shift in manga content distribution. What’s your opinion: are you along for the ride?

More after the jump.

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Thar She Blows: One Manga Signs Off

Well, it has finally happened. One Manga, one of the biggest scanlation hoarding websites on the internet today, is closing up shop at the end of this week due to ‘publishers recently changing their stance on scanlations’. It was only a matter of time before the popular website submitted to pressure from the multi-national manga anti-piracy coalition, which aims to reduce the huge amount of manga piracy on the internet. Indeed, the scalp of One Manga will be a big victory for the coalition as, according to ANN, One Manga was ranked #935 on Google’s 1000 most visited websites on the ‘net. This is quite a staggering thought; to think that a website that relies on such blatant piracy could rise to become one of Google’s top 1000. No wonder it had to go.

Do you visit One Manga frequently? I know I did, yet as I said in my previous article, and I say again now: lets pull our fingers out and start supporting the industry we love. Consider the death of One Manga the final wake up call.

Project Haruhi First Anniversary Contest Winner!

Last week, Project Haruhi celebrated its first anniversary as an anime blog. We asked you, the readers, to help us come up with a witty and fun tagline that would suit this website. Well, congratulations to Kamanashi for the winning comment! Project Haruhi: We’re not interested in ordinary cartoons is definitely something Haruhi herself would say and captures the vibe of the website perfectly.

Kamanashi, please forward your contact details to ryoko[at] projectharuhi.net and we shall send you your prize, a $50 gift certificate for J-List. Once again, congratulations!

Kamanshi’s blog and Twitter

Honorable mentions:
Galen: I Can’t Believe Its Not Moe!
Starlogic: Because Sankaku Complex is NSFW
Zzeroparticle: Chocolate Cornets and Other Anime Musings; After School Tea, Cakes, and Anime

The Juice of Haruhi Suzumiya

It happens: you’re thirsty, sweaty and need a drink badly. You run to the fridge, but all your beverages are just so BORING. What do you do?

Hi, Ghost Billy Mays here for Haruhi Lemon Fruit Juice! Haruhi isn’t interested in ordinary fruit juices, so why should YOU be? Ditch those dull drinks! Grab a can of Haruhi lemonade instead, and enjoy it’s wonderful citrus flavor! It’ll blast your taste buds into Haruhi heaven! Excellent for parties, walking on the beach, or just relaxing at the house! On the sweatiest and hottest of summer days, Haruhi lemonade is sure to amaze! Now that’s the power of moe!

Check out pics of this product in action below the break!

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Figma Fever: Young Haruhi by Max Factory

Have you always wanted that diorama of both young and older version of Haruhi kicking Kyon’s ass? Well, wait no more! Max Factory has added to their Figma lineup by releasing a younger version of Haruhi Suzumiya for your enjoyment. In case you didn’t already know, this loli-Haruhi is from the Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody arc, one of the more pivotal episodes in the the second season of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. More after the jump.

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Series Review: Angel Beats!

First things first, I didn’t like Angel Beats!

This is totally crazy, I know. This is the show everyone in the interwebs is drooling over. Surely I must have caught some rogue virus that rots away the parts of the brain that enjoy moe anime. I mean, I don’t like K-ON!! either, so just what is wrong with me? You’d think since I enjoyed Clannad so much this new offering from the same writer would be just as good, or at least have the same amount of impact as its predescessor, right?

WRONG.

Looking back at previous Key series, it turns out I didn’t like Air or Kanon very much, so it should hardly seem surprising that Angel Beats! ended up on the disappointing end of the scale with the rest of them. Why is that? The tried and tested formulas were there: mysterious afterlife world, highschool setting, girls with guns, a bit of fun thrown in the mix with emotional reefs to run aground on, etc etc etc. Oh, and a lead female protagonist who looks like Haruhi. Yup, all the key ingredients were there to satisfy my brain, and by all accounts Angel Beats! should have been win… yet it wasn’t.

Find out why after the jump.

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Bakacast 6 – Robots in Hell

That’s right, it’s the episode everyone I have been waiting for… we finally review Casshern Sins. But because even we can’t fill up an hour with Casshern discussion, we also review Venus Wars and tackle some important issues with the help of special guest Chris (aka Kagami on Project Haruhi): manga aggregationabsurd Haruhi DVD pricesthe “loli bill”, Japan’s search for new creative talent and—of course—beards.

Truly, we are the pinnacle of moe- and beard-related content. And if my script for a new slice-of-life show about lumberjacks gets green-lit, we may finally get to combine our passions!

As always, you can download the episode directly, follow our RSS feed or subscribe to us through iTunes. Head on over to our forums to discuss this episode in detail!

The music at the end is “ROBOTS” by Dan Mangan and is available for digital download on Amazon.