Anime Fest 2008

It's official guys, both Danielle and I will be attending all three days of the upcoming New York Anime Fest 2008 on September 26th, 27th, 28th. Looks like the only good hotel that doesn't cost an arm an a leg is in Jersey but I'm sure it is going to be fun. The Japanese voice of Chobit's Chi, Rie Tanaka will be there along with Final Fantasy and Vampire Hunter D artist, Yoshitaka Amano along with mega voice actor, Steven Blum. G4 TV will be there along with Late Late Show Host Conan O' Brian and other celebs and there is going to be a Lucky Star Dance Contest held by Bandai. Doesn't look like we are going to really be cosplaying but on Saturday I will try to make myself noticable with a black Chinese outfit and the Haruhi Suzumiya arm band (yes much like Danny Choo but minus the Storm Trooper outfit ^ ^;) This is in case anyone wants to meet us. I will also try to get my Twitter posts live on the blog so I can send little messages and pics in real time via my iPhone's Twinkle app. More to come on this festival and if you are going to be there, let us know and we'll hopefully be able to tour the awesome events and maybe NYC for a bit.

Sony PSP-3000

Engadget spilled the beans about a week back on the newest version of the PSP, the 3000 model. Apparently this one will have a built in mic and a better, more anti-glare screen. Now I know why my PSP was giving me hard times when I was playing Crisis Core on break in my car ~_~. It won't come out till October in Europe and will retail between $250 and $300.

Anime Girl of The Day 8/30/08

Looks like this little iPhone quick post is becoming popular. I'll continue to do them but probably not every day. This photo I'm using as reference in my video game currently called "Project Fumi" I might have Fumi in this kind of outfit for her normal state or something. Anways, enjoy the pic, wish shozu would upload the full size of them though.

Anime Girl of The Day 8/29/08

Here's another anime girl pic I'm throwing in for today. I might this a daily thing if I could. Anyways this lovely picture is my iPhone's wallpaper so I see it a lot. A bit wrong and oh so cool, just what the doctor ordered ^_^;

Shunya Yamashita: Nasuka

At first glance you would think this is Pocco but apparently the name of this simply stunning new figure by Shunya Yamashita and ArtStorm is Nasuka. This one is by far an eye catcher with a Japan release in December 08 and a state-side release of around January or Febuary 09. I'll most likely keep one of these for my personal collection. This one is very unique in the way she is suspended in mid air. hope over time that doesn't cause any issues ^^;

Japan Downloads

Anime News Network, of which I've been much of my news lately ^^; recently did a report on the current state of downloads in Japan. Some of you might be aware that many people are being arrested in Japan for shared anime via Torrents and other data streams. Thankfully for those who believe in the freedom of the internet (like yours truly) Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said that they will set up what they call "special cyber zones" (or cyber tokku) in 2009 that will allow some use of copyrighted material for a select bunch of people. To be quite honest, this is the issue with the anime industry in Japan and the music industry here. As an anime store owner with my own works as well on my to-do list, its understandable where the copyright owners come from, but I believe some execs in both fields need to get their heads out of the 1980's and get into today. The internet is and will continue to be the number one medium for all our information and goods. The power of viral marketing is something the marketing departments of these companies I sure hope don't ignore for their sakes. Keeping the internet a mainly free zone of distribution can only help a company move their product better. I feel as long as the material is both credited to the copyright holders and is all done in good taste to promote the anime, artist, music, etc, it should be fine to download such material and to refer it (distributed in non-commercial means of course.)
I know for a fact there are a plethera of artists, animators, figure companies and music labels that would have never gotten a foothold nor a red cent if they didn't have some of their material floating on the net. Viral marketing creates hype that creates sales on my end which has me turn my $ into yen as I buy the merchandise from these companies for my store and other stores do the same as well. Its the modern marketing arena and if you jail people for being a free advertisor for you than may the gods of shame and lost sales hit your department hard.
Hats up to the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications for at least making one step forward in the right direction. It's limited but that's to be in the interest of the copyright holders. Any company that jumps on this will get their payout in the end I feel.

Tell me what you feel about anime downloads on the internet by discussing in the comments below.

