Sony PSP GO

This was something that me and the other panelists talked about in the second part of the recent anime3000.com podcast (that podcast still pending release) and undoubtedly is all over the internet. E3 2009 is upon us and leaked out before the event is the new Sony PSP Go. I'll admit..I prefer my current old PSP over this but it might be worthy for someone who has yet to buy one. No UMD drive and no dual analog controls sadly. What do you all think of it?

Anime Tattoos

Been wondering for a long while what tattoo(s) I'd finally get for myself. I'm the oldest of 8 kids and everyone but the 3 youngest and me don't have a tattoo. My father is loaded with tattoos including a large Bald eagle that covers his entire chest. At first glance at my father and you'd not think he's covered with tats.

Anyways, I've always thought of Kanji writing as my younger brother has on the back of his neck but I've also of course thought of full anime tattoos. With the blessing of my fiancee, I'd most likely get a moe version of FFVII's Tifa Lockhart and even K-On!'s Mio wouldn't be bad if the tat is done right.

As I continue to ponder what to add, here's some interesting tattoos I found in a quick browse on the internets. Oh, and the title picture above is from yesterday's Anime Pic of the Day, can't get enough of that work by Muuten.

Japanese Idol: Kuroki Nanami

Been some time since the last idol post and I've been getting some requests, so here's the idol, Kuroki Nanami. As of this post there's actullay no Wikipedia info on her ^^;; So I'm not too sure about who she is but rumor has it she's one of those idols who is married and is basically at the end of her photo shoots, but that's rumors don't take that to heart.

I made sure to add her images to the idol gallery and again, I don't put up any really riske photos as I'm basically just showing you who she is and to show the beauty in the modeling. (I'm technically a model myself...well only one photo shoot...more on that maybe down the road... and I repect other models ..also, Danielle if you are reading this, don't be mad about another idol post ^^;;)

New Member Section/Blog

Great news. As of today I've basically completed a part of the blog that I think you all will like. I have created a member driven portion of the blog. In other words, if you get approved, you can create blog posts here on my blog! It's basically a utilization of Blogger's author sign-up function but it should work pretty well.

I actually made it a brand new blog but embedded it here in the site. If you got the email with "Member Rules"..sorry that was an accident; was suppose to go to the member blog ^^;; Still working out the kinks.

So if any one want to help add more anime posts, it can be done ^_^ Check out the rules and how to get involved below. Please note that once I hit about 100 authors, I'll reach my limit. I'm doubtful the site is THAT popular but..always good to warn evryone.

In related news. Due to the very buggy and easily hacked coding of phpBB, the anime forum will have to be taken away Y_Y Nothing but spam went there and now its somehow broken. Forums are very Web 1.0 anyways and unless its a place like gaiaonline...a forum is not so useful in today's online world anymore. So this member's blog will basically be a replacement. The member blog will be shown here on this blog better...just need to fix some design aspects. Anyways...on to the rules and other info:

What's in it for you?

• Drive some traffic to your anime/otaku blog: Chuck's Anime Shrine is continuing to gain more and more traffic over time. As of this post, my alexa traffic rank is around 170,000 with 3000+ visitors to the whole site daily and around 1000 unique visitors daily to the blog alone. I'm at work to continue to increase the traffic to the site by adding more features and making this a site worthy of visits from my fellow anime fans.
• Chances to participate in future contests: For some time now I've not done contests but when I do I'll be sure to give away anime products from my anime store. Being a part of the member's blog will be another way for you to be noticed and hopefully get you some cool stuff and further promote your own sites ^_^
  

Rules:

1. Absolutely no hentai, loli, porn, offensive, extremely religious, or racist material.
   
2. Absolutely no links to any sites with the items in rule #1
3. Anime figures and manga mentions can be posted but no hentai or loli. Cast off figures must be shown in full clothed form and must not be too revealing
   
