You are currently viewing archive for May 2005
Studio Summary
Contains DVDs 4-6 of Super Dimensional Fortress Macross in a high-quality DVD artbox!
The alien spies learn more about "culture" through Minmay's songs, then share the new information with other Zentradi. Meanwhile a pilot lands in the hospital and a close friend dies! Will the Macross be allowed to return home, or will the alien forces spoil the homecoming?
Spoken Languages: Japanese Dialogue with English Subtitles.
Contains DVDs 4-6 of Super Dimensional Fortress Macross in a high-quality DVD artbox!The alien spies learn more about "culture" through Minmay's songs, then share the new information with other Zentradi. Meanwhile a pilot lands in the hospital and a close friend dies! Will the Macross be allowed to return home, or will the alien forces spoil the homecoming?
Spoken Languages: Japanese Dialogue with English Subtitles.
Studio Summary
One of the funniest anime of all time! Attempting to fulfill a promise to his childhood sweetheart. Keitaro Urashima is determined to enter Tokyo University! After being rejected twice, he decides to leave home and stay at his grandmothers apartment complex to study.
But when he arrives, his grandmother is gone and he finds himself under attack by the all-female residents! Will the girls accept him as their new apartment manager? Will his bones ever knit? More importantly, can he concentrate on his studies when he discovers that one of his tenants might be his long lost sweetheart?
Spoken Languages: English, Japanese, English subtitles.
One of the funniest anime of all time! Attempting to fulfill a promise to his childhood sweetheart. Keitaro Urashima is determined to enter Tokyo University! After being rejected twice, he decides to leave home and stay at his grandmothers apartment complex to study. But when he arrives, his grandmother is gone and he finds himself under attack by the all-female residents! Will the girls accept him as their new apartment manager? Will his bones ever knit? More importantly, can he concentrate on his studies when he discovers that one of his tenants might be his long lost sweetheart?
Spoken Languages: English, Japanese, English subtitles.
Brutal.Anakin's fall to the dark side is not pretty. It's brutal, it's heavy, and it's done very well. How he falls is quite a ride, but you should not expect to walk out of Revenge of the Sith with a happy feeling. You should, however, walk out of Revenge of the Sith very satisfied.
We all know the story and what to expect. In this film Anakin Skywalker will become Darth Vader, more machine than man ... twisted and evil. The Republic will fall as Palpatine becomes the dreaded Emperor. The Jedi will be hunted down and extinguished. Luke and Leia will be born and Obi Wan and Yoda will end up in exile. To get there, Lucas pulls off the best storytelling of the "prequel" trilogy and some of the best storytelling of the entire Star Wars Saga.
Without a doubt, Revenge of the Sith is the most grandiose of all of the Star Wars films. It has the biggest space battles, the biggest lightsaber battles, and the most to lose as it ties up all the loose ends from both sets of films. And tie them up it does. The key elements of both sets of films are present throughout Revenge of the Sith, and although there are a few continuity problems that carry into the original trilogy (one glaring, not easily explained away), the technology gap is bridged and the stories are brought together well.
As for the long and short of it, the acting is much better in this film than the prior two prequels, the story is more believable, the action is incredible, and the special effects are out of this world. Anakin's fall to the dark side is a more complete and complex story than his his love affair with Padme was in the last two, and it rounds out the entire saga. He truly makes a deal with the devil and descends into hell ... a hell he will live out for the next twenty years until he fulfills the prophecy of the chosen one by destroying his master - finally bringing balance to the Force.
In the end, if you have any interest at all in Star Wars or big action films, be sure to see Revenge of the Sith on the big screen. This is not one to be missed in the theater. However, I do suggest you leave the kids at home. Revenge of the Sith richly deserves its PG-13 rating - it is, as I said in the beginning, a brutal ride.
Overall Grade: A-
Congratulations on yet another school year under the belt! School can be quite a challenge... finding creative ways to sleep through classes, taking extended lunch breaks, and coming up with excuses for missing homework assignments... it's definitely not easy! So how about a little reward for all the students who put so much effort into this last school year?
From now until 6/5, get 40% OFF Retail price on all currently available ADV Films and Softcel DVDs and 33% OFF all currently available ADV Manga titles!* This means you can pick up fantastic new releases like Cromartie High School, Elfen Lied, Gantz, and Madlax for a steal!
How? Just use the following reusable coupon code when you check out through Rightstuf's online store:
Coupon Code: school
Expires: 6/5/05
Plus, if you're a Got Anime Member, you can use your membership to get the highest level in savings!
