AnimeVice News

Word from Sailor Moon fansite Moon Chase is that the next stop on Sailor Moon's supposed maybe-kinda-sorta comeback world tour, which kicked off in Italy last week, is Albania, where the show runs under the title Luftetarja e Henes ("Fighters of the Moon").
I went and double-checked the site for the Albanian channel-- Digitalb's Bang Bang --to confirm, and it looks like the show is indeed airing on weekdays at 6:25pm (1825 for you folks who dig those 24-hour clocks).


If you're curious, the network also airs SM earlier in the day (11:30am), and Naruto repeats twice a day, too-- at least on Tuesdays. Interesting! 

Japan knows all too well that anyone trying to learn Japanese is an otaku of some kind. To make full use of this fact, the Japan Foundation has just launched a new website that will help us learn the language. But the real kicker is that it uses anime and manga to help us learn (ie spoon full of sugar.) The site isn’t 100% up and running, but it does have some modes available for you to try out. Like the Character Expression module, which helps you learn sayings from popular character stereotypes, and Love Word Quiz, which is basically just a quiz about love words (7/10 bitches.)

I don’t mean to burst your bubble, but this site will and can not teach you how to speak or write Japanese by itself. This is a good tool for learning Japanese, but you need more than this to get by. Though it is nice to see Japan actually trying to help us learn their language.

[Via Ann]

Whew. I'm not entirely sure if this'll be our last WonFes post-- there are a few individual things I've seen about that I may want to profile --but this will probably be our last big batch o'figures, also the final batch from Dengeki Online. Just to wrap up:
 
- WonFes Figures Part 1
- WonFes Figures Part 2
- WonFes Figures Part 3
- WonFes Cosplay
 
And now, without further ado, on with the figures!
















Okay, let's hear your favorites! Or the opposite-- did anyone expect figures of someone in particular and didn't see 'em, or didn't like the ones you did see?

Fantastic news for all of you attending Anime Boston this year, for Nobuo Uematsu will be attending this year’s convention. He is best known for being the composer of Final Fantasy music, as well as other games like Chrono Trigger, Blue Dragon, and Lost Odyssey. This year’s Anime Boston will take place this April 2nd through the 4th at Boston’s Hynes Convention Center. It is unknown at this time whether he will actually have an orchestra with him and play a couple of songs, or if he will come by himself with a CD player and a hop his step.

[Via ANN]

Whew, we're still not done even with THESE ~50 figures-- also from Dengeki Online.
 
If you missed it: WonFes figures part one, figures part two, and cosplay!
 

The last time the ASOS Brigade posted their Return of the ASOS Brigade video, there were "technical difficulties" that prevented us from knowing some of the details about The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya season 2 release. But now the video has been reposted with the details left in-- and the video reversed, which I believe is a reference to sneaky otaku who manage to post the OPs and EDs of shows to YouTube flipped in order to keep them under the radar (something I noticed a lot for Durarara!!).
 
 
For those of you at work or too busy to watch: the series is going to be released in one box set. 
 
...And that's pretty much all you get. But hey, you can listen to Cristina Vee's take on Super Driver again!

  
  
"What's ShoDojo?" you may be asking! ShoDojo is-- or was --the name for FUNimation's upcoming social-networking-meets-video site, but Nebs caught a FUNi tweet from late January that while the project (which has been promoted for at least a year or two) hasn't yet appeared, it is still coming...it just won't be called ShoDojo. Maybe it didn't test well. Too bad the awesome name ANIME VICE is already taken, eh? Ehhh?

Ahem. Anyway! It'll be interesting to see what they come up with-- and how much it looks like the original plans for ShoDojo. Hey, why don't you guys come up with some names? I'm curious as to what YOU would name an anime site.

I caught some wind of this last night, but now it's official: Verizon has "explicitly blocked" its users from infamous image board 4chan, home of memes, photoshops, and a wide variety of things you probably do not want to treat your eyes to on an average day...depending on which board you go to.

And I can only assume that there are a segment of Anons who are thrilled, given how many of them bitch about how too many people (especially 'normal' people) are on the forums. Or maybe that's just /a/, since I tend to hide in fear from /b/.

Of course, they're only blocking traffic from port 80 (which is the default port for HTTP connections), so it's possible that 4chan founder moot can create a workaround for VZN users who would like to be able to access the site.

In the meantime, those affected by the block are being told to contact Verizon's Network Repair Bureau or Verizon Wireless Support, and more info is available at the 4chan status blog.
 

UPDATE: CNet reports that the block has been lifted for the time being:

"Our network security system found traffic from some 4Chan web sites that had strong potential to disrupt the Verizon Wireless network, affecting our customers' use of their services," Verizon spokesman Jeffrey Nelson wrote in an e-mail to CNET. "With continuing investigation, and ensuring no current risk of harm, are giving the green-light to all 4Chan traffic. We will continue to monitor for any possibility of network harm."

UPDATE II:

It was unclear from 4chan's original posts, but it looks like it was just Verizon Wireless doing the blocking, so only 3G customers (people on cell phones and other 3G-enabled mobile devices) that were having the problem-- no FIOS or DSL customers.

A real-live K-On! apartment building isn't QUITE a reality, but only barely: Gigazine reports on the themed models of apartment buildings that were spotted at WonFes 2010, which I had not seen any mention of until now. 

Along the same lines of itasha (otaku-decorated cars), itachari (bicycles), and other such fan-decorated items, the idea is basically a standard apartment building...but with a big fat piece of K-On! art on the side, as well as on the water tower on the roof. (Well, it wouldn't HAVE to be K-On!, but the particular model being sold at WonFes was.)

In fact, it was really just a clever repackaging of a building model with a bunch of K-On! decals, if you look at it really closely-- but I bet it sold like hotcakes. And it'll soon be available online for you guys who want to start building your own otaku city. 

If it sells well, maybe before long you could have an entire K-On! branded replica of Akihabara or something. Would you WANT to own such a thing? And perhaps more interestingly: if you were going to live in an anime-branded apartment building, what anime would it be?

This time the photo collection comes from Dengeki Online-- and believe me when I say this is far from all of them... 



 




WANT!


 
Whew. We've got at least two more WonFes posts to go, kids, so stay tuned.