Anime Pic Of The Day

Using my iPhone yet again to give out some free random anime girl pics. I'll also use this time to tell you all that I'm using MobileMe to do 2 things; one, to make a cool new galley interface that I can update on the fly via iPhone and browser and two, to allow YOU the visitors of this site the ability to upload your pictures in a number of gallery categories.

IPhone Blog Post

Hey everyone, as an extra bonus for today, just wanted to test an app in my iPhone. If you see this then I could make some posts while on the go for the upcoming anime fest (more on that in a future post) and for other on-the-go blogging. So, if this works you should see this message and a cute anime girl pic for your downloading needs.

Marvel and Madhouse

Looks like the success of Madhouse's Batman collaboration they did with a bunch of other anime studios opened the door to more western comic transformations. As of recent Anime News Network information, the studio we know fondly for their work with Vampire Hunter D, Death Note and The Final Fantasy VII Last Order anime will be working with Marvel on 4 different heros. Of the 4 only Iron Man was noted but many do believe that Spider-Man and some X-men might be a part of this as well. I bet this will open up many otaku to some American heros which i guess could be good. Any time you take something American (be it art, stories, cars, technology, science.......) and hand it to our dear friends from the land of the rising sun, you can always expect it to turn out 10X better than what we can do here. Unfortunalty the opposite happens in reverse. Just look at the recent Speed Racer animated show here and you'd simply lose hope in all western cartooning ~_~. Anyways, this is great news and for once I might actualy watch a Marvel super-hero outside of the good movies as of late.


-picture above is from a random search for an anime-style Iron-Man

Casual and Simple Underwater Camera

Saw this not too long ago on gizmdo. Being that I work as a web developer at a camera store, I've seen the long list of under water cameras and the almost infinite types of housings and accessories. This one looks like it makes underwater photography more for the casual photographer...just watch where you point those goggles though.


(for anyone who gets my posts via mail...sorry about the occasional typos ^^;)

Japan's Hottest Bloggers

Saw this wonderful article on Wired. It shows a list of the Japan's top female bloggers. I guess when I go to Japan I should tell people I'm a blogger, supposedly its celebrity status. Just look at male Japanese blogger Danny Choo. He's been featured on G4's attack of the show twice, on CNN and big on YouTube.

Who's your favorite Japanese Blogger?

Vampire Hunter D Short Story to Debut At NY Anime Fest

The upcoming New York Anime Fest, in which you might be able to meet me there, will also feature some debuts like this one noted by Anime News Network. Vampire Hunter D "The Wanderer's Ship" written by creator Kikuchi made the story from actually a fan-fic work of Hitomi Yasue. So all you who make fan-fics or roleplay on GaiaOnline, if your stuff is good, you never know, it might become an official story in the work you like ^_^ Final Fantasy and Vampire Hunter D fans will be happy to know that Yoshitaka Amano will be there too.

As for the Fest, I'm probably not going to cosplay but we'll see. It'll be my first convention back since I-Con of 2006.

Winner of the Fate/Stay Art Contest

Real sorry for not showing this earlier. Here is the winner of the Fate/Stay Night Art Contest. Congrats to winner Christy for your artwork of Rider from the series. With the win she gets a free figure. Christy won due to default since nobody else handed in any work, so if anyone wants to join in for free stuff, you are very welcomed to. No word yet on the next contest but keep checking the contest page and this blog for the latest. Nice Rider Christy ^_^. Once I add the Fate/Stay section, this will be a part of it. Still working on how to make the galleries more Web 2.0. This pic reminds me of this figure of her BTW.

Voltron Movie Dropped From Production

I didn't even know there was even one in production but as of Anime News Network not too long ago, a Fox company (so you know where this is going) named New Regency canceled its plan on making a Voltron film. From the same company that was dumb enough to cancel Family Guy, twice comes this news which might be too bad since Fox is already working on messing up the entire
Dragon Ball saga with the American-made (a curse word to any otaku) Dragon Ball film set for 09. Lets hope eventually I'm wrong on both stories ~_~ and somebody in the states makes something worth our while here.

