Good Riddance ODEX! Farewell Anime!

As some of you might know the main reason i got interested in all-things Japanese is because i was introduced to anime during my poly-days. Since then my taste has evolved to J-music, J-idols, J-movies and now most recently J-dramas. Now i think the think the time has come for me to give up on my first love (anime).

And i blame this on the entire ODEX and AVPAS crackdown on anime downloading that has been going on since the beginning of the year. I always try to place myself on both sides of any argument to try and understand where each party is coming from, so a brief summary on the 2 sides of this matter:

ODEX: Downloading anime is illegal. We own the licenses to officially release anime in Singapore have authorisation to take legal action (meaning: Fine $$) against anyone who had and are still downloading anime in Singapore. We blame our poor VCD/DVD (VCD..haha!) sales on these 'pirates' and won't hesitate to sue the pants off anyone (they actually sued a 9 year old-boy)

The 'other' side: You are just using the excuse of piracy to account for your poor sales when the real problem is that you don't understand what anime fans want. Your releases suck in video quality, subtitles and dubs etc... Using lawsuits and threats to recover your losses is really the lowest.

All this has been going on for quite a while now and my intention was to let all the hoo-hah die down before going back into anime but just recently i've been reading again about all that ODEX has done to persecute (some call it a 'witch-hunt') anime lovers (pirates) and i ask myself, is it all worth it to take this risk? I love anime, but i certainly won't die without watching it.

And just reading how unreasonable and unfair the law suits are. Basically, they CAN persecute you in a court for $10,000/episode but they will settle for an out-of-court settlement of $3,000 to $5,000, and from what i read you have to sign an agreement that basically allows them to sue you AGAIN for the same thing if they so please). And as someone questioned in a HWZ post, "Pay $3,000 and they still don't give you the anime huh?"

Furthermore, instead of first issuing a warning letter, the lawsuit will just land 'Boom' in your mailbox straightaway. It's like stealing candy from a mama shop and instead of the shopowner shouting, "Oei!" first and giving chase, he just whips out a shotgun and guns you down.

To be fair, i acknowledge that Yes, downloading anime is illegal and wrong. As soon as i read that there would be a crackdown i completely stopped downloading. However, i read that ODEX has the power to persecute anyone who downloaded within the LAST 7 months*!

Now disregarding that they don't send out warning letters before a lawsuit, if they were to suddenly send a letter saying, "Hey, we're going to sue you for what you dl'ed XX months ago. Despite you stopping your downloading when we made public that it was illegal, we still see a need to sue you to earn back our $$." Now they CAN do this. That's just totally unfair and unethical, IMO, moreso than 'stealing' a video.

It seems that they just out to make a quick buck from lawsuits rather than improve their releases and pandering to the anime niche market.

Lastly, just saw this articles today about ODEX director gloating about suing people. If i didn't hate him (or rather his company) before i certainly hate him now. Anyway you can follow this saga through this links:

- Hardware Zone forumers expose Odex director?
- how do i gotten pwnt
- Excuse me, is that Stephen? The Stephen Sing?
- Stephen Sing: Odex Director (Hardware zone Forum thread, their CSI team investigating the 'gloating' matter)
- ODEX Wiki

Anyway after all that is said and done, yes, i will try to wean myself off anime. I DON'T need to 'pirate' to keep myself entertained. I have always imported DVDs and CDs of shows/music i like. I have no financial issues about buying original. I LIKE buying Original.

ODEX, you will never have my support on any of their products unless you stop this lawsuit bullshit and reimburse all the people you sued. I certainly don't need any of your shitty releases. You will need consumers like ME more than i will ever need anything from you. Good riddance.
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Oh ya, after feeling a bit pissed today reading all this ODEX crap, i called the police on the neighbour living across from me. That dumb *insert expletive here* was burning some things and all his ashes flew into our front porch. Talking to him didn't seem to do any good (retard..) so i just called the police hotline to confirm whether i could file a complaint on this matter and the police said yes. So i did.

