Here's One Way To Use Your FFVII Figures: Animate Them

My fiancee was doing some youtube browsing when she came across this video. I love the Final Fantasy VII Play Arts figures and recently got boxes of both Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 for my store so after seeing this I'm tempted to tap into my stock a bit use them for stop motion animation. Kudos to youtube user ffjason for the hard work it takes to make stop-frame figure animation.

Gurren Lagann To Appear on Sci-Fi Channel

American Otaku like me can cheer for joy for tonight for we get to see Gurren Lagann at 11:00pm ET/PT on Sci-fi channel. We can get a chance to see the hottie Yo-ko over here...of course lets hope the dubbing was done well. If not, we can always watch the pure Japanese subtilted work.

Actually I remember watching Sci-Fi's anime programming back in 1996 before Cartoon Network's Toonami and Adult Swim. I remember seeing Project A-Ko on there along with two other great anime flicks. One of them was with huge mech ships with their power run by the singing voices of pretty anime girls. The other unknown-to-me anime that was with the main girl being a plant in which she rejuvenated in a pea-pod-like thing and the world they were in was a desert I believe. Both of those were on Sci-Fi channel back then so if anyone even knows what I'm talking about..drop it in the comment box.

Anyways.. I'll be up watching the Sci-Fi channel tonight.

Thanks to Anime News Network for the info.

A Little Blogging Delay, but with a "Twitter" of New Stuff

Sorry for the lack of updates in the past few days. I even missed the weekly Anime voice actors post, too ^ ^;;. I'll have a new post ready for next week though for anyone who was wondering.
I was taking more time in readying my escape from the 9-7 job with an increased movement in my anime sales. In other words, I was really busy shipping tons of extra items. I'm now making about double my job income (in only 8 hours work per week) thanks to everyone who is buying my anime figures. Once I hit 4x my job income...sometime in September it looks like...I can kiss the job goodbye. Since I've been trying to speed that process up, sales got a little bit much and thus I was left a few blogging days short.

Anyways, during my days away I also set up a twitter.com account and a new blog feed that shows what my status is on what I'm doing..if anyone even cares on that. The twitter account also will show the feed updates from this blog, my personal blog at charlesgaffney.com and the anime.fm feed too. If you have a twitter account, hit me up.

Another account I've been busy with is the new group called "anime bloggers" I set up on blogcatalog.com (group image above). It just started and already has 11 memebers so if you are an anime or otaku blogger, join the group and get your blog out there to the masses.

(I was also busy watching the amazing ending to Avatar this weekend..more on that later)

CAS Review: The Dark Knight (No Spoilers)

The goal of this post is to not give away any spoilers so that I will keep my word on that.
Late last night I got to see this year's number 1 movie, The Dark Knight. It sure lived up to its name and to all the hype. As I write this this movie is going down in history with a monumental load of ticket sales that will make the movie industry realize that the internet has not at all hampered sales..it has in fact created the hype needed for such sales. That's a whole other topic so on to the movie.

Now I'm more of a fan of the Japanese brand of super hero; the deep, powerful and less full of themselves type of hero that American heroes (Super Man in particular) tend to be. Like Spider Man, Batman has a bit of that depth to him. If you saw Batman Begins and you are an otaku like me, you were very very glad to see how Christopher Nolan turned the series into the deep and less flashy movie that resonates with an otaku's need for more artist Asian-style depth in American blockbuster films. The Dark Knight takes things one step further by focusing on the very concept of doing the right thing when it might not be the logical or popular choice.. a bit like the samurai's code of honor. The very concept of being the hero is questioned in the movie but so is the limit of the feelings that separate human and animal instincts. The Joker's character in this movie can be summed up by mixing Osama Bin Ladin, Jigsaw from the Saw series and the psychotic, mentally ill Joker comic book fans know into one.


The way the dark knight, Harvey Dent and the Joker are portrayed in this movie represent righteousness, the corruptible human mind, and pure evil done in such a way that it shows it and doesn't explain it like western movies tend to; once again taking note from eastern art's almost mystical yet profound meanings.