4. Material in the blog posts must be related to: anime, manga, Japan, video games or anything that anime fans would deem interesting.
5. No spamming. Google and blogger automatically create links on your user name when you post that should bring people to your site the natural way. You can link to your blog if you have more material to show in a related blog post, but NO topics with the blatant crazy advertising of your blog or a non-related blog i.e ("Click here for money tips.", etc). Other members won't care to click and it's distasteful -_-
6. If possible, try to have one related picture per post that acts as a header to your blog post and reflects the topic shown (kind of how this post is done). This makes the post look nice and will create even more traffic to your post.
7. Try to keep post titles small and to the point. Smaller titles yield better search results and make your posts look better.
8. Don't overload a post with pictures. Use services like Flickr, photobucket or your own related blog to host the images...and again no images that have items that are in rule #1...I can't stress that enough -_-
9. Posts can be short or large but please no posts that are too large.
10. Any violations will mark an instant removal from the blog and from the Google Friend Connect member list of this site.
    
11. We at Chuck's Anime Shrine have the right at any time to remove a blog post and member, so please follow the rules...a link to report a post will also be up on the blog for extra safety.
    

How to get involved:

1. Join the growing list of members of Chuck's Anime Shrine by clicking the "join this site" button in the Google Friend Connect part of this page.
2. Email me asking to be an author for Chuck's Anime Shrine...only after step one is done. I need to make sure you are a legit member.
   
3. Be sure to tell me your member name in the Google Friend Connect system and your email must match the given user's email. Again, for the safety of other members and to weed out spammers.
4. If approved, I will invite you to be an author on the site.
   
5. Accept the invitation
6. From your account on blogger.com, you can now begin posting.

Questions, Concerns:

Email me for any questions about the rules or how to get involved. As the site's popularity continues to grow...some emails might go through the cracks but I'll work as best I can to answer any questions. I set times that I go through my massive inbox of emails and I'm only human so immediate answers might not happen always.

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel: Review

Been playing lots of Sacred 2 during the past week/week and a half. My first impressions before playing was a bit iffy. I'll admit, I'm not a D&D, WoW, PC-style fantasy game fan. First thought was "seems like a college-level video game project that looks all too much like the Sims, mixed in with medieval themes." I was dead wrong though. Sacred 2 is more like a Grand Thief Auto set in a fantasy world with a Diablo 2 feel as well.

The game is very open-ended. From the start of which ever character or path you choose, the exploring and fighting starts and thrust me....there is a lot to explore. The world of Sacred 2 is very massive and loaded with side quests. The use of mounts (horses, and other mobile creatures you can buy), obelisks and warps can make your journey much less time consuming. I chose to be a High Elf in the light campaign and the instant I opened up the gates of the town I began in...I was ambushed by enemies...almost to the point of death right there. The controls might take a bit to get used to but the action scheme is very customizable and with a decent amount of empty slots to add either magic, weapons and shields collected in the game.

Speaking of the game's items, it doesn't take too long to completely fill up all your inventory from the loot dropped by the vast array of enemies that litter the landscape or the random barrels and chests in caves and in random households (ah the old, break in to a random villager's house and steal their loot deal that you find in say..Legend of Zelda and others). Thankfully you can rid yourself of the extra inventory by saving it in a Hero's Chest for later use, selling it, or , of you are stuck in the wilderness, simply scrapping old, worthless items for stronger loot you find.

As you battle your magic/skills and you level up. The quickest way to level up though is to complete a large amount of side missions. Actually much of your time in the game will be completing side missions as there are over 600 of them! You can of course skip them and go to the story's main tasks, marked on the map in a gold circle..but expect enemies to be much more fierce. Some side quests are a bit dull, I'll admit but some are pretty fun with awesome boss battles at the end of them, so they are worth it. Having people play with you online in this is a great bonus and like MMORPGs, can lead to quicker execution of tasks.

