I am a big Gunslinger Girl fan. Loved the story, loved the style, and I am a sucker for the darkly cute, and it doesn't get much darker and cuter than 10-14-year-old girls packing P90s, Sig 9mm and other weaponry. I also like Funimation both as a company that employs good people and as a company that does respectable work. However, Funimation has just raised the bar because their Gunslinger Girl dub is the best they've done. I mean every last note was hit, and by the time I got to the end of the third episode with Rico monologue, I was just floored; I was watery-eyed; I was stunned just like when I watched it the first time two years ago. They completely nailed the emotion and direction of that scene and of the show in general. The anime and story already made it a masterpiece, but this just takes it to the next level. It's a disgrace that it won't be on Cartoon Network; this show should be seen by people. I can not wait to see more of this show. It just sounds awesome, it looks awesome, so it is awesome, now and always.

Further still, it has some of the finest packaging of any anime dvd to date. The nicest looking DVD case insert with glorious reverse; a gobsmacking series box with crisp, immaculate printing. Most importantly, it's got the most unexpected yet awesome include I've ever seen for any anime starter set: a dye-sublimation printed cloth poster with image quality that blows every wallscroll I've ever seen right out of the freakin water, and it's got a darn cool image on it too.

So seriously, buy Gunslinger Girl Vol.1 with Limited Edition starter set when it comes out on the 17th of May. You will not regret it.

PS: Funimation is genius to have fans work on the shows they licence. Rather, they are smart to acquire the shows they are fans of. Buy what you love, then pour your soul into it. It shows and makes geeks like me happy. The second I heard Melissa, the brand manager of Gunslinger Girl, call the lead characters "her girls," I knew the show was in good hands. Anyone into the show enough to work with non-standard producers for the materials and includes and also into it enough to cosplay the characters is the kind of person I want working on the show.

...is an awesome musician is the end of that sentence.

Seriously, y'all should go out and buy his latest release, High Society. It's very awesome. "Lovesick" is an unreal track, especially its horns. Those horns are devine. It's the soundtrack for urban tragedy, or something like that. "Racing Green" is delicously vibrant and dancable. It's a fresh of life concentrated. "Brief Encounter" is just flooring; gloriously dramatic and orchestral yet totally dancable as well. The album is darkly beautiful, overwhelmingly favorful and wonderfully emotional. Best dn'b I've heard, since, well High Contrast's "True Colours." In fact, this is right up there with Roni Size/Reprazent seminal release, "New Forms." Seriously folks, go and buy this album. Dance, think, feel.

Yay, after 2 finals in a row, I'm done with school for the year. I'm taking English and Anthro in 2005. Yay.

Meanwhile, I'm sure any and every anime fan has heard about AnimeSuki getting a cease and desist from the Japanese company, Media Factory. Personally, I think this sets, atleast given things in the US currently, a terrible president, and I'd guess that it's only going to snowball from here, with more C&Ds to come in the next months, perhaps seeing fansubbing disappear as a semi-legitimate preview means by this time next year. You may say, "hey, what with the short turn around for anime titles, prelicencing and coproducing, their just isn't much need for fansubs." In that aspect, I agree. It's no longer an issue of 5 to 20 year wait times for anime to hit disc in the states, so fansubbing is no longer useful, atleast for most newer series, for building interest in licencing. However, fansubs, atleast among the honest, were an excellent means of trying before buying, especially since most rental services still have terrible anime selection, and readily available tv networks only show a sliver of the genres available. If fansubs disappear, and an expansion of rental selection (be it online download/online mailorder rental/real world stores) and/or an expansion of genre and series variety on TV doesn't follow suit, a lot of people won't only be not downloading anime, they won't be buying it either.

There are only maybe 10 series/movies in my collection of 200+ DVDs that I didn't in someway try before I buyed, be that borrowing discs from a friend, downloading fansubs, watching a screener disc or catching it on TV. Extend it out to series/movies I bought only because they were tied to a prior series that I previewed, liked and bought, and the number is probably 3 or 4 series/movies. Heck, Haibane Renmei was prelicenced, and I watched the whole show in fansub. However, not only did I buy the Domestic DVDs for Haibane as they came out (and the volume 1 with box at that,) I went back and bought Lain and NieA (as single volumes, getting aced out of the low priced boxsets because of my impatience and passionate interest,) and it got me to buy Texhnolyze as well (though I watched an episode of that before buying it. BTW, I went volume 1 w/ box there too, and I insist upon getting the discs with the lenticular inserts, even if it means going to a store that charges more.) I've bought atleast 6 pieces of licenced domestic merchandise tied to the set of properties Haibane got me into as a result (2 wallscrolls, 2 tshirts, one magazine, one CD) 2 pieces of licenced Japanese merchandise (2 pricey artbooks,) and I've even bought doujinshi by the creator of Haibane, directedly putting money in the creator's pockets. Shoot, I've bought series because the manga was great and vice versa, so as long as I can browse the manga section of local anime store at leisuely pace, even that's a passable means of preview for anime, and of course manga as well (I sure as heck wouldn't have bought Tokyopop's Instant Teen based on the cover art alone.)