After watching this movie you really really feel hurt by Heath Ledger's passing. I used to see Tim Burton's two Batman movies as the movies that would best summarize the Dark Knight. Similarly, I used to think of Jack Nicholson as the ultimate Joker. Watch this movie and you will see that Ledger took Nicholson's Joker and slapped him silly. Never will the Joker be portrayed better and unfortunately with the loss of Health Ledger, never will he again be like this. I will be appalled if when the Oscars come up that Heath and the rest of the actors and crew of the Dark Knight don't get any awards. Too many times has the Oscars catered to the western artsy-fartsy (aka lame) style films that nobody ever seen or ever cared to see. If a no-name film from France or even worse, the recent bomb, Mamma-Mia! gets even a nomination while the Dark Knight gets shafted, then may someone as crazy as the Joker ruin the Oscars and after the chaos states "Why so serious?" because its about time that a movie people actually seen takes the Oscars by storm.


Never in your life will you feel 150 minutes go by so fast but you will savor every minute of it. If any of you can bust through the lines in the theaters, go see this movie!

Viz Media to Review Amateur Work At 2008 Comic Con International

Ok...Now I need to seriously give myself a serious beat-down. In recent news via Anime News Network, looks like for the first time ever Viz Media is going to seriously check out fan-made work at the 2008 Comic Con International. Granted, I know gaijin artwork is not as good as authentic anime but this is still awesome news for us american otaku. In other words, if you have some good work, you can have it turned into an offical manga! I don't have any work really to give myself other than my few sketches and the Fumi stuff (which are...eh) but this would have been really a great opportunity. It can be for any of you that are going so bring your portfolio!

As for me, as stated before, I really need to kick myself for a number of reasons. First reason is that I still have my stupid 9-5 job so I've had no time to improve my work and second...being that I'm an anime + video game dealer, I was able to go to all 4 days for FREE + a special lunch with all the anime dealers ~_~;;;;;. Thanks to my job (that I sware I'll rid of in September once and for all) I couldn't accept the free offer to Comic Con International. It would have been cool to once again meet the Viz crew. They would probably respond by stating "Hey! You're that couple who made out in front of us back at that New York Convention as Tidus and Yuna." ^_^;;;;;

Clove 2, Wireless Typing With One Hand

Stumbled upon this interesting gadget just recently via Engadget. Pretty cool amateur invention, looks very much like the old Nintendo Power Glove. If you could beat the learning curve of this, would you honestly find use for it?

Featured Anime Voice Actor (Seiyu): Mamoru Miyano

Welcome to another weekly post about famous Seiyus , anime voice actors. This is just a fun little post that will hopefully surprise you to see who does the voices of your favorite characters and you might find out it's the same person for a bunch of them.

This week's Seiyu is Mamoru Miyano.

Mamoru was born June 8^th 1983 in Saitama, Japan. He is most famous for doing the voice of Light Yagami in Death Note. Light isn't his only very popular voice though. He was also the voice of Tamaki Suou from Host Club and you can currently hear him as the voice of the fan-girl favorite, Zero Kiryu from Vampire Knight. He's also a popular video-game seiyu as he is the voice of Kingdom Heart's Riku. Recently he's also been working closely with game developer Koei on some of their recent projects with a role in Kiniro no Corda already under his belt. Fan-girls will get ticked if I also don't mention the fact that he played Renji Yanagi in the Prince of Tennis Live Action Film.

It's no surprise with such title roles he was nominated in Japan's Seiyu awards for his role as Light Yagami. This role did recently give him the award for best actor at the 2008 Tokyo International Anime Fair. Click here to see more info on him via wikipedia of course.

"Wii" Look Like the New Xbox 360 Dashboard

Just saw some of the Microsoft keynote speech that just went on at the 2008 E3 convention. Looks as if the new dashboard coming in the fall is going to mimic the Nintendo Wii a bit with your own avatar. Are any of you excited about this new dashboard or are you like me and like the current one? Granted, some of the new feature look pretty cool.

News thanks to Engadget.