I feel justified in my decision because i didn't use the power of the law for monetary gains or greed! I'm within my rights and just protecting my property and teaching some idiots a good lesson in return. They should thank me.

Expenditure Projection: April

Checked with Funz Centre today and they said Guitar Hero 2 will reach here only near the end of this month. Kind of sucky news but the only thing i'm afraid of is that i'll overspend my meagre allowance before i reach end April. So far my expenditures since yesterday:
- Lonely Planet Japan Guide - $51 from MPH
- The Hidden Blade (DVD) - $12.90 from MJ Multimedia
- Inu no Eiga (All about Dogs) (DVD) starring Miyzaki Aoi! - $10 2nd hand from VideoEzy
- Grand Total - $73.90 (13.1% of $560)

And if i project other things that i'm planning to get this month:
- Guitar Hero 2 (duh!) - $160?
- 25pc DVD-R TDK (Cos i ran out of blank DVDs completely..)- $19
- YesAsia order - $80 (for the time being; ordering on Saturday)
- Pump petrol for my mom - $40
- Grand Total - $309 (55% of $560)

And this isn't counting topping up of EZ-link cards and food/snacks. Bottom line is that i don't think i can save much (again) this month. And yes i have to learn to be more thrifty on small things (no taking cabs unneccesarily! no fast foods!) if i don't want to use up everything.

Boo!

Been watching Ghost Hunt this past few nights. After watching the first episode sometime last year i thought it was pretty weak (for a supposedly horror anime) so i dropped it but i read some good reviews about it after the entire 25 episodes got released. So i got the entire series and decided to give it another go and suprise surpise! i actually enjoy it this time round. Either my tastes have changed or my anime-viewing standards have fallen. Either way, i think this shows i probably shouldn't trust my first impressions. Show is still not downright scary but watching it with headphones in the dark and there are actually some hair-raising moments thanks to the sound effects and music. Each 'case' covers about 3-4 episodes and if it's the info in the show about paranormal activity is genuine then i'm actually learning some interesting (read: useless) facts about the topic as well.

Finally completed GRAW as well! Don't think i'm going to replay it on hard because it's already quite frustrating on normal. Started on Bullet Witch last night and first impressions (there i go again..) is that it's not as bad as the reviews put it. Since i like hack and slash type of games it's actually very fun. Graphics (in-game) is not very good but the CG scenes are gorgeous. Not to mention that Alicia (heroine) is pretty hot as well. And her weapon (called a 'Gunrod') is damn cool! Guess I'm a sucker for pretty VG girls with a gun or sword (e.g Yuna). As expected of an action game, story is so bad that it's actually good in a way, as there's nothing to even think about while i'm blasting bad guys.

Alica: Good Witch with a big Gun.

Another Saturday out of the way

Not a Saturday well spent because i just kept going back and forth between getting up and going to sleep the entire afternoon. Feeling very sickly and lethargic the entire day and my nose keeps leaking 'stuff' out.

Was bored so i popped in my Nana: Special Edition DVD into my player and watched the movie again but with the commentary on. The 3 people commenting on the movie are the director, Mika Nakashima and Miyazaki Aoi and there was some really amusing remarks they made. It's especially funny to hear them saying candid stuff during the emotional scenes. Really good stuff. Worth all $12.90.

Scene at Jackson's Hole (commenting):
Director: Hachi said something very insensitive to Shoji but she can't be blamed cause she's too cute.
Mika: (laughing) Yes, she's just too cute!

In Hachi's room (commenting):
Mika: I wasn't wearing socks in this scene at first but i remember someone saying, "I can see the soles of her feet" and "It's dirty"..
Director: Eh, someone said that? Was it me?
Aoi: (laughing) It was me..
Mika: It was you??

Ren calling Yasu after the Trapnest Concert
Yasu: (movie)If you don't want to see Nana, i'll take her.
Mika: (commenting) Yes! Please take me!

