Something that has always fascinated me is how people find out about different manga series. Considering the relative lack of marketing that manga receives in comparison to films, TV shows, video games or even anime, it makes sense that people would have to find other sources to discover new manga series. This thought process began when I was thinking about Akira Toriyama. Undoubtedly one of the most successful mangaka of all time, having penned the highly successful Dragon Ball series, it’s surprising how few people are aware of his second most popular series, Dr Slump. If one of the best…
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I was browsing the internet when I came across the trailer for the new Lupin the 3rd film. Titled “Lupin the Third: The First”, it is going to be the first Lupin the 3rd film to be animated in 3D CGI (Computer Generated Imagery). As established in “Discotek Media Spotlight“, I’m a big fan of Lupin the 3rd. Watching the trailer, I felt mostly okay with the style of animation (although I feel that they ruined Daisuke Jigen’s character design) but I still had to question the decision of why this film is CG. I wish to start by saying…
Leave a CommentI’m sure that by now it has become clear that I’m not content with merely watching the most recent media. However, it can be difficult getting my hands on older anime shows and movies. While we have seen various distributors such as Anime Ltd and even Funimation dipping into the classics, I want to bring particular attention to Discotek Media. Let’s start with their origins. Discotek Media was founded in 2005, making them relatively recent by distributor standards, with a goal of releasing vintage anime. Since then, Discotek Media have released a vast amount of series, movies and OVAs and,…
Leave a CommentThere is a question that always frustrates me a little when I’m asked. If something is wrong with me and I go see a doctor, I’m asked “On a scale of 1 to 10, how is your pain?” This is a very important question for doctors to ask but what bothers me about it is that it relies on the patients interpretation of their own pain. A pain of 5 for one patient could be a 3 to another patient. In that same way, I can sometimes feel that is applicable when it comes to scoring media. Scoring media is…
Leave a CommentIf you have been reading this blog up to this point, you’ll know how much of a fan of Dark Souls I am. What you won’t know is that whenever I load up one of these games and enter the character creation, I always choose to create a female character. “Why do I do this?” I have wondered. The first thing to note is how few games feature females as the lead character. In particular it reminds me of something I heard about a game called “Life is Strange”. As the developer Dontnod was seeking out publishers, the thing they…
Leave a CommentCrowdfunding is a method by which a large number of people invest a small to moderate amount of money (rarely a large amount of money can also be invested) in order to finance a project. It sounds as if it would be great as a way to finance the release and translation of manga but it is not quite as simple as it appears. I should begin by explaining my own experience with Kickstarter, one of the most popular crowdfunding platforms. As a fan of Osamu Tezuka, I have been collecting his manga for years and, prior to 2014, I…
Leave a CommentI’m sure that, if you’re an anime fan, the thought of “How does anime actually make money?” has crossed your mind. It’s an understandable question. Starting with a fact that may surprise you, let’s take a look at a list of the TV ratings of animated TV series airing in Japan between October 21st and 27th 2019. If you examine this article, you’ll notice that, while some shows such as One Piece, Detective Conan and My Hero Academia are familiar to anime fans in the west, most of the shows on the list are unfamiliar to western fans. These mainstream…
Leave a CommentAs mentioned in “Why I’m a PC Gamer“, my only source of video games comes from the PC platform. However, my tastes tend to lean towards games of Japanese origin. Many people have, historically, questioned me on this, stating that not many Japanese games are released on PC. Here, I am going to explain the dramatic change in the world of Japanese games on PC and how it has got to this point. First off, it is worth noting that PC gaming wasn’t always unpopular in Japan. At one point, it was the most popular platform for playing RPGs. In…
Leave a CommentIf you’ve been collecting any manga recently, you are very likely to have bought an omnibus or two. For those of you who might be unfamiliar with the term, an omnibus is a single book “containing several books previously published separately.” Since so much of manga is now released in this format, I thought it might be worth discussing why manga is released like this and what to watch out for. The benefits of omnibuses for the consumer are rather easy to see. As mentioned in “The Joy of One-Shot Manga“, a common issue that people have with collecting manga…
Leave a CommentAs has been well-established in “Why I like Anime” and “Why I love Halloween again!“, I am a big fan of both Horror and Animation. It is a shame then how infrequent horror animation is. I know what you’re thinking “Immortallium, are you mad? There are tons of horror animated movies/shows.” However, hear me out. It is true that there are many animated movies and shows that dabble in horror. However, I think there is a big difference between dabbling in horror and embracing it. In the past when I have complained about the dearth of Horror Animation, people have…
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