There are some quirks about Sacred 2 though. The inventory system can get rather cumbersome and its rather tough to see which weapons are the best to use. Also, the game's frame rate will slow when thee is lots of enemies and magic being throw around. I have the Xbox 360 version but I hear the same happens on the PS3. Similarly, the game will have odd loading slowdowns in the towns...something I'll admit I'm shocked to see on an Xbox 360.

Despite some flaws, I still give the game a 8 out of 10. It has the pick up and play feel of older games, the open ended play like GTA and makes me now think about picking up similar games that I've for so long avoided like WoW, Diablo, and Everquest.

Check me out on Xbox Live to see my progress in this game and others.

My gamer tag is chuckgaff415.

I'm still playing through the game (its very long, another benifit) so any new tidbits I can add to the review, I'll let you all know ;-)

Check out the trailer here:

Haruhi Suzumiya, Season 2

Unless you have been away for the past couple of weeks, you'd probably know by now that the second season of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya has gotten underway in Japan. Of course, Kyoto Animation is once again behind the scenes so thankfully don't expect a Tenchi Muyo or Full Metal Alchemist scenario where the artwork is changed from the first season or rendition. If I'm not mistaken, it's also a continuation of the first season which is great for all us Haruhi fans. From the looks of it, it's a bit more moe than the first season but that isn't bad, right?

Check out the ending below:

Anime3000 Podcast

I finally got something to add to the podcast section of this site. As of a few days ago, I was asked to be part of a podcast with anime3000.com. Big thanks to Sean Russell for asking me to drop by. This is actually part of two podcasts, both pertaining to the history of video games and where we feel its heading to. The first pod cast shown here is a look back at the different generations of game consoles and of course we talked about what the game companies did well...and not so well. The rest of our recording, to be up some time soon, is essentially the second half of our 2 hour cast and is mainly us ranting on what is to come with gaming and more ranting as well. So now you all can hear what I sound like...which is either good or bad ^^;;

On the panel was:

• Sean Russell: Anime3000.com (Host)
• Patz (@patzprime): thegamingdungeon.com
• Evan Minto (@VamptVo): Anigamers.com
• and me (@princetrunks), Chuck Gaffney

Check out the main podcast page on anime3000 for info and links to related video game commercials and goodies.

You can download the podcast to your iTunes or listen HERE

Munto AMVs

Well, it's been some time since my last AMV. Apparently I've been known as one of the pioneers in AMVs and I've even made it to the top of Helium.com's tutorial on AMV creation..but sadly, its been about 4+ years since my last one (I will make one eventually ^^;;). That hasn't stopped my fiancee Danielle. She has been on a roll with AMVs. Her Final Fantasy Crisis Core AMV was unfortunately removed due to the music artist's neglect for the free advertising and the fact that it got insanely popular.

As of late we have been watching an anime that you might or might not know called Munto. The AMVs below by Danielle and Sapphire Star showcase a bit of this rather short anime. Munto seems to put you in that dream world like anime in the past has many times. It's that same feeling you get when you wake up from a dream that you were very attached to, like another you in another universe. This feeling comes to mind when I watch Munto and did the same for Princess Mononoke and basically all of Miyasaky's work. Munto was animated by Kyoto animation, the studio known for animating Haruhi, K-ON! and Lucky Star. At times the animation looks simple and then it looks complex. If you can still find it left in the stores or on ebay..or just watch it online. It's a great anime and deserves a bit more attention than what it's gotten so far.

Without further delay, I present Danielle's latest AMV ^_^:



Here's the AMV that got me into wanting to view this anime and inspired Danielle. the AMV is by Sapphire Star:



I will note again, AMVs are free advertisement for both the music artists and the anime. The anime, Munto is owned by Kyoto animation, the original creator and all respected licences. The song "That's the Way It Is" is owned by Celine Dion; "Stand in the Rain" is owned by Superchick and all repected music labels. Please use iTunes, Amazon MP3 or anywhere that sells their music. Please purchase Munto where ever anime is sold as well...if it isn't here in my store.

