Via Newtype USA: [inside] Toei (December 2003)

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Along with an understanding of the broader context of the subject, the most vital ingredient to good anime coverage is a reliable source. So when US journalists actually interview people on the production side in Japan, it’s generally worth noting unless the interview consists entirely of fluff. This is the second of what will (hopefully) be several posts over the next couple of weeks archiving articles from Newtype USA’s [inside] series of articles written by Amos Wong. It contains comments from President Hiroshi Takahashi and Director Daisuke Nishio on researching how to best portray action sequences, overseas sources of income, and the pluses and minuses of the transition from analog to digital animation.

Note: Pictures are scans of the article made on my crappy scanner, which cover the article text but not the entire page. Apologies for that. Scans after the jump, along with comments on the contents of the article.

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Via Newtype USA: [inside] Satelight (September 2003)

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Along with an understanding of the broader context of the subject, the most vital ingredient to good anime coverage is a reliable source. So when US journalists actually interview people on the production side in Japan, it’s generally worth noting unless the interview consists entirely of fluff. This is the first of what will (hopefully) be several posts over the next couple of weeks archiving articles from Newtype USA’s [inside] series of articles written by Amos Wong. It contains statements from President Michiaki Sato and Director Kazuki Akane on how the studio went from subcontractor to full-time anime studio and how they handled the increased demand for female casts in the millennial anime boom.

Note: Pictures are scans of the article made on my crappy scanner, which cover the article text but not the entire page. Apologies for that. I have also transcribed the article after the jump to make for easier reading (though I probably won’t be doing so for other articles due to the time involved). Also note that each part of the article is a two-page spread, so page 19 comes before 18, 21 before 20, 23 before 22, and 25 before 24.

18-19a

18-19b

20-21a20-21b

 

22-23a

22-23b

24-25a

24-25b

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Unstoppable Hype Machine Spring 2014 #5 – Stardust Crusaders

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Download it!

Given our reputation of being JoJo lovers, number five wouldn’t be hard to predict. It’s part 3, Stardust Crusaders, and Animetic’s stand, Unstoppable Hype Machine, is ready to show you why! Let’s go!

Fun With Numbers: Amazon Rank Progression for US Releases (March 18)

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Compared to last and next week, this slate of releases was a bit small, containing 3 rereleases (Zombie, Shana, To Love) along with 2 new releases (Upotte, Bleach set 20).

As before, here’s the rankings up to this week in Aria the Natural part 2, featuring one total copy sold and the majority of days spent ranked 120,000th or higher:

Aria-wk3

Chart is date, rank, # in stock

The decline in rank seemed to slow down this past week. I would guess that, once you get to the 200,000s, you hit a point where there are a lot more shows that haven’t sold in a while or at all, leading to a slower advancement. At this point, I’m mainly following the ranks to see if the series can drop back into the 70,000-80,000 range with the next purchase that gets made, or if the long drought will have significant effects on the post-purchase rank.

Plots are posted after the jump.

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Fun With Numbers: April 2014 Amazon Data (Initial Numbers)

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US amazon data may not be a perfect source, but it is a very interesting one, with a lot of organic components. I’m just about done collecting data for March releases (data for the 18th will be up when my schedule permits, data for the 25th still needs to be collected), and while these datapoints have managed to shed some light on a few of the narratives I pulled out of the February data, they’ve also raised still more interesting threads to be explored.

That means it’s in my best interests to continue collecting data both to broaden the sample and to give predictions a viable testing ground. All numbers posted here were collected on March 25th, via amazon’s upcoming anime releases page, one week before the earliest releases on the list.

Note: The price I note is the series’ MSRP price. If the series becomes listed at more than 50% off that price at any time during the amazon solicitation, I will note that both now and during the final analysis. The February part 1 release of Robotics;Notes had such a discount, along with Psycho-Pass and One Piece (all Funimation releases, which is probably noteworthy at this point).

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