So, however it's setup, there needs to be an easy, industry-accepted, very inexpensive means of preview, because atleast in my case, I've bought a heck of a lot of DVDs and related incidia because of previewing. Otherwise, I won't be buying anything other than what I can see on Cartoon Network and International Channel, and other than what I can borrow from friends. Personally, I'd like to be in a position to keep seeing a greater variety rather than be constricted though. Otherwise, I may never find another Instant Teen or another Haibane, and that just wouldn't be cool. ;)

Given that both have shown up in my google adsense advertisement bar, I suppose I might as well mention in the wake of this "heated election," that this site is basically non-partisan and non-religious. Whether you're Green, Libertarian, Republican, Democrat, Reform, New Century Whatever, NDP, Allience, Liberal, Tory, Socialist, Quebecois etc, I don't care. That goes double for religious affilation; I'm a Baha'i, and as such, I could care less what religion you are; it's part of the faith. Frankly, I just can't be bothered to pre-judge people on those basises, as it's dumb to do that. You're all innocent until proven otherwise in my eyes.

So, don't bother me about my google ads' content (not that anyone has yet, but I'm going with a pre-emptive strike.) Google decides that content, not me, so don't judge me on that. Pester google instead for their content putting random church and political ads on a site that has never even bothered to particularly deal with either until this little rant (should be interesting to see what AdSense yields off this.) AdSense needs to get it's sensors replaced... and it needs to get more click through.

Oh yeah, I voted. I'm not telling for who or what though, because like I said, this joint's non-partisan, non-political, non-evangelical. I'm only pro-participating in the process in an educated, intelligent fashion. Yay voting. Yay self-education.

"Independent Thinking is the Reason I can bring this" - Ultraklystron, "Nerdcore Life"

Remember that. ;)

The last 3 as-yet-unreleased-in-America manga I've gotten into are as follows:

-Rozen Maiden by Peach Pit.
-Ichigo Mashimaro by Barasui.
-My Two Wings by Toshiki Yui.

Now, if didn't focus on the fact that those particular works are quite funny and enjoyable works, and instead focused on the fact that those authors have done works in the past that at a minimum, I think are flawed from a writing/art at aspect, and at worse, were completely amoral and disturbing, I wouldn't have bothered to keep an open enough mind to see the more redeeming and positive works they've done.

As such, it was better for me to celebrate their good works, rather than denounce them on the basis of their prior record. If a person has 9 bad attributes, and 1 good one, it would seem to be obvious after the example prior to focus on the good one, no? ;)

[/gratuitious moral rant I needed to get off my chest]

When you dream you are a fratello from Gunslinger Girl, and that the secret organization in Gunslinger Girl has a local branch, you need to lay off the manga and anime before bed.

When you dream you are also throwing some kinda christmas party for the Gunslinger Girls themselves, and you're waiting out in the snow for their car to arrive, you need to lay off the manga and anime before bed.

You know, I don't have anime/manga dreams often, but I when I do, they are way weird, and I can really chalk it up to late night anime/manga. Watch some Tokyo Mew Mew right before hitting the hay? Bam, weird dream from Ichigo's perspective. Watch some CCS before going to bed? Bam, weird dream from Sakura's perspective? Watch some Outlaw Star before going to bed? Bam, weird dream about a street luge tournment against Gene Starwind and Melfina, followed by going to an Ice Cream stand with them and the rest of the Outlaw Star crew after words (I think that might have also been influenced by an episode of Rocket Power I watch earlier in the day, or atleast the would explain the street luge.) I think this most recent dream was spurred on by doing some Gunslinger Girl photoshops and reading some of Rozen Maiden. I guess.


Seriously, I need to lay off the anime and manga before bed... or do I?





Yeah. I do. :D

Note to people thinking that they should waste my bandwidth by deep linking to the wallpapers I've put up, especially when using them as backgrounds to their bulletin board, not to mention people using it as backgrounds for their neopets profile and their personal site with random R&B videos whose main focus is an asian 13-year-old girl who is crushing on a "boi" named Andrew. So, I've had to turn off deep linking of images.