Jim Henson's Dark Crystal

Yesterday I was finally able to see on DVD a movie that I have not seen in it's entirety since I was only a year old in 1984. Yes, what might have been the very first movie I have ever seen in my life was Jim Henson's Dark Crystal. For any of you young otaku who haven't seen it, it is worth the watch. If I'm not mistaken, it was this movie that inspired the creators of the original Final Fantasy game and of course the later games to have the storyline follow that of a crystal of power. Another reason otaku should take note to this is that for the movie's 25th anniversary last year, Tokyopop came up with a manga for the movie called "Legends of the Dark Crystal"...pictured below.Though the manga was made by gaijin artists, the art actually looks pretty good. That's a lot coming from me since I'm the first one to point out the typically inferior gaijin "anime" drawings. Anyways, to my wonderful surprise, through yet another wikipedia search, the movie has a sequel in the works! The sequel's name is "The Power of the Dark Crystal" and will feature practically all the voice actors and production crew from the first one. Frank Oz who directed, did a number of the puppets in the movie including the ugly Augrah and who is most popular as the voice and puppeteer for Star War's Yoda was asked to direct again but answered with a simple "Why?" So, instead of Frank Oz directing the movie, Samurai Jack creator, Genndy Tartakovsky is actually heading the production as I write this.

Like the highly anticipated (and feared about) Dragon Ball movie, this one is scheduled to come out in 2009. Supposedly it will be a combination of both CG and puppets so here's hoping it comes out good.

Video-Game To Watch For: Mirror's Edge

E3 is not that far away and I feel that this game will probably be one of the major titles to look forward to other than FFXIII of course. The game-play in EA's Mirror's Edge really puts you in the game. This isn't the first game in the past year or so to have this realistic first person point of view but if you view the trailer below you can see just how clean and clear this game will be. Some gamers are worried that the fighting might be tough to control but I guess time will tell for this game as more info comes out. Many otaku like myself will be glad that the main character is easy on the eyes since she's a cute and tough Asian girl named Faith. I'll probably add this to my PS3 or Xbox 360 collection when it does come out.

Another Dragon Ball Movie Banner

I was about to end my day online but I just had to show you all this. I know, many of us otaku are very scared about the Dragon Ball movie and we are all pondering how bad Hollywood will screw it up. Lets just hope for the best though... right ^^?

Anyways, in the picture you can see Bulma (top left), Goku (front and center), Chi Chi (Goku's right)..who BTW we haven't seen before this and is the better of the actor choices, I feel; Master Roshi...Chow Yun Fat, Mai(top right, also first time seen). Also if you look at the very top you will see the eyes of Piccolo for the first time also who we all know is being played by James Marsters aka Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

CAS Now Traceable on Alexa.com

Looks like here at Chuck's Anime Shrine the site's traffic continues to grow. As of a few days back, the site's traffic has finally reached high enough where it is now viewable on the number 1 tracking site alexa.com. As of this post, chucksanimeshrine.com ranks roughly 300,000 out of all the sites on the web in traffic but this site's weekly ranking is now at 170,000 of all sites. In other words, the site is on the grow and will probably beat the 100,000 rank in the coming months. At first I got scared this wouldn't happen because last week traffic fell horribly thanks to me cutting one of my traffic sources by accident ^ ^; A rough estimate shows that the entire site altogether gets about 500 unique viewers a day or about 15,000 a month. This is nothing compared to the 2.8 million my favorite site outside this one, dannychoo.com gets...but a ranking on Alexa at 170,000 sure beats the old ranking I had at the end of '07 at around 1,300,000.

I really want to thank the fans of the site for helping it continue to grow and I will continue to add more content to the site and also back into the anime galleries as well. FYI...there is a contest going on to win a free Fate/Stay Night Rin figure so jump on it if you can ^_^

Inuyasha: Kuroi Tessaiga OVA Announced!

