The Anime Diet State of the Union Address

– By Ray Hu, representing all for this moment in time.

February 26, 2010

My fellow Otakus:

As Anime Diet enters its third year, I’m reminded of the tracks that we have carved in the history of anime fandom. As fellow anime lovers, or otakus, if you so dare, we have been fighting. Yes, fighting. Just as you have struggled through the last decade engaged in mortal combat with changes, finance issues, work, school, relationships, and any other seemingly trivial but strong foes. You have waged war with the enemies with all your heart, your might and your strength, and at the end of the grueling match, you have come out on top, and that’s why you’re reading and hearing this. I congratulate you for your bravery and resourcefulness in managing social upheavals as well as other concerns that have been of the utmost importance in your lives. As for us,

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I’m pleased to introduce to everyone our newest staff member Monsieur LaMoe. He’s a real Japanese moe otaku and he’ll be writing in Japanese for the site at least once a month! This video is subtitled in English, however, so you should be able to get this one at least :) In either case please join us in warmly welcoming him!  –Mike

どうも、世界のオタクの皆様、私の自己紹介のビデオをお届けしたいと思います。縁あってアニメダイエットに参加することになりました。それも私のアメリカの最良の友人のひとりでありかつ知識人であり文化人でありアニメオタクでもあるマイケルの善良な計らいによるものです。この場をかりてマイケルをはじめとするアニメダイエットのスタッフ一同、そして最後にアニメダイエットの読者の皆様方に感謝の意を申し上げます。萌えからの視点でアニメを語り投稿していきたいと思うので、皆様が楽しんでいただければ、幸いです。こんな私ですが、どうぞよろしくお願いします！

北米萌え萌え委員会教祖　ムッシュー・ラモエ　２月４日　２０１０年

Those of you in the LA area might be aware that a TV-Tokyo program is going to interview Haruhi fans at Anime Jungle on Monday, January 25, at 5:30 PM PST! Details from Anime News Network:

Cine-tsu, a Japanese television series for filmgoers, wants to film Haruhi Suzumiya fans in Los Angeles next Monday for an upcoming episode about The Vanishment of Haruhi Suzumiya (Suzumiya Haruhi no Shōshitsu) film.

The TV Tokyo program will film its segment at the Anime Jungle store in the Little Tokyo neighborhood of Los Angeles, and the store invites fans to come — cosplayers in particular, and Haruhi cosplayers especially. The event will start at 5:30 p.m.

Now, I will almost certainly be there. Dressed as Kyon, no less. Other staff may join too. However, we’re going to try something a little different here…we also want you, our readers, listeners, and viewers, to send us links to your own footage and photos when it’s over! When you do, we’ll feature it in the follow-up post. That’s right: we’re crowdsourcing for great justice and we want to show off your work alongside ours. We’d like to get all of you involved and active in the coverage of this event, and in the future we may try this for cons, too.

So–does anyone plan to be there? Leave a comment here if you do, and let’s try to meet up. And when you have stuff you’d like to share, just post links here too, or email them to editor@animediet.net and we’ll feature them!

Anime Diet wishes you a very Merry Christmas! As our gift to you, enjoy this pairing of one of anime’s best comedies, Azumanga Daioh, with one of the greatest musical satirists, Tom Lehrer, reflecting on what everyone knows is the true meaning of Christmas (especially in America).

We hope this brings you a little laughter and joy today! Thanks for your reading, listening, and watching.

Some good reading during holidays:

Evangelion 2.0 Review, Anime Goods Experience, Tokyo Game Show, Nyan Koi 6, Kikuko Inoue Panel at Otakon pt.1, pt.2.

Don’t forget relentlessflame’s look at a Christmas Eroge.

Celebrate Christmas and our birthday with us!

Today, Anime Diet turns three years old! In addition to a new site layout, the staff would like to say a few words to all of you, our loyal readers and listeners, for being with us since 2006.

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Welcome to version 4.5 of Anime Diet! As you can see, things look a little different–but not too different. It’s more of an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary upgrade, because there is actually a much more radical layout shift that’s coming in the months ahead–but I figured it was time, on this our third anniversary, to refresh things. Structurally, it’s pretty much the same.

