Okay, still no wallpaper again this month, I think I'm going to call it quits with that for now, as work eats up 50+ hours a week and I have a hard enough time keeping current on my interests. Instead of a wallpaper each month, I'll be putting up a scan on the right side of the page for you to grab. This month its going to be a piece I have from Hide Hard, of which I know next to nothing about. I've also spent the morning tweaking the Soundtracks page - updated some track listings, added Ghost in the Shell SAC OST 3, and lastly, there are now album cover thumbnails for all.
Not much in the way of Shirow news the past month, over on the Hyperpages, a Dark Horse editor made mention of details about the GitS 1.5 release, indicating that it would be coming out in 8 issues through 2006, with a collected version(and accompanying untranslated e-manga cd) showing up sometime in 2007. Sampaguita, an old Playstation game that Shirow did the character design/artwork for, has just been rereleased in Japan on the PSP, part of the Yarudora series of games, and I rather doubt it will ever get translated.
Sorry folks, just haven't been able to make a wallpaper I liked for this month, so instead, I'm going to toss you all a nice big 4.6MB Orion image until the end of the month(or sooner, if this ends up hammering my server). This image is in Intron Depot 2, and was used a postcard sometime in the early 90s. The image itself is one found on the CD version of Intron Depot 2, and is about the average size of the images that come on the second 'extras' disc.
As for news in the Shirow world, a few things worth noting. Biggest on the New Shirow Goods front, sTwo, in a stroke of brilliance, called Kodansha and found out that 8 Galgrease artbooks spaced out from November 2005 through September 2007. Check out his site for the full scoop. This week at Comic-Con, Dark Horse also made a big announcement(via ANN):
Ghost in the Shell 1.5: Human-Error Processor - A limited comics series from manga legend Shirow Masamune. Human-Error Processor is a series of stories originally serialized as part of Ghost in the Shell 2 but not included by Shirow in the Ghost in the Shell 2: Man-Machine Interface collection. The stories are Fat Cat from 1991, Drive Slave from 1992, Mines of Mind from 1995, and Lost Past from 1996. This series will be presented in non-Westerized format (reading right to left), as originally published, in black-and-white with color. Arriving spring 2006.
On the SAC front, a couple bits, OST 3 is almost upon us, due out July 21st, here's a translated tracklist, decent image of the cover, and the official listing. Volume 7 of SAC is due out on the 26th of this month, along with a special edition that comes with a tin to contain all previous volumes(but not in their Special Edition casings). The PSP game now has an official site on the Japanese side, no trailers to look at, but there appears to be a decent amount of screenshots on the site. The game is actually looking somewhat decent, and I'm curious to see how the Tachikoma customization turns out, so I will almost certainly have to break down and get a PSP somewhere along the way here.
Ack, sorry everyone, seems I forgot to upload the new wallpaper with the last update, take another look as it should be there now.
June's here and that means its time for a new wallpaper, so grab and enjoy, if you so desire. Site updates will probably get even more sporadic from here on out, as I've just started a real, non-temp job, and have barely had time to keep track of my daily reads, let alone time to hunt things down or write them up. On the plus side though, I should finally be able to start catching up on the piles of stuff I've been missing out on.
There is some news though, the aforementioned OST 3 has officially been announced on Victor's website, matching up to what the other sites were saying, though we still don't have a track listing or notice on Production-IG's site, it seems. The official site for Tank S.W.A.T. 01 has launched and whatnot, though there's still not much content to it, so those of you that are interested may want to keep an eye out for it here.
sTwo brings word of Innocence: International Edition, containing 3 Japanese audio mixes and Japanese, English, French, Taiwanese, and Korean subtitles for 3990 yen, as well as a limited edition similar to the one for the original Innocence release with a Motoko Gynoid(as opposed to the Geisha Gynoid in the original) for 31290yen. This makes me glad I've skipped on getting the US version, as I will definitely be buying this one(though not w/ doll). Hear that Dreamworks, your DVD treatment was so horrid that I'm very willing to pay double for another region's release that is treated with enough respect not to fuck with the art. Yes, I'm still mad about that, bite me.
