AnimeRoot

We are working on it!
Confirmed for Brawl Nan Desu Kan (NDK) 2010!

Better late than never, Animeland Wasabi has been confirmed for March 4th through the 6th. As usual, you can expect us to be there on the floor getting pictures and doing our thing. See you all in March, hopefully there won’t be any snow or weddings this year!

Byron Wasabi 2010

Turning points of the anime Industry

The legs of any entertainment industry would be distribution, when new ones are invented and become standard the old set are cast off. Let us take a moment and look at a few of these classic formats that are long forgotten. Many kids of modern times may not know of any these obsolete formats, but for history sake I must say I can better appreciate current technology as I have used and lived through the days of VHS, Beta-Max, LaserDisc, and VideoDisc.

Remember that old saying “Be kind, Rewind” I bet your kids have no idea what that means. Well Anime Fans I grew up on VHS, I first encountered Anime on VHS and that’s when I fell in love with it. I have so many good memories from the VHS laserdisc days, and I must say without these formats the American anime industry would not be here today. Thanks Retro! If you’re asking yourself the question “Why is the past so important this second?” Ah, that is a very good question to ask. You might say the reign of DVD is at its end, though it will live on for a long time, but it has passed the torch to the High-Def king Blu-Ray. And that is a good thing, the industry as a whole needed it, and once again your anime collection will change and grow.

Classics once found on VHS are being reborn in their full glory, finally being able to display raw film has empowered artists and directors to re-create and restore classics. Future anime that is already in High def has a home alongside forgotten friends and timeless classics, all on one format. It’s a beautiful thing, and I will be writing more in-depth about it soon.

I will be breaking down some formats, and their impact on the world, including the anime industry in the coming weeks. And reviewing some new and old releases as related to topic and format on hand at time of review, let’s face it I don’t own Beta-max and have long parted with Laserdisc so VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray will be the formats.

Zion Random

Hmmm…
This is just my humble opinion, but I think things are evening out finally. Due to the price drop of the PS3 and Wii the Xbox360 finally has some competition to worry about. Honestly I’ve owned my Xbox360 and Wii since launch but only recently jumped on the PS3 boat.

Why you might ask?

PS3 was to expensive, lacked good titles, and still has terrible online service. But now its much more affordable, has many worthy titles under its belt, and is a bargain BluRay player on top. But to be honest my favorite system overall is the XBox360 because of the games. Fan boys of Sony claim better graphics and better load times, well now that I own all the systems I can tell you, it’s pretty much a lie.

The graphics are the same, the load times are the same, and for the most part I’ve yet to see something that the PS3 can do better than the 360 short of playing BluRay.

Hey whoa slow down there Xbox boy, why the hate. Ok I can admit to a bit of bias but to be honest the PS3 is a great system, has good games, and is not a gimmick like the Wii. Don’t get me wrong I like the Wii for Zelda, Mario, Metroid, and Smash bros, and not much else. Its graphics are joke, sound quality almost as bad as a netbook, and the motion of shaking looks like masturbation I’m sick of the Gimmick, but if it pleases the masses please Nintendo feed the hardcore gamers a bit more often.

Ok that’s enough picking on the Wii, it’s not a bad system in any way, but it is not next gen or even current gen, but it is fun and cheap, and is a great way for grandma and grandpa to get in on some gaming to, so it is hard to hate on. Ok I’ve jumped around a little bit but come on you don’t want waste your time hearing fan boy rants you want some points. Well here you go.

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Zion Random

From time to time, a blog will come along and change the way you think about life… This ain’t such a blog but it is still worth reading! Authored by the infamous TheFluff (a fansubber), this blog is a direct peek into the world of an encoder. One thing I can easily say about fluff, he may be a sarcastic bastard but he is always right and always angry. Consider this a bit of filler in between waves of NDK 2009 coverage but it is a blog I have been reading for a while and it is always enjoyable. NDK Videos are on the way folks! They take the longest to process I am ungodly busy but I promise they are in the works! Expect them to start appearing this week. Also expect a reorganization of the coverage pages to make them a little easier to link to and share. Thanks you, and good night!

Walls of TL;DR Here

Note: If you enjoy our coverage of NDK or just like the site, please subscribe to the RSS Feed and keep current on our articles!

Byron Random

What can say about the AMV? I was awesome! NDK’s AMV has always been one of the best in the United States and I stand by it and all the editors that put in the time to make it happen. It was a pretty good year, with tons of local editors and a full house.

Bringing home some world famous Golden Asuka’s, the only thing that bugged me was some the videos that were shown in the overload were winners at like AX and Otakon and yet they were bumped into the overload. Just saying It brings up some interesting thoughts. Anyway it was a good AMV overall.

I will be posting links to the videos played as I\we have time. You can find them in the forums.

List of winners Read more…

Zion Random

Zions day one reflection

“Man… I Love NDK!”

NDK has always been my favorite convention, and today has re-enforced that fact. This convention treats people like people. I was yelled at to stay in line a few times, but that being my own fault for my curious eyes would go wandering to cosplayers and my friends. Each year when I return to NDK I’m reminded about just how much I miss it, Man… I love NDK! This convention has an atmosphere unlike anything else that no other con can match, not even mega-cons like AX. This convention has love, spirit, and a warm glow that comforts and embraces much like grandma’s house.