Sorry if that inconviences anyone with a good reason deep link (did see any of that,) but I'm just not going to let it slide. Sorry if that makes me "teh heavy," but I get this site's space and bandwidth through philanthropy on the part of my friend Anthony, who owns BFCDesigns and I'd like to keep what I'm getting for stuff I'm putting out. I couldn't really justify the site if I wasn't getting it for free (plus google Adsense tips,) and I'd hate to drop it because people deep linked me to death.

Besides, it messes me up too. I've got to host pictures I want to post on bullitin boards I frequent on photobucket now. Which is what the deep linkers should be doing in the first place.

just saw the Powerpuff Girls movie, and it was very good. Not revolutionary, but definitely grade A. I also just saw the box office info for the movie. It's not even in the top ten week. This will probably keep Cartoon Network from doing anything other then TV for long while, which is a shame because they have more shows that'd make good movies, like Samurai Jack and Justice League. For now though, the prospects for any future ventures on to the big screen look dim. If anything, this will probably do damage to CN's reputation as a whole and may even force cut backs at CN, which is pretty bad news considering that CN already has a lot of the shows on shoe-string budget.

Part of the PPG movie's poor success at the box office is due to bad reviews from people who just don't understand the movie and it's humor. Ebert and Roeper's review was a great example of this. It was clear that they'd never watched the series, so many of the jokes that relate to the series probably went over their the heads, some of the jokes were references to production of the film itself, so those jokes probably went over their the heads and some of the more obscure references to other movies and TV shows probably weren't funny to them either. The PPG movie is a movie for the fans in many aspects, so it's not easy for a non-fan, especially a non-fan who goes into the movie thinking that because Warner Bros is involved with the movie, it's going to like Pokemon (which by the way, isn't as soulless and commercial as many critics make it out to be) because Warner distributed those films too. Now, I should note that the majority of reviews were glowing and positive, but when big name critics come down hard on a film, it does nothing but hurt it's fortunes.

Another part of it was the marketing of the film. The ads were basically of two kinds: ones for people who are very unfamiliar with the show, and ones for fans. The ones for the fans were very, very well made, and probably got a lot of the core fan base to come out and watch the movie. The other ads weren't great for attracting non-fans and if anything, may have turned off some current fans, because the style and music of the ad were just not very PPG-like at all. While I'm talking about the ads though, I have to say that the ads that Williams Street put together were great. They were funny and probably got some of the Adult Swim fan base to go to the movie.

The timing of the release of the movie was also a factor. Running against Men In Black 2 opening weekend is just asking to get trampled. It was clear that MIB2 was going to be a blockbuster no matter what, and the adult fan base that watches PPG crosses over to a considerable extent with the MIB fan base. Throw in a few unexpected curve balls, like Like Mike, which has some managed to earn more than the PPG movie, inspite of the fact that the idea behind Like Mike, a kid getting into a professional sports league, has been done many, many, many times before and is very cliched, and it becomes clear that the PPG movie should have opened on another weekend. Opening in the heart of blockbuster season is crazy.

Granted, even better release timing couldn't have saved it from the final blow to the movie, which is that it seems to only be in small theaters and they only seem to running matinee showings. This immediately does a huge amount of damage to the film's earning capacity because it means that it's never getting any full-price tickets, and it's movie theaters that people don't like. The six million or so dollars that it's got so far should almost be considered a miracle.

Oh, I almost forgot one last thing that hasn't been helping it's success at the box office: the some of the show's fans. Some of the fans aren't going to see the movie for either two reasons. The first is that they don't feel it's worth the money and they'll just buy it on DVD or wait until it's run on Cartoon Network. The other reason is that many fans are males in their teens and 20's, and some them don't want to be caught watching the PPG movie. I think that reason is bunk. I can understand not going to see something because of poor reviews, or poor marketing, or because some other movie you want to see is out, or because it's in a horrid theater, or because you'd rather get it on DVD, or watch it on TV. Those points make a little sense to me, but not going because your worried about being caught at the movie is in my opinion silly. So what if the PPG movie may be considered a girl movie? The reality is, is that's it action-comedy with jokes for all ages and genders. If you're worried about perception, take your friends to see it, so they can see just how action-packed the movie is. In my opinion, it can hold its own against live-action action movies with out any problem at all. Truth be told though, it seems that most of the fans that can get out to see it have, but some fans simply haven't been able to get to a showing of the movie.