Chuck's Anime Shrine + Mile-Stone

In more anime business news, it was official as of this past Monday that my company has joined in a dealership with Japanese manufacturer, Mile-Stone. At around x-mas time and the beginning of 09, I will be receiving figures from them along with the other official anime distribution lines I have. This is great news for any collectors here in the US (and overseas, too) since this dealership has turned my business from retailer-ship to wholesaler-ship. Once I start receiving the figures from them and get my bearings straight, my 9-5 job's coffin will be locked and sealed with me not having to also rely on (but still will keep) my Swarovski line of products. If everything goes as planned, I'll most likely give lots of free shipping and maybe some other bonuses in the store. Check out mile-stone.jp to see what figures are in store for this site.

...Now I must learn Japanese, not just for my extended family but for my new business extended family ^^;

Danielle's Crisis Core AMV Reaching 20K Views

Remember not too long back when my better half, Danielle made that great Crisis Core AMV with the song, Kiss My Eyes and lay me to sleep? Well, in the past few months the video has started to gain some momentum and is almost at 20K views! Due to the enormous amount of AMVs on youtube, this number is very tough to reach. My videos used to have those kind of hits but that was due to the fact that I was one of the first to post up AMVs to youtube.. (until that old account got erased ~_~). For those who haven't seen it, check it out below. Its definitely one of Danielle's best and fits very well to the Crisis Core atmosphere. If you don't have this game yet, be sure to buy it. Congrats Danielle for you achievement ^_^

The Anime Motherload

Here is reason #2 to my absence over the weekend. With my anime store on the expansion, my storage and shipment area is absolutly packed with anime and gaming figures. Gunna be long day today but unlike my 9-5 job, once I'm finished today, I'm basically done for the week. So tempted to keep some @_@

Sent from my iPhone ^_^

My iPhone

Sorry for the lack of updates. Today's blog and the posts for next few days will to tell you why. As you can see from my shotty photo, I have purchased my iPhone, a 16GB at that with all the fixings; MobileMe and a bunch of apps with of course a cute anime girl as the wallpaper. So far the iPhone has been fine. The only issues would be that the battery power could always be a bit better and ATT's service is very bad near my house...great elsewhere. Odd though, I'm less than a mile away from a cell tower and yet service on my block is well, not great. As for the apps, all of them are great but there really needs to be a Blogger app and I would love an app that could turn your iPhone camera into a video player.

Anyways, the past few days I've been very busy. With the advent of me leaving my job before my 25th BDay (might not be as early as Sept 19th :-/ ) I'm making sure my computer systems are all up to date. On top of getting the iPhone, being the computer scientist that I am, I went and signed up to be an iPhone app developer.
So why should you care? Well, with my MobileMe account and my future programing with the iPhone I do plan on making an app or two for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Also the use of the MobileMe could be great for sharing you otaku some great anime photos, in other words I could very well go back to revamping the old galleries here to make them more Web 2.0. A must for the site now will also be a mobile section that will make it easier for iPhoners to navigate this site. These projects are down the road but it will probably take my retiring from the 9-7 rut to make them a reality. As for that, more in the next post.

Crisis Core, Final Fantasy VII Figures

Was meaning to post this up yesterday but I was dealing with the cases upon cases of FFVII vol. 2 Play Arts figures plus other anime figures that arrived at my home ^ ^; What will be the Crisis Core, Final Fantasy VII Play Arts set, here are some pictures thanks to sdcc08.figures.com and Comic Con 08 of the upcoming Zack, Shinra Infantry Cloud and white dressed Aerith. Yes fan girls, there is a Zack figure coming out. They won't be out till around x-mas in Japan which probably means January to March here in the US ~_~. I could be wrong though...they could come sooner. Keep watching my store and here on the blog for details.

Now does anybody have a forklift? My god, I've never seen so many figures in my house 0_o

California Museum Embraces Anime

I'm so glad to see that us otaku are getting our just deserts here in the US. On Aug 15th California's Napa Valley Museum will have an exhibit dedicated to anime! Rightfully called "Manga & Anime: An Exhibition of Popular Cartoon Art", the exhibit goes on most of Friday. Finally, we can go into a museum and see something that is honestly art. I'm sorry but lets be honest, most of the time we go into a museum and see contemporary "art" we have to tilt our heads like a confused pug and state "WTF? This is art? This mess is worth a few million?"
Unfortunately being in New York I'll still have to deal with the arty-fartsy-western-style crap that actually might be feces on a canvas since to some... it is "art". If I wish to waste an afternoon and a train ticket to the city to see crap..I'll just stay on the train.