Well, E3 2005 has come and gone, and while I was hoping to see more coverage on the upcoming Ghost in the Shell SAC PSP game, I've only been able to find this Gamespy writeup, and some gameplay footage at Gamespot. Looks like it'll be a first-person shooter, and that you'll have a customizable Tachikoma assisting you, though how customizable it will be is still a question at this point.
There's also been word on a third SAC soundtrack, with several sites showing listings pointing at a late July release for OST 3. Further details are sketchy, particularly as there seems to be no official word on it yet, but the aforementioned sites all note that the soundtrack will include the new OP track(Christmas in the Silent Forest by Shanti Snyder) for 2nd GIG's regular broadcast airing.
I've finally gotten a chance to see the new Appleseed as well, and have re-written the page to reflect my thoughts on it, though I still need to go through and grab some screencaps to go with it. In addition to that, Lucas over at the MS Hyperpages brought word of an Appleseed game(password is Hitomi) for the Playstation 2 is in the works. Ever since I watched the original preview DVDs, I thought that it was destined to be used in a game as well, and it looks like that line of thinking has finally paid off.
May's wallpaper is up and ready to go, and I rather like how it turned out this time around. Of course, that may just be due to my present Hellcat kick, brought on by finally getting my collected Series 2 Posterbooks(now with 30% more editing), but who cares, sexy pirate women, Arr!
I've also quashed a really dumb Opera layout bug that's been haunting me since Opera 8 final came out, so dumb and non-obvious that it takes spaced out 6am thinking to try something that actually manages to take care of it. Granted it only affected people using Opera 7.54u2 or older, but it still bugs me, as it looked fine in the Opera 7.6 previews and 8 betas that I was using when I made the layout.
About the only Shirow-related news to be had this month, Ghost In the Shell Standalone Complex PSP is going to be shown at E3, per a Bandai press release -
"Section 9 returns to take out the latest terrorist cell in this futuristic first-person shooter coming to the PSP handheld entertainment system this summer. Use Motoko's agility, Batou's strength, Togusa's stealth or Saito's sniper skills to take out the terrorists. Train and customize Tachikoma to assist you in your missions and hack into enemies to obtain information crucial to your missions. Features wireless battles and communication - up to 4-players!"
I suppose I haven't mentioned that the 2006 US calendar has already been announced either, so there it is. sTwo came across the information and found front and rear cover pictures as well, hopefully we'll get to see a Japanese 2006 calendar as well, but its anyone's guess at this point.
Sorry for the downtime for the last day or so, domain registration issues that have been cleared up now. While I've paid pretty much zero attention to even thinking about adding in content this month, its mostly due to trying to figure out how to move the site to a php/mySQL system. I don't think it'll be ready for a while, but it's something I'm hoping to get done sometime in the near future, as I've recently seen how nice it is to work with, and the potential flexibility it will allow.
As the saying goes, April showers bring May flowers, so that's where the wallpaper went this month, and as usual, last month's is now free of the (rather plain) calendar. Nothing else much going on on the site itself here, busy with work mostly and trying to catch up on things I missed out on while without the now-restored cable.
In Shirow-related news, well, no further news of note really. No more word on Tank SWAT, Appleseed, or more GitS, no word on a rumored posterbook artbook, no word on anything beyond the 2006 DH calendar already getting planned up.
Expect an update and this month's wallpaper later today, but first I needs to go see Sin City.
More news on the new Dominion project Tank SWAT 01, there's now an official site with a trailer availible. Having taken a look at it, it definitely looks like Romanov Higa's other work, no word yet on anyone else that might be involved, not even the extent of Shirow's involvement in the project.
