CalAggie

Nice debut of this segment with some good inter-host conversation generated from the questions. (Also: "woot!" box!)

I'll try to post any good questions I come up with in the thread - if I can actually think of something I'd want to ask...
 
P.S. After the mention of GAINAX and a few of their adaptation projects, I thought of Shikabane Hime (from 
Yoshiichi Akahito's manga) as another one.

Hey, a segment I might watch in the future (as opposed to Straight-Up News & Quick Picks)! I feel like watching the first two now.
 
Technical note: there was some distracting, intermittent buzzing from 4:39-4:50 and 5:00-5:11. Encoding issue?

I think I remember this Sealab episode.
 
I didn't like the show after Capt. Murphy left but I had sorta stopped watching by then, anyway.

 
 
I shot an unboxing video yesterday when RIN ~Daughters of Mnemosyne~ & Case Closed season 2 arrived from RightStuf. I always feel a little silly after doing one of these but at least I did an okay job handling the digital camera and keeping a good flow to the commentary.
    
I intend to post a review of RIN on my own site and hopefully use the CC set to flesh out episode entries here on Anime Vice. (I also want to write something about all six currently released Conan movies in a collective post.)

I guess this is Charlie Brooker's "viral hit" with American (and global) audiences. It's about time.
 
I've enjoyed watching Newswipe (where this clip came from), Screenwipe (about television), and the recent Gameswipe special - even though I have to do it through YouTube. His columns are pretty good, too.

Last night (January 18th), 1 vs. 100 Extended Play had a Fanboy Night so there were themed rounds about comics, video games, and anime. I recorded the anime round for people who missed it and though the quality isn't as great as I wanted, the questions are readable and that's what really important. (Click "HD" if you feel like it.)
 
PART ONE 
  

  
PART TWO 
    

    
PART THREE   

PART FOUR 
  

  

The discussion topic of the past week has been the sales of Big Windup being not satisfactory enough for Funimation to pursue bringing over the second season, which debuts in Japan this spring. I wonder if this would be as widely reported if it hadn't come from a news website's podcast and even written up as a story on that same website. Perhaps it still would because the show seemed to well-received by online critics.
 
What initially irked me as a genuine lover of real sport is the extrapolation that sports anime in general isn't popular in America. That may be partly because of the stereotypical anime fan or geek being disinterested in sports (because it's "boring", they had bad experiences with high school social circles or whatever) but I know a few bloggers who watch soccer & American football so it's not an absolute. Still feels like a minority of the overall fandom, though. I suppose I can be fine with that - it allows me to act like I'm rebelling against the old view of geeks/nerds - but I wish it weren't so. 
 
I personally have only watched the first few episodes of Windup so I don't have a good opinion about it - I thought it was okay so far. (The chatter has caused me to put the series at the top of my rental queue - if I like it afterward, then I'll buy it.) I've mostly given up on significant blind purchases of anime because I view it as more of a collector thing... and because I didn't have an actual paying job until last month. Manga is thankfully different because I can give a series a chance with its first volume for $8-13 and continue with whatever clicks with me.
 
(Right Stuf is currently having a Funimation sale until the 18th so if *you* want to buy Big Windup and show some support for it, each $59.98 box set would be discounted 40% to $36.)
 
Back to sports anime in America: on a previous ANNCast, once-Geneon employee Chad Kime said Hajime no Ippo (a.k.a. Fighting Spirit) bombed. They took the risk because "the core anime market was really impacted". Chad came to the conclusion that "anime fans are too passive to get into sports shows". Justin & Zac chimed in that sports ficition in general doesn't too well in the US and that's fairly true - there aren't very many sports movies not entrenched in an inspirational story arc. (Reminder to self: why have you started Friday Night Lights yet?)
 
My base of experience in sports anime & manga is limited - 2 episodes of Big Windup, 8 episodes into Cross Game, three into One Outs (haven't gone back), slowly acquiring Princess Nine on DVD, Naked Wolves (sumo), and a few episodes of Prince of Tennis. (Note how many of these are baseball-centric...) I want to start reading sports manga such as Crimson Hero (volleyball), Diamond Girl (baseball) when it comes out from CMX in April, Whistle! (soccer), and Eyeshield 21 (football) - although I'll probably watch Eyeshield on CR first. I guess Slam Dunk (basketball) is on CR as well.
 
Finally, I've seen a few comments on various stories asking if Bamboo Blade counted as sports anime. I would lean toward "yes" because it involves physical activity and competition but it also has a lot of character-focused comedy and doesn't have the same feel as a team-focused series. Yawara is more definitely a "yes" since judo is an Olympic category and though Kaleido Star has gymnastic displays, it's more about creating a circus spectacle so I'm guessing "no". 

This was the first Squadcast I've listened to in many months - I mainly tuned in for the office and streaming parts of the conversation - and found it to be alright. IKEA furniture *can* be frustrating to assemble but it's not impossible.
 
I haven't been following along with the "X-a-day" posts but I could probably keep up with Eyeshield 21 (FOOTBALL!!) if that were to be picked as a future featured series. Gintama is a nice show, as well. However, both go on for 100+ episodes so that could be a test of endurance for whoever's put in charge of writing the related posts.
 
Re: Crunchyroll streaming under the Videos tab - I noticed that some of the newer simulcast episodes such as Tegami Bachi ep. 5 show only the first 2 minutes and then a prompt to sign up for CR Membership appears - the same way it happens on CR's own site to non-subscribers. Is the addition process too automatic, like through an RSS feed or otherwise, that it would be unwieldy to denote when such episodes would become fully available? This isn't a major concern to me - more of an observation - and it would probably be more work than it's worth to put dates in descriptions only to remove them a week later. A better solution could be waiting until a simulcast episode becomes broadly available but that might depend on AV's relationship with Crunchyroll.
  
Finally, the first plant names that came to mind were Twiggy and Palmer. Not great. I hope better names than those crop up!