Hey, Inuyasha fans. I know a bunch of you are still there. Well, you are in for a great treat because the anime series will continue on and there is going to be more episodes!! This was to be expected since the manga just finished a few weeks back. Finally all the waiting and wondering on why the hell 4 years ago the series ended so abruptly and with an obvious need for more.. is now less stressful for you. Now the only worry you might have is why only one episode has been slated so far and not more. Inuyasha was at one point the highest selling anime so expect another huge batch of episodes. I just hope it doesn't drag on and on though...story progression is oh so needed. Anyways, expect the flood of new and old fans to of this series to be practically everywhere (again). News received yesterday thanks to DannyChoo.com member Artefact.

(I am a fan of it, too by the way ^ ^)

FullMetal Alchemist 2 Rumored

Interesting news coming from Anime News Network. Leaked documents from anime studio BONES suggests that a sequel to Fullmetal Alchemist is quite a possibility. To not give away any spoilers from the FMA movie, The Conqueror of Shambala..lets just say that the ending definitely opens up a need for a sequel. More info on this as it comes and if you know of anything, feel free to leave it in the comments.

Batman Gotham Knight Anime Collaboration

If any of you watched just one episode of well..anything on Cartoon Network you should have caught a commercial for the new batman animated collaboration that just came out. A quick look of the obviously amazing animation lets you know its indeed anime. Similar to the Animatrix, this is a 6 episode mixture of a couple Japanese anime studios including my favorite studio responsible for Death Note, Final Fantasy VII: Last Order and The Boondocks, Madhouse. Other studios involved with this project include Production I.G. and Studio 4C being directed by greats such as Shojiro Nishimi, Futoshi Higashide, Hiroshi Morioka, Yasuhiro Aoki, and Toshiyuki Kubooka. Of course leave it to Japan to animate Batman into something of awe (finally). There is a contest currently going on at the official site here where you can win by discovering all 6 exclusive videos.

Featured Anime Voice Actor: Vic Mignogna

Welcome to another weekly segment on anime's most famous voice actors both English and Japanese. This week is none other than the English voice of Edward Elric, Vic Mignogna.

Vic was born in Greensburg Pennsylvania in 1962. As stated before, he's most famous for his voice as Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist but he also did the voices of Virgil from Trinity Blood, Brolly from DBZ, Fai Flowright from Tsubasa Chronicals and even Luffy from One Piece. As of yesterday it became official that he'll even be the voice of Tamaki Suou from Ouran High School Host Club. More of his voice works here on the wikipedia page of course.

Vic is well known to be a joker and just a great otaku himself. At conventions he tends to create the anime commercials for the conventions and usually will bring in random fans to help. He even worked with Steven Blum on an anime parody similar to Budweiser's "Real Fans of Genius" also called "Real Fans of Genius." It of course pokes a bit of fun at convention otakus in a fun way including such titles as "Ms. Bewildered Con Mother," and "Mr. Hallway Sleeper Guy." Wonder if he'll come up with the oh so needed "Ms. Too Damn Big for that Cosplay Girl." Just kidding ^^;;

I got the honor to meet with him back 05' at I-Con and you will catch him flirting with the some of the girls since apparently he's seen by many of the female otaku as a good looker.

At the end of one his panels he gave a wonderful speech about college in general and living your dreams. He shared many of the same views I have about the whole college system and being in business for yourself by branding yourself and learning to run your own life. He urged students (since this was at Stony Brook University) to go by their dreams and not be in a subject just to make their parents happy. He of course further implemented that what I ready knew about not being controlled by a boss in a job.

If any of you ever go to a convention that he attends, be sure to attend his panels. Vic does have an award for Best Actor in the American Anime Awards but despite his celebrity status, he's a very humble guy.

Check out his official site here and his fan club, named Risembool Rangers from FullMetal of course here.