New features to watch out for:

• A new mascot! You’ve seen it before if you’ve seen any of our recent videos. Diet-tan was drawn by Jose Cardenas.
• At the bottom of every post, you can send it to Digg, StumbleUpon, and other bookmark sites. Please use them!
• There’s a sidebar box with links to our Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter pages. There’ll be more to come!

This should be easier to read and a little bit cleaner, too. We hope you enjoy it! (And report any bugs that you might find. And yes, I know it looks kind of like Slashdot. :))

Anime Diet wishes you, especially American you, a very non-diet kind of day! Spend some time with your friends and family and gorge yourself on all your favorite traditional foods. (Just think of us if you overstuff yourself with anime today too.) Think about what you have to be grateful for.

As for myself, I’m thankful for all the wonderful staff, past and present, who have helped build this site to what it is now–for making us one of the best review, podcast, and con coverage sites out there. Y’all made it happen. And, of course, for all of you readers and listeners and watchers out there. We couldn’t do it without you too.

Have a great holiday! See you again soon.

A number of us at Anime Diet are also creative writers of some sort. I’ve been doing it all my life, practically, and the recent National Novel Writing Month has rekindled my love of telling fantasy stories.

With that in mind, I’m pleased to unveil a semi-official side blog: The Fiction Kitchen, at http://fiction.animediet.net!

The Fiction Kitchen will eventually contain the writings of several Anime Diet staff. For now, however, it’s me and my Nanowrimo novel, The Sanctuary, which was partly inspired by various anime comedies like Zero no Tsukaima. (See a fuller introduction here.) It may even have illustrations one day. Since it’s a Nanowrimo novel, I make no guarantees of quality, consistency, or other hallmarks of polished writing–but I do intend on revising it thoroughly after the draft is done and possibly even getting light-novel style illustrations for it!

And don’t worry–I have a week’s worth of installments already scheduled, which will be posted once a day. I’m working steadily toward the end of the book this week as well.

So if you ever wanted to see some original work from us, here’s your chance. Visit us, and feel free to leave constructive feedback too! It’ll help in the revision process.

Carved at an office pumpkin carving competition, October 30, 2009. It was my very first time carving a pumpkin, too!

I’ll be occupied for a bit, so it may be a bit quiet for a while–but we are planning to go to Pacific Media Expo next week, so stay tuned for yet more convention coverage! Peace out.

Hey all!

Just giving a quick shout of thanks to Gendomike & the AD crew for allowing me to share thoughts and memories with all of you. Now this will be the first of hopefully many journeys through the looking glass, where the face of early US anime fandom melds minds with that of today’s loyal armies. When not tapping away in the labs of my own personal art & geek site, I may also chime in with thoughts on current & older titles, trends, habits and soforth, once or twice a month. The time outside of this is spent continuing my film studies, as well as composing music for the little movies inside my head. Long and short, this’ll serve as a little oasis from the unrelenting clusterfudge I have so enthusiastically created for myself.

So, in order to make this workable, first, a quick dip into the past. I grew up not only surrounded by the golf courses & gaudily placed palm trees of the California desert, but with a very rarified affliction; a very early love for anime, live-action tokutatsu series, and of course the weekly Kaijyu-fests that tv could only provide throughout the late 70s and early 80s in hilariously dubbed form. The near blackout of US tv anime in the late 80s eventually led to the burgeoning of anime on VHS. ( remember, the only alternative to this were cruddy, third gen tapes found at your local Star Trek convention-no joke.) I am what many anime historians consider a 2nd wave fan (the first being the Mach Go-Go-Go! & Tetsuwan Atomu in america phase). I can vividly remember the day my brother sneaked a copy of Urotsukidoji into my virgin VCR.(!!!) And as crazy-old that makes me sound, it’s been a bizarre yet exciting ride. It’s strange to express just how much has changed. Whether collecting videos, figures, and art books, or eventually helping within the US industry, there’s always been something to keep the admiration strong. And to think that all of this came due to a small, but stalwart cadre of geeky low-techs, believing that something special was indeed coming from the east.

So it’s time to dust off the old flashlight, it’s exploration time….First post coming very soon!