In closing, go see the Powerpuff Girls movie if you like the show or you just want to see a good movie. Even if it's in a theater you don't like, even if you're worried about the few poor reviews it received, even if you're worried that your friends might catch you at the film, even it means having to go a matinee, it's worth your time and money. It's a very good film, with a good message, a good mix of comedy, action and even some drama, a good plot and it even has a Dexter's Laboratory short with it too.

...and the day, will hopefully be saved by, The Powerpuff Girls fans...

update 1:
alas... it looks like the movie is already out of theater is most of America and is considered by many to be a financial flop. Hopefully the DVD sales are good, and they turn a profit then...

update 2:
...well, the DVD sold out at my local Target the day it came out. I think that's atleast some thing...

Recently, someone noted that the drop-menu script made my site unusable to some people and in one sense, it's a legitimate complaint. A lot of people fear and/or hate scripts, applets, plugins and any other coding in addition to plain html, so even if they have something like IE4.0+, Netscape 4.0+, Opera 5+ or Mozilla 0.9x (this assumes that they don't run something ultra cut down, like Off By One), they turn off anything non-html. I can't blame them, because stuff like viruses and worms can get at your computer via that route, along side incredibly annoying popups. I myself use Off By One whenever I have to deal with popup laden sites (like Geocities or mp3.com).

Other people just run older computers that can only handle older browsers. I can't blame them either. Computers are expensive and the internet is a constant expenditure, and hence not everyone can afford to get the latest, greatest system (I'm sorta one of those people too). It's even arguable that running a script like the one I use is almost like descrimination against anyone using an older machine, and I know I'm not comfortable with that.

On the other hand, the script is really convient for anyone using a newer, dtml and javascript enabled browser because it allows pretty quick access to all the goods, by cutting on the number of pages a person has to wade through to get to stuff, especially since sometimes my host is slow sometime so anything that can provide more immediate access is very important.

So, am I going to rewrite the menu code to simple html to please one group over another or vice versa? Not at all. I'm still gonna keep the drop down script. It does the job I want it to, and well, but that's not to say I'm going to stick to everyone using a browser that can't handle the menus though, because that is sorta cruel. So, I've linked to the articles page from the index page, I've setup an express url to the articles with this address:(address is now dead that I've gone php.) and for those using very old browsers (who may not even be able to access the site via the domain thanks to the frames, but I'm doing the best on my budet), I've dumped all the text (except the text on the pics and skins pages) from karlrolson.com into one text file that'll be updated weekly and we'll be linked to right on index page. Hopefully, this works for everyone.

Update: As you can see, I've moved to straight up tables anyway. Atleast this setup is way cross-compatible now.

Update to Update: I'm all up in the php world now. Best of both worlds in my opinion.

I'm a fairly opinionated person. I try to be polite about it, but the fact is, when I like something or or have a thought I percieve as interesting or I just have an interesting life experience, I usually talk about it to everyone who I want to talk to, and up until recently, I had a great outlet for this, namely my old school's newspaper, The Firebird Flash. Now that I've graduated though, I don't have that option (though some of staff wouldn't mind if I did continue because at times I was one third of the content of the paper), so I realized I should probably put that kind of stuff on my website.

The other motivator to make this new section is x-entertainment.com (no, it's not a porn site) and the hilarious reviews and other articles that are posted to the site. I realized that a site like X-E is something I'd like to do and that I can do, but it that it wouldn't be an X-E clone either, if only because Matt Cara (founder of and main writer for X-E) and I are different people who live in different places who grew up in different times, with different tastes (not entirely different though, because like Matt, I watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a kid and I like dollar stores too). He's grew up in the 80's for the most part, I grew up in the 90's for the most part, he's from Long Island, I'm from Kirkland, etc.

That said, I won't be buying decade old Hi-C just to see what's in the can. I'll probably not hit up dollar stores to find the weirdest stuff I can, though I do on a occaision anyway, so maybe I'll write those experiences up, maybe, probably, yes. I'm definetly not going to eat Nad's Hair Remover Gel, if only because it's bad enough that one poor person had to eat that slime. I have no reason to make that two people. That reminds me, I need donate some money to X-E. I figure for eating something that's only quasi-edible, Matt's more than earned some of my money. Beside, maybe it'll drop the ad count down.

Anyway, what I will be reviewing is anime, manga, cartoons (yeah even some 80's cartoons, but different ones than X-E), movies, CDs, DVDs, software (any game reviews I do were going to be on GamersChronicle.com but I guess that'll end up here too) and anything else worth reviewing, I will be ranting about whatever I feel like and whenever I have a life experience worth relating, I'll post that up too. Hopefully I can now do this with a little regularity now that I'm doing this in php. We'll see.