*Additional Restrictions: Pre-order items and items already heavily discounted (weekly specials, bargain bin items, closeout items, and specialty imports items) are excluded from coupon discounts. Expires 11:59 P.M. CST on 6/5/2005.
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Now for my comments. I posted this on the front page because it is a really great chance to pick up some incredible titles at great prices. Robotech Remastered, Evangelion Remastered, Noir, all great titles.
But to group in Softcel DVD's with it ... methinks they are catering to the college school's out crowd. At least I'd hope so! Not that there is anything wrong with Softcel titles mind you ... but it makes for a funny sale.
If you take advantage of the sale, be sure to use our links to support the site. Thanks!
It's been another busy week at work and home, so we are totally missing the mark on having three updates a week.
The good news is I have three articles on deck, two reviews and another feature. The bad news is that it may be next week before they surface on the site. If I'm lucky, I may get one done by late Friday - so check back then.
Oh well, can't win them all I guess. Stay tuned...
The good news is I have three articles on deck, two reviews and another feature. The bad news is that it may be next week before they surface on the site. If I'm lucky, I may get one done by late Friday - so check back then.
Oh well, can't win them all I guess. Stay tuned...
I am really happy this show is back on the air with new episodes. I really needed more inane, senseless comedy in my life.
Family Guy continues with laugh out loud moments. This week, we REALLY saw the return of the Fighting Chicken. In a knock-down drag-out fight that went through a dozen sets from trains, planes, and automobiles and lasted several minutes ... we saw a chicken fight unlike any other. It was glorious, ending in an Indiana Jones fashion, and left open for a sequel.
Even for Family Guy, I'd say this week the plot was a thin line of gags strung together ... and some of them were not one shot deals. In one scene, we saw the Keebler Elves plotting an attack on the Rice Krispie guys. In a later scene at local bar, we see two of the Rice Krispie's Elves torn, beaten and bruised. "The elves, they were everywhere man!" Crackle raises his beer glass "Here's to Snap." Ah yes, we should all raise a glass of beer to our fallen toon comrades ... your sacrifice will not be forgotten.
And no Family Guy would be complete on the week of a Star Wars release without an obligitory reference. The end of the show was the metal ceremony from A New Hope. Think Peter Griffin was in line to see it yesterday?
Family Guy continues with laugh out loud moments. This week, we REALLY saw the return of the Fighting Chicken. In a knock-down drag-out fight that went through a dozen sets from trains, planes, and automobiles and lasted several minutes ... we saw a chicken fight unlike any other. It was glorious, ending in an Indiana Jones fashion, and left open for a sequel.
Even for Family Guy, I'd say this week the plot was a thin line of gags strung together ... and some of them were not one shot deals. In one scene, we saw the Keebler Elves plotting an attack on the Rice Krispie guys. In a later scene at local bar, we see two of the Rice Krispie's Elves torn, beaten and bruised. "The elves, they were everywhere man!" Crackle raises his beer glass "Here's to Snap." Ah yes, we should all raise a glass of beer to our fallen toon comrades ... your sacrifice will not be forgotten.
And no Family Guy would be complete on the week of a Star Wars release without an obligitory reference. The end of the show was the metal ceremony from A New Hope. Think Peter Griffin was in line to see it yesterday?
Studio Summary
Contains 12 episodes on 2 discs! Plus - comes with a limited edition Super Veritech Morpher!
After battling their way back to Earth, Rick Hunter, Lisa Hayes and the crew of the SDF-1 must learn to cope with a new set of rules imposed by a bureaucracy with little understanding of the grave threat that faces the entire world.
Unfortunately, the horrors of war hit close to home as heroes are forced to make the ultimate sacrifice... And the survivors must face the bitter realities of the conflict in the most personal of ways. But as the battle to save their planet seems out of their reach, a series of lucky breaks give these besieged heroes of the massive space battle fortress a small glimmer of hope.
Spoken Languages: English, Spanish, and English Subtitles.
Contains 12 episodes on 2 discs! Plus - comes with a limited edition Super Veritech Morpher!After battling their way back to Earth, Rick Hunter, Lisa Hayes and the crew of the SDF-1 must learn to cope with a new set of rules imposed by a bureaucracy with little understanding of the grave threat that faces the entire world.
Unfortunately, the horrors of war hit close to home as heroes are forced to make the ultimate sacrifice... And the survivors must face the bitter realities of the conflict in the most personal of ways. But as the battle to save their planet seems out of their reach, a series of lucky breaks give these besieged heroes of the massive space battle fortress a small glimmer of hope.
Spoken Languages: English, Spanish, and English Subtitles.