Having nabbed and watched the trailer, it looks to me like it'll be an adaptation/continuation of the Dominion: Conflict story arc, as they mention Conflict specifically at the start of the trailer(presumably as a notation of works by Shirow) and at least one of the Puma twins is shown in a police uniform alongside Leona. Though I'd miss Buaku's presence, it'd actually be for the better as none of the old animation came from the Conflict arc, meaning that this project isn't just rehashing old ground with a new look. I guess I'm not so much worried about that though, rather I'm more concerned about how much of Domion's humor/atmosphere will carry over, and how well it will come across with this style.
Having seen Romanov's work in the past(and other things produced with a similar cel shading technique) I'm still somewhat mixed about the visual style, so I won't comment further on that here. The music(from the trailer anyhow), however, feels fairly appropriate with a slightly older vibe that reminds me of You're Under Arrest. Lastly, I just want to know who approached who about this one, Shirow or Higa, as I could really see it going either way. Whatever the answer, looks like I'll have to get another page going to track this one.
Ack! I managed to accidentally delete all of my e-mail from the last 3 months, and I know there were one or two of you that I'd yet to get back to. If you haven't heard back from me anytime this year, by all means, e-mail me again and I'll take care of you. In other news, new Dominion in the works?
According to the latest update from sTwo, it seems that Romanov Higa(creator of URDA, worked on the Gungrave games) is working on a 3D CG project of Shirow's Dominion, entitled "TANK S.W.A.T. 01." Details are very light at this point, but a teaser/information on it seems to be included on a DVD with the April 2005 issue of Animage.
Purely from the Shirow fanboy perspective, it's great to see more being done with his stuff. Personally though, I'm not sure that the world of Dominion is best suited to this particular animation style, given how chaotic, 'broken,' and organic it is. ::shrugs:: just gonna have to wait and see.
A new Wallpaper is ready to go for March(though it isn't particularly spectacular) and last month's Appleseed wall has been remixed a bit.
A new interview is up, this a new one done in a recent issue of Animerica, and while rather short, contains pertinent information for those who care about Appleseed.
What's that you see? another new layout? yes it is. It's not that I was particularly unhappy with the other layout or anything, its just that I got struck with some inspiration for a new layout and came up with this. I was going to hold off on putting it up, but I decided it'd be a pain in the ass to maintain updates on both layouts while I waited to post this one. To accompany the new layout, I've also written up some new content, namely a small piece on the fairly obscure Ani-Mayhem and its Dominion tie-ins. Read on to find out more...
In community news, it seems that the MS Hyperpages kicked into gear once again at the start of the year, be sure to check it out and update your bookmarks. This guy has been a Shirow fan far longer than I, has a collection that puts mine to shame, and writes with more dedication, detail, and analysis to boot.
Yet another bit of an update, wrote up some information about Shirow, more specifically, about what he uses to create his art. Take a look and be enlightened, though perhaps it will only of interest to those interested in the technical side of it.
Looks like the Calendars section was next up for an overhaul, with some rewrites and consolidation of pages so you don't need to click around as much. Additionally, I've got your February wallpaper ready to go for you, this time a bit of an Appleseed montage. Per the norm, you'll also find January's Galgrease wallpaper not so January anymore. I think I've got my e-mail issues sorted out, so you can go back to following the information on the contact page.
In other Shirow-related news, it seems Dreamworks has decided to issue a corrected version of Innocence, with a proper subtitle track, though it seems they're keeping the shameful cover art. Animeondvd.com has the details for getting a replacement, but if you haven't gotten it yet, hold off until you spot one labelled with "v4" on the spine, as that's how they've marked the correction.
What's this? I've actually managed to get some real work on the site done? Say what? I finally did a writeup on the Appleseed manga? Well imagine that, I sure did. I've also got an Appleseed wallpaper in the works, its almost done, but still lacking a certain something, hopefully though I'll have it pinned down in the next few days so you can enjoy it for the full length of the month.
