Some thoughts on the Miyazaki interview

Credit to linked pixiv user

A couple of weeks ago, an interview with renowned anime director Hayao Miyazaki was released through the Japanese web site Golden Times. Although it’s fairly well known that despite directing animated films, Miyazaki dislikes the Japanese anime industry, some of his particular responses in the interview got the anime fan community perturbed to say the least. While I didn’t get angry about it like a lot of other people did, it was an interesting thing and today I feel like offering my two cents…

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The Surprise of Haruhi Suzumiya (novels 10-11) spoilers roundup

FINAL UPDATE: 9/24/11Due to Yen Press soliciting an official English release of Surprise, I have removed links to the fan translation

Originally scheduled for release in mid-2007, the 10th volume of the Haruhi light novels, The Surprise of Haruhi Suzumiya (Suzumiya Haruhi no Kyougaku), has been delayed for four years since then. Finally, after getting only a short preview chapter of volume 10 last year, volumes 10 and 11 went on sale in full yesterday in Japan and a few other countries.

In this post, I’ve rounded up all the current spoilers available in English for the new novels, and will continue to update the post when necessary…

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Preliminary plans for Anime Expo ’11, and why we go to cons

Last night I preregistered for Anime Expo 2011 and booked a hotel for my stay there. Even though the con is still months away and hardly anything about its events is known yet, I can’t contain my excitement and am already making tentative plans in my head. It also got me thinking that, despite the fact that we all love anime, fans have a variety of reasons for why they go to conventions…

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A possible method for combating anime piracy

As many of us are aware, a couple of incidents involving Funimation and anime piracy have recently come up. The first incident involved the halting of Funimation’s simulcast of Fractale by the anime’s production committee until Funimation put a stop to illegal uploads of the series (after a week’s delay, it was just announced that the simulcast will resume this Monday). The second incident involved Funimation suing 1,337 bittorrent users who downloaded a fansub file of One Piece episode 481. A recent post by Ultimatemegax got me thinking about possible ways to combat anime piracy in this day and age of streaming and torrents…

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Is anime going to die?

I’m sure many of you have read a recent editorial posted on Bang Zoom!’s Anime TV web site. The relatively short article (which can be read here) consists of Bang Zoom! president Eric Sherman’s bleak prediction of the future of anime – that the continuation of illegal downloads will bring about the demise of the industry.

I don’t have the time or patience to read through the nearly 200 comments on the post, nor the many comments about it on other sites. So I’m just going to discuss my own thoughts about it here…

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The Surprise of Haruhi Suzumiya (volume 10 is now publishing!)


Cover of The Sneaker issue containing the first Haruhi chapter in three years

After a three year hiatus since the release of volume 9 in mid-2007, the Haruhi novels have finally started publishing again in the latest issue of The Sneaker magazine. Chapter 1 of volume 10, “The Surprise of Haruhi Suzumiya,” is out!

Scans and info after the jump. I will continuously update this post as translations, images, and other resources for volume 10 become available…

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The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya is out! (here’s a sneak peek)

“The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya” (Suzumiya Haruhi no Shoushitsu) has now been officially released in Japanese theaters, with the first showing today at 8:00am JST. Current news and fan reviews are coming in via AnimeSuki and other sites. Unfortunately, it may be many months before a DVD will come out and allow those of us outside Japan to watch it. So for those of you who have not read the novel and want to find out at least a little of what happens in the story, I’ve complied a “sneak peek” on this post…

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Haruhi season 2 (Endless Eight) to have a U.S. release?

Today (Christmas Day in the U.S.), the “official” Haruhi English web site, ASOS Brigade.com, updated with subtle hints that the new season 2 episodes of the recent rebroadcast will be officially released in the U.S., perhaps with Endless Eights and all…

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The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya promo video streamed

The first trailer with actual animation footage for the upcoming “The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya” (Suzumiya Haruhi no Shoushitsu) movie just recently went up on the official haruhi.tv site…

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Thoughts on the recent arrest of anime uploaders

Recently, around 10 people between the ages of 23 and 57 were arrested in Japan for illegally uploading anime episodes, games, and music via the file-sharing program Share…

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