Even disregarding the price, the sad fact is that the product delivered by the fansub groups via torrents is better than what we can buy. It’s more timely, and the quality is higher, and the resolution is better, and it’s more comprehensive.
I wish it weren’t so. I would rather buy than steal. But two years ago it reached the point where it didn’t feel like virtue to be honest. It felt like being a sucker.
Even as big as the anime market was in North America three years ago before everything fell apart, we were still being treated as second class citizens. Usually there was a delay of between 1 and 3 years before titles got released here, if they were. And what we got was 480p, which these days looks like a postage stamp to me. (Especially on my 1920*1080 computer display.)
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They were created to separate little girls’ parents from their money; they’re disgustingly cute; every episode they’re in has a tidy little Minowian moral explicitly spelled out; there’s even a magical zebra. I am astounded to discover that, despite all that, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is actually worth watching.
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Doujin animation: 15 minutes of Touhou.
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Avant-garde animator Robert Breer recently died. Here’s one of his films. See what you make of it.
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I won’t be taking pictures in Long Beach. (Via, via.)
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Thomas More, Samurai: Covers to Japanese editions of R.A. Lafferty’s books. (I think I have that issue of the Boomer Flats Gazette somewhere, but it would take a major archeological dig to find it.)
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Life has gotten messier than usual, and I probably won’t be updating much for a few weeks. I’ll be back eventually.