Anyways, forgive my harshness to western style "art" and if you live in California, check out some real art at the "Manga & Anime: An Exhibition of Popular Cartoon Art."

News thanks to Anime News Network

Next Great Invention: Invisibility Cloak?

You heard right, there is an invention in the works that can bend light around 3D objects thus making it invisible. Its currently on the nano to microscopic scale but scientist Xian Zhanga and two US teams at UC Berkeley created what they call "meta-material." Its still nowhere near anything applicable but need I ask what you would do if you can be invisible? Hey, it could be used in combat like the cloaking in Halo...probably not knowing the otaku mind ^^;;

News thanks to Engadget.

Rare 3rd Picture of the Montauk Monster

I know, here I go again with this Montauk Monster thing. Not otaku related but I live in eastern Long Island so its big news here. The picture above I only found through some semi-deep searching online of it. Most of the pictures shown are of the two I'll post below. The 1st picture that's on my previous post is the most popular but this one is barley seen and it links the two pictures mainly circulated around. This is because in this picture you can see the red part of it on the upper right that's not in the grayish second picture but in the original picture. Picture number 2 and this one shows that this was probably a wild boar or we are all being conned by some hoax. It could also be Gannon from Legend of Zelda....see I still kept it anime or video game related.

Chuck's Anime Shrine's Lucky Day

The number 8 is lucky in Asian cultures and although I'm not Asian I'd like to share you some great news as of today for my anime business since its 8:08pm on 8/8/08. As of today I have finally got the capital outlay I needed for all my products that will insure me not just a safe trip out of the job world but hopefully a 2009 with a six figure income. On a previous post I mentioned that for my first year as an anime dealer in 2007, Chuck's Anime Shrine did roughly $40K in sales...that mark was already hit around April of this year! Basically from this point on, I'll be working to simply profit and get the heck out of my job. I did state that Sept 19th might be my freedom day from the 9-5 drudgery, but if things don't go as 100% planned... I'll just set it sometime before my 25th BDay in early November.

Another cool tidbit is that I'm in the works of dealing directly with Milestone, one of Japan's figure manufacturer and creators of that amazing Elena Varenskaya Nurse figure. This would make Chuck's Anime Shrine eventually be an anime wholesaler and help even more in my quest to be free from a job.

If that's not all on this lucky 8 day, I got an email from a BusinessWeek editor who will feature a little blurb about me and the anime biz on the BusinessWeek site. More on that in the future.

So why should you care? Well, first off I don't intend to really brag. I'm just truly excited that my days of working a job are now really numbered and no job means much, much more time will be focused on the anime Flash game, "Project Fumi", AMVs, a better store with more stuff and of course my dream of turning this site into one of the best resources for any otaku. This also means I'll have more contests with even better prizes ^_^ Thanks goes to you all for being great fans of this site and my store.

AMV Hell 4, What's Not to Love?

Some of you probably are already familiar with the AMV Hell series. For those who are not, each AMV Hell video is about 1 hour of mixed and varied AMV clips. Each clip is about 15-40 seconds long and has an almost Robot Chicken feel to them. Since I noticed youtube changed their coding thus messing up my entire AMV section (~_~) I went on youtube to see that as of almost a year ago there was a 4th AMV Hell!; divided of course in 10 minute blocks. Below is one chunk of clips for your viewing if you haven't already. As for my AMV section, I'm going to fix it up again and I'm also going to announce who won the Fate/Stay Art Contest since it was yet again only one person who committed to their promise of submitting something. Tsk, tsk if you missed out. You lost a free anime figure. More contests will be on the way though so don't miss out or the same person will keep winning!

Link to offical AMV Hell site.
(Caution: some AMV Hell clips are not for kids!)

Square-Enix's Song Summoner iPod Game

Downloaded this really cool game on iTunes yesterday. In case some of you are not aware, last month Square-Enix took on iPod gaming and created Song Summoner: The Unsung Heros. The main feature about this game is that you can turn your songs into characters for your virtual army. Very cool concept indeed. If you are like me and love Final Fantasy Tactics you will enjoy this game It feels almost the same gameplay-wise. I've only played it for about 2 hours total but already it is the best game in my iPod. Granted the song-to-character generation is mostly random, I have gotten better results by using my J-pop and Final Fantasy music from the official CDs (hint, hint). It doesn't appear that you can trace back what song you actually used for the character once they are made but if you play those very songs later in your iPod, you'll get points and I believe some bonuses when you go back to the game. Probably best to use your most played songs or note down which ones you used. Would also be nice if you could rename your fighters and also have their theme music play during battle to power them up or something but for $5 its still an awesome deal.