There's also been some minor corrective updates on some of the other pages. I'm not quite sure where I'll go from here, maybe work on the other Appleseed-related segments, just have to wait and see I guess. Perhaps Orion, as it has been languishing for quite some time as well, or possibly the Figures & Models or, more likely, Calendars section. E-mail's still shifty, if you wrote any time after Christmas and still haven't heard back, send another note to my @gmail.com account, shirowismyhero and I'll see what I can do for you.
Just a quick little update here, added a touch of information about Dominion: Phantom of the Audience, now that I finally have it. Appleseed opened in more than 6 places, though still none of which anywhere near me(and yet Hawaii gets 5 theaters with it!), and it is dubbed for sure, so I guess not having to hear that makes it a bit easier to bear. And lastly, e-mail issues still plague me since Christmas, partially due to server issues, and partially to local ISP issues, I'm still checking it, but due to some new information coming to light, looks like I might be shifting hosts in the near future. Cumulatively, this is leading me to tell you all to use this gmail.com address to contact me for now: shirowismyhero, I'm sure you can figure out how to put the two halves together. If I haven't gotten back to you since Christmas, just send a note my way again at that account and I'll be sure to get a response to you. Hopefully I can get back to using my mormal motorballer account soon, but I'm advising against it for the moment.
Welcome to 2005 everybody, hope the Holidays brought you lots of Shirow goodies. While not quite what I was after, I did manage to get some of my own from my family, the 2005 Dark Horse Shirow calendar, I'll get to a writeup on it after hopefully not too long a while, I'm usually better with taking care of the calendars than other things on the site. That being said though, I've managed to get this month's wallpaper done reasonably early in the month, then again, I had it mostly done at the start of December or so, just had to put on some finishing touches. I've also done a second update with :gasp: some actual content, as the mood struck for me to go and rewrite the Posterbook page and bring it up to speed for you all, more informative than ever!
Hopefully I can keep up with this whole writing thing, but we'll just have to see where things go from here. In other news, the final pair of SAC 2nd GIG episodes begin airing tomorrow in Japan and we've no word if there will be a 3rd GIG at this point, though at the very least it sounds like Production-IG will be taking a break from working on it for now. Also, next Friday marks the US opening of the new Appleseed movie, if you're lucky enough to live in one of the 6 cities that is getting it. Rumor has it that it may be dubbed, seeing as Geneon has the license, and all I can say is that they damn well better not, especially not with such a limited screening. In any event, I won't be able to attend, as I am not in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia or Miami. Go catch it if you can, I'll be sitting here hoping Geneon realizes they should put it on alot more screens.
The Innocence DVD finally hit US shores, haven't had a chance to check it out myself, but for starters. they kept that GODAWFUL cover, skimpy extras(particularly compared to the wealth of information on the Japanese DVDs), and, a deal-breaker for some, no dub. People have also been complaining that the subtitles are strange, and at times seem more like a Closed-Captioning script, with subtitles for sound effects such as rotors spinning. Regardless, its an absolutely gorgeous film that no fan should miss, if you have the means to afford and understand it, import a copy from Japan, but if you can't, well, you'll have to settle with this for now. The GitS Special Edition DVD also just came out, and again, I haven't had opportunity to check it out, but its a couple of discs, with what looks like a pile of extras, on top of the remastering, and I haven't actually caught wind of any complaints with it, a first for a non-Japanese GitS release.
One last note before I dash on to whatever I decide to dash on to, my e-mail's not been cooperating with me trying to send anything out, but I have been getting your notes, and will reply once I have things taken care of on this end, believe me, its all quite frustrating. Of particular note though, I had one this afternoon from a fellow who informed me that the Shirow Clock works just fine under the Linux app Wine, so enjoy it all of you in Linux land.
And here you go, Christmas Present Number 2, the seventh layout for Artistic Genius, now with more color and better subnavigation. Aside from the ever-neglected content I've yet to write, there's some little things I need to add in, but I've been working on this for so long that I just want to get it out there and live, get away from all the coding I've had to do to try and get it out the door.