NDK has grown bigger and bigger, but still retains that small con funky attitude and feel. This convention sticks to its roots and traditions and continues to deliver a solid weekend of fun for everyone.I can’t put words to the dedication of the staff and volunteers, I know how much work goes into organizing and running this monster every year, and the people are there to meet the challenge.

If you read Yudothat’s post below this post, it pretty much summarizes where and what we did on Friday, this post is strictly reflections.

Article Continues

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Zion Article, Conventions, NDK 2009

After a good long weekend of con-going there were lots of photos to sort through. A big thanks goes out to all the cosplayers that attended the convention as none of these would be here without you! Head on over to the Nan Desu Kan 2009 Gallery for pictures! More pictures are likely to be added tomorrow or the day after as I still need to get photos from two other cameras. Enjoy!

Noob Edit: All pictures from cameras are uploaded!

crash_maxed Conventions, NDK 2009

The Animeroot crew rolled out and arrived at the DTC around late morning on Friday. The first thing that we noticed was that the hotel parking lot was already piling up at 10:30AM. After sorting a few minor issues with our rooms, we collected our badges and setup HQ in the rooms.
The first event on our list was Opening Ceremonies which left us with some time to kill, we decided to troll for photos of the cosplayers before finally hitting the dealers room.  Zion, Crash and myself picked up a few items. One of the items Zion picked up being particularly interesting in the sense that it was a figure with fuzzy ears and a tail. Zion might make a quick review about this sometime.

Once it neared time for the Opening Ceremony we headed over to erect the audio/video setup as well as take a few still photos. Overall, I think the Opening Ceremony was

rather informative as to who the guests were, especially since we have a few first time con-goers in our group this year.
There were also some big announcements made, the main one being that there is a NDK New Years Costume Ball planned. If this will be a classic “Mask and Tux/Dress” ball or a Cosplay ball it isn’t really certain but we have a feeling it is going to be leaning more towards the cosplay type. Closely followed by Opening Ceremonies was Miki Nagasawa’s Panel. At the request of the guest no audio/video recording was allowed at the panel, however a few pictures are available in the gallery.

Yudothat Conventions, NDK 2009

Animeroot has not slept, we have thought about it, but we prefer to get caught up on posts, and we finally got internet! Things to look for sometime between now and say Tues-

- Full Convention Write up and reflection
- Pictures from the entire convention “4 still cameras and 2 video cams”
- Video footage* pending editor* could take longer due to college homework
- Interview with Chris Patton
- Our panel Coverage and feedback
- Animeroot presents the death of the anime industry
- Any new product reviews “New purchases”
- and more!
Keep your eyes open and check back often.
NDK ROCKS!

Zion Conventions, NDK 2009

Guess what folks NDK is tomorrow and I’m very excited about this years convention; with a star guests lineup, tons of fun events and the return of the good and usual this year could rank as epic. Look for The new AnimeRoot T-shirts and Say HI! We are the guys with the Black shirts that say AR on the Front and are most likely running from event to event.

We at AnimeRoot are very busy folks but we love to talk to people, and this year we plan on writing more and interacting more with the general population, maybe even some of the smelly elevator people. No Promises on that but I rest assured that we will be there and everywhere over the weekend.

Zion Random

Let me be the first to announce my very own panel at this years Nan Desu Kan 2009. The name of the panel? “The Death of the Anime Industry”

I know that the name is scary but I want to scare people because the situation with anime is pretty scary right now. With the recent closure of ADV, the financial downturn is rearing its ugly head yet again.

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Byron Conventions, NDK 2009

I was drinking my caffeine this morning and I received an Instant message from Yudothat and the words ADV is gone.

I have mixed feelings about this but honestly I’m not surprised.

Here is the link
Link

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Zion Random

Here we have it, the official Press Release from the head guys at NDK.

The announcement provides a summary of all of the guests as well as a pricing for the convention. All of this can be found at NDK’s website.

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Byron NDK 2009

Us the people of Animeroot recently got back in touch with our local roots, and the local roots were like “WTF animeroot where is all your old coverage?” and we were like “Doh!” So we will have to dip into the depths of our hard disks and dv-tapes to retrieve said footage, it hopefully will be up and added within the week here.

We have gone through some changes over the years, format changes, approach and general way of thinking.
You might not think this is the same animeroot but believe me it is. We still have the forums, the pub, the galleries, and the reviews.

This year has been slow for us due to: College, travel, illness, and hosting problems. Many of the staff here at the animeroot HQ have been very busy with projects extending into what was our free time to work on this site, but we are almost done with school so expect Hope and Change here in the near future. I know I have been slacking and it shows, sigh…

EDIT: tl;dr – NDK 2005-2008 pictures all uploaded in gallery!

Zion Article, News

This year at Anime Expo 2009 some of the AnimeRoot crew sat in on the AMV re-screen. The AMV re-screen was in a small(er) room than the main event, but showed all the AMVs from this year’s contest, and also included some cool footage of Monty Oum’s Dead Fantasy series.

The best part though was probably that the line wasn’t absolutely huge (by mega-con standards).

This year’s comedy category winner, and winner of various other judge and fan choice awards was entitled “We Need You!” As the name, and the first few seconds of footage suggest, the AMV is put to the track of “Starship Troopers: We Need You!” After looking around for a while the AMV was nowhere to be found on the net, but sure enough after a few weeks have passed the AMV has hit Youtube and various other sites. AMV is embedded after the break!

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crash_maxed Anime Expo 2009, Conventions