Check out the official site with the trailers here.

Square Enix Selling Lots of Non Video Game Items

If you were at Comic-Con 08 (unlike me ~_~;;) you would have seen a wonderful booth set up by Square-Enix showing off their newest figures, game trailers and manga. In not too surprising news, they are beefing up their non gaming products to profit off of the growing European and American otaku fans who most likely have FF figures in their must-buy list. As an anime distributor myself, I'll agree very much to Square's interview with Anime News Network on their high selling line like the Advent Children Cloud and Sephiroth. As of very recently, the Play Arts Volume 2 which includes FFVII game versions of Sephiroth, Vincent, Cait Sith, Red XIII, and Yuffie have been selling like hotcakes. I've bought cases of them and I'm already down to my last few ^^;

New figures are on the way from Square including some very nice (and a bit pricey, but worth it) Kingdom Hearts Figures. Other figures on the way include FFXIII figs, like the incomplete one shown in the pic above, a stunning $1000 FFXII Gabranth 1/1 helmet (seen in a previous post), and most likely more from the Final Fantasy VII line. Otaku got more to be excited about but hopefully they come out here by x-mas...chances are late January will be when they are all available outside of Japan.

Kangofu Rock: Elena Varenskaya 1/8 Scale PVC Figure

It's been a while since I've posted an anime figure. Check out this one made by Milestone who actually contacted me directly a few days back for a business deal, so I might be able to get this figure sooner than the scheduled release date (here in the US) of late December 2008 at about $75 or 7800 yen. Elena is also a cast-off figure too, so let the ogling begin.

Official Milestone site here.

12 Year Old Starts An Anime Business

Looks like I'm not the only young guy who's dumping the job world to run my otaku passion full time. At the amazing age of 12, Umar Brimah of Cape Girardeau, Missouri has opened a shop named Yumazu Anime and Collectibles. With help from his mother of all people, Umar is selling figures and other cool otaku stuff. I know this is a bit old news though since this was first blogged about in May on Zimbio, but this is simply awesome stuff. Kudos to the Brimah family and I hope as of this date things are going well. I guess some parents actually really do support our otaku passion, a topic that was recently brought up in a DC topic a few days back.

Also, just to update those who are waiting for my exodus from my 9-7 drudgery, my goal date to quit my job is September 19th 2008. If I need a bit of an extra cushion of money and sales, I might extend my slavery... I mean job time till the end of October but most definitely before my 25th birthday at the beginning of November. I have much I want to accomplish like attending Japan and USA's video game and anime major conventions ('cause I missed a free pass to ComicCon ~_~). There is also my anime/flash video game in the works still simply dubbed, "Project Fumi" and the needed updates to my anime site (this one if you are reading from my blog directly).

Montauk Monster Washes Ashore, Yet The Worst People Supposedly Have It

I know, this isn't exactly anime news but this simply had to be shared before it gets forgotten. Yesterday on the local news there was a report of a demon that washed ashore on Long Island's Montauk Point, roughly 2 hours east of my home. What is being dubbed as the "Montauk Monster," this unknown thing is simply disturbing. At first look somebody can maybe guess it was a dog or something that washed ashore...but look closely and you will see that it has a beak!

Now for a little bit of Long Island knowledge..right offshore, east of Montauk is an island called Plum Island, this island is completely restricted and is known as a government poison and I believe animal testing facility. It could very well be some sort of experiment done there or something. CBS news aired it but was very quick on the story...they said they simply weren't sure what it was and that it could have been a fake but they never stated what happened to the body. It was taken away and that's it!

Anyways, us otaku always watch anime about akuma (demons) and shinigamis so could this very well be a real demon or some unknown creature. What's your take on it?

-Image through google when you search "Montauk Monster"

-Video Below from CNN... don't have audio since I'm at my job computer ^^ so I have no idea what they said on it. I first saw it on CBS yesterday.