New show i picked up today was History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi.

Shirahama Kenichi is awalys bullied by the classmates. One day, he sets out his mind to become strong, following an advice of a beautiful girl, Furinji Miu, he goes to a martial arts school. However, it was a tremendously hard school where the strongest martial arts masters teach... from Animenfo.com.

Saw the PS2 game about it in Gamewave and thought i would check out the anime. First 5 episodes were pretty funny and just what i needed to brighten my dreary day. Hope it doesn't get caught in the same old joke cycles (as many comedy animes tend to do) and i'm looking forward to some good fights in the later episodes.

Finally figured out where i've seen Yu Aoi (Alice in "Hana and Alice") before. She plays Hagumi in the Honey and Clover live action movie (old promo news) and also Tanyuu in Mushishi live action (old promo news). Ordered a movie with her in it (All About Lily Chou-Chou) as well as the Death Note Limited Edition Box Set (both movies in a box). And suprise suprise: Found that YesAsia has added Nana 2 movie onto its pre-order list. Expected release date is June 21 though. Hope a HK edition makes it out sooner.

Knew i seen her before somewhere..

Here's to a good Sunday and hopefully getting cured of my persistent sickness!

All That You Can't Leave Behind

Watched the last 2 episodes of Kanon last night. Kanon was originally a Japanese Visual Novel by Key, which also produced Air. Both these anime adaptations really made me cry alot. For some reason i tend to get more emotionally attached to animes than dramas or movies. From my Air anime experience i was already preparing myself to be emotionally scarred at the end but thank goodness it was a bittersweet ending. I can honestly say i have never been so glad to see a 'happy' ending before. Both Air and Kanon are very good dating-sim animes but i still prefer Air because the ending was so sad i remember not being able to sleep after finshing it.

Yuichi Aizawa returns to this city after seven years. In his childhood, he often visited it, but something happened in the past which caused him to block out his memories of the events of seven years ago. On the day after he gets settled in, he meets a girl carrying a backpack with wings on it. Her name is Tsukimiya Ayu and he begins to recall the memories he had lost. - from Animenfo.com

I'm looking forward to Clannad, the latest adapation of a Key visual novel. The teaser trailer was aired after the ending credits of Kanon and release is sometime in October '07. Maybe i can catch it airing while i'm in Japan.

L to R: Ninomiya Kazunari as Asai Shouhei, Yamashita Tomohisa as Iwasaki Kengo, Narimiya Hiroki as Udagawa Hayato and Oguri Shun as Enami Kouji

Screenshot from Stand Up (ep1)! I'm downloading the series in English to rewatch again and so far only Episode 1 is done (it's @ low priority). Maybe i enjoy this series so much because it's damn funny and i can empathise with the plight of the 4 main characters. It's similar to movies like 'The 40-year old Virgin' and 'American Pie'.

The 2 standout actors from the 4 are Ninomiya Kazunari (Saigo from 'Letters from Iwo Jima') because he has the 'Ben Stiller' comedy aura, in that he has a very blur face and somehow all the unlucky things always happen to him; Narimiya Hiroki (Nobu from 'Nana'), pretty one-dimensional actor so far but he's gifted with the joker look and plays the part of the village idiot (fig.) all too well in both Nana and this series. Herbert gets a crack out of seeing him everytime.

Anne Suzuki as Oowada Chie

The main female lead is played by Anne Suzuki (Natsuki from 'Initial D') who looks terribly plain and homely. Everytime she appears Jay Chou's 一路向北 starts humming in my mind. Anyway she plays her role very well. If she looked too pretty all the 4 guys would be chasing after her instead.

If i have to compare myself to one of them i think i would be Enami Kouji (Oguri Shun) because i have difficulty conversing with girls i like. Sadly he grows out of it by the end of the show, i have not.

Update: Got my hands on God of War 2! I know how i'm gonna burn my free time this week at home and on Friday's duty.