TFS: Dragon Ball Z Abridged Episode 10 Part 1

Looks like the talented fan dubbers at Team Four Star brought out the long awaited episode 10 two part finale to their first season. For a while fans of this parody have been waiting but today marks the first year since their first episode. If you are a DBZ fan and particularly if you enjoyed the Vegeta saga..you gotta check it out. This is a wonderful Memorial Day present. Big props to TFS ^_^

Anime Pic Of the Day: 5/25/09

This by far has to be the most amazing anime drawing I have ever seen and to my biggest surprise...it's not a picture of a cute anime girl! Done by the artist, Muuten, this image depicts a tattooed samurai with the image of a mech behind him. Simply stunning, a true work of art that should be in museums and yet another reason why I'm glad to be an anime fan. I just hope to have half of the artistic talent that is needed to make this image.

Beat Blades Haruka: Narika Sennin [Alter]

Wanted to quickly showcase an anime figure I have currently up for pre-order in the store. This one I'm contemplating on whether to keep for myself as well. It's the newer Alter version of Narika Sennin from the hentai, Beat Blades Haruka. Just loving the design, color and look this will have once I set up a good display. Alter is very, very good at making sure the final product looks like the original concept figure seen here. She's scheduled for a late August, early September 2009 release here in the US. I'll admit, she's a bit pricey, the manufactures aren't giving us anime store owners any slack with the strong yen -_-....I made sure though that she's free shipping for US customers though.

Is she on your wish list?

Evangelion With No Asuka?

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Evangelion Cellphone

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Dragon Ball Z Doramatic Diorama Figure

Just got a look at this figure this morning and it has a very, very accurate DBZ look to it. Depicting of course when Gohan defeated Cell with the just passed away Goku by his side, this is most definitely a DBZ figure to get. Let's face it, there's not many really good DBZ figures out there. Most of them are usually really cheaply made figures that tend to never reach the quality of say a Good Smile Company or Alter anime girl figure.

You will have to pay a pretty penny for it though. It costs about 10500 yen of probably in the range of $120USD (thanks to the yen being strong again =_=). To be honest, I'm not too certain of the scale just yet. If its like some of the other high quality DBZ figures that recently got released, it's probably a 1/7th or maybe even 1/6th scale.

I should be getting the rights to sell this in the store, so keep an eye out for it or you can message me and say "I want it!" and I'll see if its in my anime retailing powers to grab one.

Anime Pic Of the Day: 5/21/09

Ok, this is not such a new picture and it's been publicized on a number of anime sites. Just thought I'd add it to list of favorite anime pics. It's the famous "Mio-Beam" pic featuring K-On!'s Mio in a maid dress firing an insane beam. You gotta admit..the picture is freaken cool and goes well with Mikuru's "Mikuru Beam" ^_^

Jailed For Manga

A while back I wrote about an Iowa man who's loli manga he got from Japan was confiscated by US customs, and then he was stalked by police on his way home, to which they then arrested him.

Well, looks like as of today he pled guilty to charges of obscene images and will get as much as 15 years in jail and a $250,000 fine!!

As much as I do think loli manga is gross and yes obscene, in the end its fictional drawings on paper and in no way, shape or form should be illegal. Not only its illegal, but look at how bad the sentencing can be. 15 years?! $250,000 fine?! Micheal Vick who ran a dog fighting competition that killed a number of dogs will be released next month because his meager 23 month sentence will be over.

This is utter proof that the US justice system is really, really corrupt. I just can't imagine how many otaku might get arrested for regular hentai mangas..or hell, normal manga misconceptions.

What about all the stupid European art of little naked and very anatomically correct cupids that litter museums and many common greeting/ valentine cards? This is not right. Minus -1000 points there USA =_=

King Of Fighters Fan Art Contest

Great news KOF fans! If you haven't heard yet, Ignition Entertainment is doing a fan art contest with lots of cash and prizes to commemorate the The release of The King Of Fighters XLL for the Xbox 360 and PS3.