According to Reuters and Gamespot, Microsoft has announced that that the Xbox 360 will be backwards-compatible with many, but not all, of the Xbox 1's games.
Additionally, the 360 will launch with as many as 40 titles on release date. Most consoles to date have launched with around a dozen. With a variety like that, there should be a game directed to every type of gamer on the date of launch ... another smart move my Microsoft.
But in one of the biggest wins, M$ announced that Square Enix has signed on to develop Final Fantasy XI for the 360. One of the issues that plagued the Xbox 1 was the lack of support from the biggest Japanese gamemakers, it looks like that is not going to be a problem for the Xbox 360.
Purchase Xbox Bestsellers in our online store at great prices!
Additionally, the 360 will launch with as many as 40 titles on release date. Most consoles to date have launched with around a dozen. With a variety like that, there should be a game directed to every type of gamer on the date of launch ... another smart move my Microsoft.
But in one of the biggest wins, M$ announced that Square Enix has signed on to develop Final Fantasy XI for the 360. One of the issues that plagued the Xbox 1 was the lack of support from the biggest Japanese gamemakers, it looks like that is not going to be a problem for the Xbox 360.
Purchase Xbox Bestsellers in our online store at great prices!
In continuing what appears to be a week of mini-E3 coverage on Animation Unlimited, here are some links to articles on the new PS3. First, the Gamespy PS3 Article, and then the CNN PS3 Article.
As for the good, bad and ugly here are my thoughts.
Good
- PS3 will be fully backwards compatible with current PSOne and PS2 games.
- Uses PowerPC core processing, 35 times more powerful than the PS2.
- Has Gigabit Ethernet and Wi-FI b/g built-in.
- Has support for up to 7 Blutooth Controller and 2 HDTV monitors
- Blu-Ray DVD Drive built in. (What could shape up to be the winner in the next-gen DVD wars)
Bad
- May 2006 release date. Better than it was, but Xbox will get a full X-mas season (and it will be an Xbox X-mas, I promise that ... Microsoft, I want royalties if you use that!) before the PS3 release. It will hurt the market in the US for them.
- Not as Sexy as the Xbox 360, IMHO.
Ugly
- That horrible "Batarang" Controller! It looks like two bananas stuck together, I can't imagine it will be comfortable!
So there you have it, more gaming news from your Animation HQ, Animation Unlimited.
As for the good, bad and ugly here are my thoughts.
Good- PS3 will be fully backwards compatible with current PSOne and PS2 games.
- Uses PowerPC core processing, 35 times more powerful than the PS2.
- Has Gigabit Ethernet and Wi-FI b/g built-in.
- Has support for up to 7 Blutooth Controller and 2 HDTV monitors
- Blu-Ray DVD Drive built in. (What could shape up to be the winner in the next-gen DVD wars)
Bad
- May 2006 release date. Better than it was, but Xbox will get a full X-mas season (and it will be an Xbox X-mas, I promise that ... Microsoft, I want royalties if you use that!) before the PS3 release. It will hurt the market in the US for them.
- Not as Sexy as the Xbox 360, IMHO.
Ugly
- That horrible "Batarang" Controller! It looks like two bananas stuck together, I can't imagine it will be comfortable!
So there you have it, more gaming news from your Animation HQ, Animation Unlimited.
Don't Microsoft fool you, you can change your Gamertag despite what they say in the Xbox Live FAQ. As it turns out, M$ will let you change your Gamertag if you "persuade" them in the correct way.
I really could not stand my old Gamertag. When I got Xbox Live 2 years ago, I tried to come up with something interesting as my old CounterStrike handle just did not do it for me anymore. I thought for a while on it, tried a few choices that were all taken, and then went with an alternate. I regretted it soon after, the name just did not flow right and was not that great for online gaming.
My subscription for Xbox Live was up for renewal today so I called Xbox to cancel my account. I did not want to be stuck with that name for another year and I figured I'd come back with a new one at some point down the line. I told the representative exactly that: hate name, may re-up account later. To my surprise, he decided to pull out all the stops so I would not cancel. The rep asked if they allowed me to change my name, and if they sent me a free game for my trouble, would I keep my account? Let's see, new name to replace my crap one, and a free game ... and I just pay for the subscription I was going to redo anyway in a few weeks?
Sounded like a win-win to me.
The rep invalidated my old Gamertag so that on my next Live session I would be told to choose a new one (and also said this was a one-shot deal, no more changes after this). I had a list of games I could get as a free one, and I chose CounterStrike (ironic given my story above).