The December wallpaper is finally done, get it while its hot! Now to go back to working on the new layout, I'm about a quarter of the way through converting over to it, so expect to see it up in the next couple of days.
Somehow I missed the fact that Nov 23 was Shirow's 43rd birthday, so uhh... Happy Belated Birthday Oh Great and Powerful Shirow-sensei! Suppose its time I get around to writing up some biopic info about him, no? :shrugs: guess we'll have to wait and see, as I'm certainly not feeling the urge to do any lengthy writeups at the moment.
Still working on this month's wallpaper, gonna be a treat of the sort you haven't yet seen on here yet, but I haven't forgotten about it. I've also been working on a new layout, going all out with CSS and PNGs, unfortunately it was coming out absolutely terribly in IE, so they'll be getting a less splashy version of it. Its also proving sluggish for some reason in Opera, so I'm holding off on switching over to it until I can track down the issue there, suffice it to say though that it looks really nice. But enough teasing about things that aren't done, having gotten the new GitS: SAC game last month, I've just finished typing up a review on it, so go take a look. I've also gone and updated the links page some, mostly with official sites, including the newly opened Appleseed movie site.
SAC episode writeups are still in the works, but they're at a lower priority at the moment than the wallpaper and layout. The censors have continued being kind to it on the Adult Swim airings, with just a few minor edits in total over the five episodes that have aired so far(muting a couple swears and washing out a sex scene reflected in the glasses of a Yakuza they were questioning, while keeping the audio for it, which I didn't even recall noticing before), so that's nice.
Whoops, missed doing anything this past week. Well, I finally got the wallpaper done here, and as you can see, its a calendar as well, as will all the following ones. Don't worry about it quickly becoming useless though, after the month is up, I'll post an updated version sans the calendar part, along with the new month's wallpaper.
Now to see if I can go and get those ep writeups going for SAC, nothing better to do on Sunday afternoons and my head's in the game unlike last weekend. Seems that GitS is being treated much nicer than Full Metal Alchemist so far as editing is concerned on CN, I probably won't keep up with the specifics, but you can always check in on Anime News Network and check out their edit list if you're truly curious.
Lastly, its looking like that horrid Innocence DVD cover will be the final one =(
Whoops, guess I should have mentioned that GitS: SAC started airing on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block tonight. I imagine I may be seeing some more traffic from people checking it out now, but I'm not in it enough to do a writeup tonight. I'll give it a go sometime tomorrow perhaps, nothing better to do, so I may as well get ep writeups started.
We also now have a release date and locations for Appleseed, January 14th in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia and Miami, meaning theatrical is not an option for me =( Looks like I may want to import it or something.
Lastly, I'm gonna tease you by saying that I've started work on a series of Shirow wallpapers that I think I'll release a few at a time, actually, lets call it one a week starting tomorrow, I'll give one of the ones I've been working on a few finishing touches, toss it up here, and get on with the writing, or at least that will be the plan.
ATTN: Dreamworks / Go Fish
Recently a snippet of advertising purporting to be the US GitS2: Innocence DVD cover has been floating around the Internet. Right off this makes me think of things like The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury's cover art, that of any number of generic action anime, as well as those of most any Saturday morning cartoon, which are not titles that Innocence resembles in any way, excepting that they are all animation. While this cover might be acceptable as a reasonable piece of fanart, it is nowhere near the level of quality demanded by this movie, one of the best(in both looks and smarts) of the year.
It was fantastic that Innocence was brought to the US theaters, fantastic that you put it in as many (arthouse) venues as you did, fantastic that you used the original movie poster, and fantastic that you didn't do anything else to it except add subtitles. Then we come to the DVD, whose listing of extras represent a reasonable selection in line with what we normally see in US anime releases. This is perfectly acceptable, and it probably would have been quite a hassle to sub much more of the extra material. So far this is all quality happenings, and in line with a respectful treatment of the film.