Game Review: Dragon Ball Z Burst Limit

As a long time DBZ fan, this game was right up my ally. I was very excited to play a Dragon Ball Z game for the current generation systems and with all good reasons. This game has to be by far the best looking Dragon Ball Z game to date. The visuals have to be the most astonishing aspects of the game. I will go as far as to state that this game has the best cell-shading graphics of ANY game to date, even better than the current Naruto games which also boast great cell-shading visuals. I must also note that I played through the Xbox 360 version which as many gamers know is slightly less graphical in power to that of the PS3... of course only by a slight bit. So, in other words, Atari did a bang-up job on the graphic. The backgrounds also blend in perfectly with the character graphics. They have a very real and in-depth feel that you would never think would mix with the cell-shaded DBZ characters, but the background just couldn't be better not just in looks but in dynamics. When you fight back and forth with your opponent, the blur effects are done the way you would think the super sonic would feel in real life and the ability to fight all the way into space is a nice touch. The only thing lacking with the stages is that there are only 5 stages in total and the only real damage done to the environment is when you contact well with an Ultimate Attack causing a short cut scene. Other DBZ titles like Tenkaichi for example did have more in ways of destroyable buildings, cliffs and the like. That you will not see here but as a game programmer myself, this was most likely done to keep the backgrounds maintaining their real look and to not slow the in-game play. Definitely a tough trade-off that hopefully can be improved in future titles.

Now, onto the gameplay.
As stated before, the dynamics are fast and furious. I enjoyed the fact the game was balanced into being able to preform major attacks in a quicker amount of time. Yes, this can allow a player to be a bit cheesy but a quick reaction to a big attack with get you right behind your opponent and cancel their attempt to blast you. The controls are easier than previous titles and if you go through the Tutorial mode, you'll see that it does have a great load of depth. Tenkaichi fans might be disappointed though since the overall feel is very much like the older Budokai scheme but with wonderful energy struggles and dodging abilities. Personally I love being able to hit the dodge button and watch my character sit there and quickly dodge every fast punch very much like you see in the anime. Fans of the series might be surprised though that there is no manual Ki charging...sorry, no sitting in the corner of a stage and charging up. Your Ki is charged automatically and charges fast, but this allows you to activate the cool Aura Burst feature more often and fighter gamers will enjoy one less thing to worry about. Your Ki grows even faster if you get attacked to the point of activating a Drama Piece with that effect. Drama Pieces are little cut scenes that happen when you attack or get attacked a certain way, opening deferent effects like a dodged attack or regenerated health. DBZ fans will enjoy this bit but some gamers might find them a bit irritating. Either way, Drama Pieces add a nice customizable and unlockable slew of features to your fighter. You also have the ability to unlock a bunch of transformations and different final attacks for each player using the main story mode. Before I get into the story mode, known as the Z Chronicals, I must also state to other features that game has. First is the online play. This is always a welcomed addition and as with any game that could go online... make sure you play through the main story a bit to unlock more characters and features that will allow you to be at par with other gamers. The second feature to mention is the Survival Mode which would be better if it wasn't for the game's one major flaw that I'll go into in a bit.

Now onto the Z Chronicals, or the main story mode of the game. Fans of DBZ like me will love it; non-DBZ fans will probably be ok with it. There are six different difficulty levels: very easy, easy, normal, hard, very hard, and Z ; so there's alot to do if you are to get all the achievements. Only the first three are available on your first time through which unfortunately is rather short. There is only the Saiyan Saga, Frieza Saga and the Cell Saga. No sign of Majin Boo or any characters from there either. The one major flaw of the game is that the roster is at about 30 characters which is mainly the different variations of the main characters and of course the shortened story line. One might feel that the game is incomplete if you are used to the other DBZ games that had a much larger roster and all the sagas included. For a regular fighter, this would deem pretty good since the causal fighting gamer won't look for anymore but as both a hardcore fighter and gamer, its a a bit lacking in that aspect.

Overall though I still give this game a 7 out of 10 because the visuals and the fighting will make any DBZ fan and fighting fan happy. The engine is pure but would be perfect if it had more characters, more levels, more destructible items, and the entire DBZ story. I would recommend renting first if you are unsure but I am glad I have it and that I can face all of you online. If you got an xbox 360, look for user: Chuck Gaffney, that's me (yes I know I used my whole name ^^;;). As long as its not my brothers (or me) playing Halo 3 or Gears of War I will face you as the character I resemble the most...Future Trunks.

Pantsu Shirts

One of my product dealers came out with this awesome shirt yesterday. Definitely for panstu (panty) fans. Anyone daring enough to wear one?