First place Prize is $1000 cash, second place prize is $500 with runners up getting a free $100 KOF figure and/or the KOF XLL game. Enter the "Fan Art Section" of www.kingoffighters12.com upload your work ^_^

The contest has been on since April 11th and will go on till July 31st 2009...so get the art flowing.

Speaking of KOF...this game marks the 15th anniversary of the KOF franchise. I remember being an eager 10 year old gamer back in 1994 (what is the deal with that year always coming up when anyone refers to the 90's anyways 0_o?). I would go to whichever arcade my parents would take me to, to let me play games like KOF, Street Fighter II, Turtles in Time, etc. I got some good memories of KOF and execpt for the a few recent 3D versions, KOF has kept it's 1994 graphics...which to me is fine since I'm an old timer in the gaming world.

So, who's your favorite KOF fighter?..no surprise mine is Mai Shiranui ^^;; Of course you can see why:

Anyways...get going with your art work before it's too late and don't be shy about adding your fan art to my fan art portion of the anime gallery or Flickr group as well ^_^

Box of Nendoroids

Today I got a big shipment of new anime figures from the new Kingdom Hearts Cloud and Sephiroth; not to mention a bunch of Haruhi Suzumiya Extravaganza figures, just to name a few. I also got about 12 Nendoroid figures. Just wanted to use this post to show them off before they are taken away from any of my customers or before I add a few to my own personal collection ^^;; I definitely could use some di:stages for these guys.

Anyone got a favorite Nendoroid?

A wonderful site

Itoshiki Nendoroid

Going to be giving most of them a new home soon. I might keep one or two but...gotta run the biz here ^^'

Chuck's Anime Shrine: Mobile

Got an iPhone? Well, now you won't have to wait too long for my site to load. As of today I made a very simplistic but somewhat useful mobile section to the site. as of this post, if you go to the main part of my site, chucksanimeshrine.com and you have an iPhone, you will be redirected to the Mobile page. From there you can view that anime, figure, idol photo galleries and the mobile version of this blog as well.

If you don't have an iPhone, you can still bookmark that page. The links should still act accordingly for your phone since the blog link goes to the rss feed and the gallery link goes to the MoblieMe gallery page directly , thus if your phone can convert an RSS page and if the MobileMe site can detect your phone...it should work ok.
Also, as you can see below, a few week ago or so I added an iPhone web icon for the site so this site can almost act and look like an iPhone app.

If I can, down the road I'l add the video, music and store sections...but for now, lets keep it simple ^^;

K-ON! Music

Good news for you K-ON! fans. Looks as if Playlist.com has both the "Cagayake! GIRLS" and the "Don't Say Lazy" singles by Aki Toyosaki & co. from the K-ON! opening and ending sequences. Naturally I added them to the Anime.fm Anime Playlist and the anime music section here on CAS. If I can get a hold of the whole Cagayake! GIRLS CD, I'll be sure to post it up in my store. Gotta give the music artists their dues of course.

Enjoy K-ON! fans ^_^.

(Update: Added the Anime.fm widget below...if you don't want to travel to Anime.fm or the Music section of this site)

Anime Pic of The Day: 5/12/09

Ar Tonelico 2 has been eating up much of my time as of late. Here's a picture of Luca and Cloche (Chroche) from the game. I'm most likely going to create a whole section devoted to this game. Once you start playing this game..you might as well not come out of your gaming cave for at least a month. This game is an anime fan's dream ^^.

Anyways, more posts to come....sorry about the gap in blog posts ^^;;.

Blood, The Last Vampire Movie

Let's face it, Hollywood has it out for the anime genre. The success of the comics to movies made many in Hollywood raise a few eyebrows along with their bank accounts. Sadly for them...and us, anime is a whole other beast and the formula doesn't work so well for the US movie makers. Just look at how Dragon Ball Evolution, Speed Racer and others not only bombed in the box office, but offended us anime fans to the core. Only Transformers has created an appreciated showing of a classic anime series.