Now I doubt they would have offered to allow me to change the name had I not been ready to cancel, and they may call your bluff on this if all you are trying to do is get the free game; but the point is, they are more customer-service oriented at Xbox than I expected ... and I am a happy camper with my new handle. Thumbs up!
Purchase Xbox Bestsellers in our online store at great prices!
I really could not stand my old Gamertag. When I got Xbox Live 2 years ago, I tried to come up with something interesting as my old CounterStrike handle just did not do it for me anymore. I thought for a while on it, tried a few choices that were all taken, and then went with an alternate. I regretted it soon after, the name just did not flow right and was not that great for online gaming.
My subscription for Xbox Live was up for renewal today so I called Xbox to cancel my account. I did not want to be stuck with that name for another year and I figured I'd come back with a new one at some point down the line. I told the representative exactly that: hate name, may re-up account later. To my surprise, he decided to pull out all the stops so I would not cancel. The rep asked if they allowed me to change my name, and if they sent me a free game for my trouble, would I keep my account? Let's see, new name to replace my crap one, and a free game ... and I just pay for the subscription I was going to redo anyway in a few weeks?
Sounded like a win-win to me.
The rep invalidated my old Gamertag so that on my next Live session I would be told to choose a new one (and also said this was a one-shot deal, no more changes after this). I had a list of games I could get as a free one, and I chose CounterStrike (ironic given my story above).
Now I doubt they would have offered to allow me to change the name had I not been ready to cancel, and they may call your bluff on this if all you are trying to do is get the free game; but the point is, they are more customer-service oriented at Xbox than I expected ... and I am a happy camper with my new handle. Thumbs up!
Purchase Xbox Bestsellers in our online store at great prices!
Well, here they are, the specs on the Xbox 360 ripped from the pages of RPGDot and MTV. Got to give credit where credit is due!
I'm still blown away by the tri-PowerPC core. My company has a few of these running big chunks of the datacenter for all of our North American offices. That is a ton of power for one little gaming box. The Xbox 360 has positioned itself to not only be a gen-2 console killer, but also a PC-gaming killer.
Wireless controlers, wi-fi ready, DVD-everything... I was going to wait a while, but I keep wondering if I'll need to pre-order the Xbox 360. But, of course, I want to know how much this puppy is going to cost.
Another thing I am waiting to see, but have not found an answer yet, is if this going to backwards compatible with Xbox 1. Hopefully we will know more after E3.
Until then, drool over these stats!
I'm still blown away by the tri-PowerPC core. My company has a few of these running big chunks of the datacenter for all of our North American offices. That is a ton of power for one little gaming box. The Xbox 360 has positioned itself to not only be a gen-2 console killer, but also a PC-gaming killer.
Wireless controlers, wi-fi ready, DVD-everything... I was going to wait a while, but I keep wondering if I'll need to pre-order the Xbox 360. But, of course, I want to know how much this puppy is going to cost.
Another thing I am waiting to see, but have not found an answer yet, is if this going to backwards compatible with Xbox 1. Hopefully we will know more after E3.
Until then, drool over these stats!
1. Support for DVD-video, DVD-Rom, DVD-R/RW, CD-DA, CD-Rom, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 cd, JPEG photo CD
2. All games supported at 16:9, 720p and 1080i, anti-aliasing
3. Customizable face plates to change appearance
4. 3 USB 2.0 ports
5. Support for 4 wireless controllers
6. Detachable 20GB drive
7. Wi-Fi ready
Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU
- 3 symmetrical cores at 3.2 GHz each
- 2 hardware threads per core
- 1 VMX-128 vector unit per core
- 1 MB L2 cache
Custom ATI Graphics Processor
- 500 MNz
- 10 MB embedded DRAM
- 48-way parallel floating-point shader pipelines
- unified shader architecture
Memory
-512 MB GDDR3 RAM
- 700 MNz DDR
Memory Bandwidth
- 22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth
- 256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM
- 21.6 GB/s frontside bus
Audio
- Mulitchannel surround sond output
- Supports 48khz 16-bit audio
- 320 independent decompression channels
- 32 bit processing
- 256+ audio channels
Things may not look very active here the last couple of weeks, but I have been doing a lot of behind-the-scenes work ... software updates, coding, and reorganizing on the site.
One thing I have been working hard on is trying to get us higher visibility in the search engines. So far Yahoo! loves us, MSN likes us, and Google ignores us ... or at least they did until I made the changes.
It seems like some of the updates helped, our daily site traffic in the past 5 days is triple last month's average, hitting close to 1,200 visits total (for those of you that recall, that was about how many people visited in all of February). It would be nice if it kept up, I'm waiting to see.