Anime is not men in tights with lackluster storylines that you can build a Hollywood movie around. To turn the storyline of an American comic into a cool blockbuster movie is child's play for any movie writer since they are so simple to begin with. Anime has more depth and life to their stories. The fandom runs deeper even if a series is no where near the age of say an X-Men comic.

We anime fans are continually faced with disbelief and anger with the notion of some of the anime-to Hollywood movies to come. The Cowboy Bebop movie with Keenu Reeves set to play Spike, the Steven Spielberg acquisition to rights for a Ghost in the Shell movie and the planned Akira movie by Leonardo DiCapro's production studio is enough to give us heart burn. Add that to the recent news of Death Note getting a US movie made by Warner Bros. (yes they seemed to have ignored the 3 very successful Japanese live action Death Note films) and you have to take a whole lot of Tums to cure that indigestion.

Well, there is hope for us . There is some light at the end of this Hollywood-induced dark tunnel. Even better than the second Transformers movie we have the Hollywood rendition of Blood, The Last Vampire to look forward to. A sight for sore eyes as this looks to be the Anime-to-movie creation that we can be proud of. Not only is the movie set to match up with the Manga almost perfectly, the producers realized the simple fact that the main character, Saya, will actually be played by an asian actress (Gianna Jun) who looks just like her. Once you see who's making the movie (the producers of both Heros and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), it then comes to no surprise why we'll finally see a movie true to the spirit of an anime, violence, sailor outfit and all ^_^.

I'm going to enjoy this flick. Check out the trailer below...and no, these vampires don't sparkle.

K-ON!

I'm a little late on the scene but the current fad in Japan and us otaku right now is the new hit show K-ON! Already the show's opening song "Cagayake! GIRLS" has reached #2 in the Japanese charts. at a quick glance you can see that the show was animated by the same people who brought us Haruhi Suzumiya and Lucky Star (Kyoto animation). The opening (seen below) is just wonderfully done and proof that only Japan does animation best.

The story of K-On! revolves around four high school girls who are trying to keep the music club they are a part of from going away. Not only are they the only ones in the group, their one member Yui never played instruments nor does she know how to read music ^^;;

A must for any anime fan and you know for certain DVDs, figures and more will be on their way.



K-ON! Opening


K-ON! Closing

C.A.S Flickr Group

Something I should have done long ago, but up is the Chuck's Anime Shrine Flickr group. Post what ever anime/otaku related photos you want up there. This adds another way to submit fan art than just the MobleMe part of my site. The group is new but hopefully it can help gain some eposure for all of you ^^;;

The End of Geocities

Not so much new news but as of recently, Yahoo, as part of their crazy restructuring will drop the free web hosting service, Geocities. Back in December till around March of 2002, I first posted this site on Geocities so I can thank my very start to the service. The offical release of Chuck's Anime Shrine then happened in March when I payed for service on ocatch.com, then migrated to Netfirms.com an then finally to globat.com. Yep, I still use a web hosting service for the site after all this time. Granted, yes I should soon migrate to running my own servers as the traffic becomes higher and higher but..I'll leave that to the future.

Anyways, Geocities and sites like xanga.com were home to the first anime fan websites. Many of them are long gone, sadly but these were the Myspaces and Facebooks of their time. We proudly showed what we loved on a site that was almost our own. To me showing your fandom on a Myspace page or Facebook just isn't the same as having your own site. For those who are still trucking on in Geocities, time to make a move before it's too late.

As an honor to the anime fan sites of old, I'll be going back to making "shrines" of different series and games. Some of which I have on here already and of course was the original point of my anime website in the first place. These "shrines" go beyond the typical blog post or archive and I won't them die on my watch. With this site and blog working with some of the anime companies directly, either it be promos (like the Naruto one recently) or through my store, I'll have more leverage to promote these series and give them some sort of permanent space on the web. One thing us true anime fans never do is forget a series we watched. We eventually go back to watching them again because anime means more to us than a simple cartoon show or the like, even as we get older.