I did find some time to finish watching Robotech Remastered, Extended Edition, Volume 2 a few nights ago... so expect a review soon. Now that these back-end changes are complete (at least for now), I can start concentrating on content again.
Oh and comments are re-enabled on a trial basis. They may go away again, we'll see if my commentspamfilter works well enough.
To all my regular readers, thanks for your continued support. To all of my new readers, welcome! Have a look around and stay for a while. Things will only get better as time progresses, and I look forward to sharing my hobby with all of you.
One thing I have been working hard on is trying to get us higher visibility in the search engines. So far Yahoo! loves us, MSN likes us, and Google ignores us ... or at least they did until I made the changes.
It seems like some of the updates helped, our daily site traffic in the past 5 days is triple last month's average, hitting close to 1,200 visits total (for those of you that recall, that was about how many people visited in all of February). It would be nice if it kept up, I'm waiting to see.
I did find some time to finish watching Robotech Remastered, Extended Edition, Volume 2 a few nights ago... so expect a review soon. Now that these back-end changes are complete (at least for now), I can start concentrating on content again.
Oh and comments are re-enabled on a trial basis. They may go away again, we'll see if my commentspamfilter works well enough.
To all my regular readers, thanks for your continued support. To all of my new readers, welcome! Have a look around and stay for a while. Things will only get better as time progresses, and I look forward to sharing my hobby with all of you.
I'm finally getting around to watching the replacement Robotech DVDs I got from ADV about a month ago. Let me tell you, .hack is a tough act to follow.
I still stand by my earlier reviews of Robotech Remastered, Extended Edition - Volume 1 and Super Dimensional Fortress Macross: Box Set 01 ... the show looks great and they did a wonderful job with the cleaning up the original source, but boy it looks dated. Anime truly has come a long way since this was originally released in the early 80's. .hack//SIGN and .hack//Legend of the Twilight both highlight the technical advances made in animation over the past 25 years.
But Macross' story has once again caught me as it did a decade before ... and I am loving seeing this in it's full form.
Expect more reviews and articles when I complete the series.
I still stand by my earlier reviews of Robotech Remastered, Extended Edition - Volume 1 and Super Dimensional Fortress Macross: Box Set 01 ... the show looks great and they did a wonderful job with the cleaning up the original source, but boy it looks dated. Anime truly has come a long way since this was originally released in the early 80's. .hack//SIGN and .hack//Legend of the Twilight both highlight the technical advances made in animation over the past 25 years.
But Macross' story has once again caught me as it did a decade before ... and I am loving seeing this in it's full form.
Expect more reviews and articles when I complete the series.
That's right, you can now buy all of your animation needs in our searchable storefront, the Shop @ Animation Unlimited.
Shop for cartoons, shop for anime, shop for manga, shop for comics, shop for toys... shop for anything! It's all here through our association with Amazon.com. Simply go through our storefront, add items to your cart, and when you are ready for checkout you will be redirected to Amazon for shipping and billing.
We will continue our association with other retailers because great deals do come along. Of course, we will be sure to announce deals as we find them in the forums and here on the front page.
In the mean time, check out our new store, and thanks for your continued support!
Shop for cartoons, shop for anime, shop for manga, shop for comics, shop for toys... shop for anything! It's all here through our association with Amazon.com. Simply go through our storefront, add items to your cart, and when you are ready for checkout you will be redirected to Amazon for shipping and billing.
We will continue our association with other retailers because great deals do come along. Of course, we will be sure to announce deals as we find them in the forums and here on the front page.
In the mean time, check out our new store, and thanks for your continued support!
After a long hiatus, Family Guy is back on TV, and is better than ever ... well, it's at least as good as it ever was, so that's great!
Tonight episode was filled with lampoons of pop culture (and everything else), from Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ, to Blues Brothers ... talk about opposites on the film spectrum.
It was great to see them take stabs at the Christian "right," politics, and of course Peter Griffen nakked is enough to spit in the eye of censors everywhere (as was the creaking sound cartoon sex).
American Dad is on next, but I'll catch it on the DVR. It's good to have more 'toons on prime time, even if it's FOX.
Family Guy
is available on DVD on Amazon.
Tonight episode was filled with lampoons of pop culture (and everything else), from Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ, to Blues Brothers ... talk about opposites on the film spectrum.
It was great to see them take stabs at the Christian "right," politics, and of course Peter Griffen nakked is enough to spit in the eye of censors everywhere (as was the creaking sound cartoon sex).
American Dad is on next, but I'll catch it on the DVR. It's good to have more 'toons on prime time, even if it's FOX.
Family Guy
is available on DVD on Amazon.
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