Finally we get to this assumed DVD cover, which is so far off base from the rest of the treatment Innocence has received here that it screams of marketing drones shouting "Oh shit! We forgot to Americanize it!" and then delivering this horrid piece of 'art' to bestow (a film not for the masses) upon the masses. This sticks out so much because it is a final, singular, and unescapable betrayal from what has been an otherwise excellent process of bringing Innocence to the US. One that I would have to cringe at any time I wanted to watch the film(even if I removed/reversed the cover, simply because I had to step in and alter things), one that I could never thrust on friends without feeling embarrassed and having to quickly tell them it isn't anything like the cover art implies, and one which I would scowl at any time I'm out looking for anime at the local shops or even while shopping online.
While some marginalize it saying that its just the cover, I feel that this is a dealbreaker, and is why I have been verbosely complaining about it. If, in the end, you choose to use any of the original promotional pieces, particularly the already used Gynoid poster or the Japanese DVD cover and I will be a happy camper, ready and willing to shill out the full price for the R1 DVD, but if you stick with this current abomination, my distaste is such that I will resort to importing one of the wonderful Japanese offerings of Innocence instead of buying the R1 release.
-Phil Higgins and many pissed off fans
There is a petition of sorts underway that will be sent off to Dreamworks next week, so be sure to leave your thoughts on it.
Okay, so I haven't gotten to any anime/manga comparisons for GitS yet, but I've just finished rewriting the SAC section, as there's information that needed sharing, and information that needed updating, including some more that I'm just finding out today.
AnimeNewsNetwork.com is reporting that the new Appleseed will be premiering at the Boston Film Festival this coming weekend, and AnimeNewsService.com is reporting that it will also be airing at the Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema at the end of October, so if you're near either area, try and check it out(and let me know the subbed/dubbed status!).
AnimeonDVD.com has posted information about the Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex DVD glitches and what you need to do get your copies replaced, check it out if you've picked it up. Still don't have the cash to pick up any for myself unfortunately, but I'll be grabbing them when I can, and hopefully by then what they have will be fixed. As I've been watching 2nd GIG, I've been noticing more and more things lifted from the pages of the manga volumes, including some stuff taken out of the otherwise neglected Ghost in the Shell 1.5, and there's such an abundance of it that I think I want to go through the series, find as much of it as I can, and share the results. In fact, I think I'll start working on that now, with stuff from 2nd GIG first, since that is the most current item and the freshest in mind. Other than that though, it sounds like there won't be a 2005 Seishinsha calendar, and there may or may not be one from Kodansha instead, I'm still not sure on the details of that.
This month's Previews Magazine lists a set of Appleseed mini-figures coming to the US "Coinciding with the U.S. theatrical release of the first-ever feature-length adaptation of Masamune Shirow's Appleseed" Their website's preorder information page does not list a release date, but the actual magazine finishes the product summary with "Shipping March 2005." The timeframe sounds about right given Geneon's earlier announcements of a Summer 2005 DVD release. Hopefully the rumor I heard that it'll be dubbed turns out to be false, but given that it's Geneon releasing it, I don't think I'd mind too much as their dubs have always sounded relatively fine to me.
Innocence. Was. Fantastic.
A small bit of an update here, someone was bugging me today in IRC for some SAC avatars, so, lacking anything better to do, I've gone ahead and done up a small batch and added them to the goodies page. Heck, I like a couple of them enough that I'm gonna put them into my image rotation. I also got a sitemap up and going finally, as well as fixing up a couple other broken links on the site.
The other bit of news is that Innocence is nearly upon us. I'll be going in a couple days here when it opens, and have a full report afterwards, hopefully. Now if you're in a rush, or live somewhere where Innocence will be playing, DVD rips with and without fansubs have started to come out the last few days with the release in Japan, if you know where to look. Seems that the quality of the fansubbing is questionable at this point, but it sounds like some better quality subs will be on their way eventually. I'm not even bothering, having the local theater as I do. Do you?
Score one for me, found another comics shop down here today, full of old stuff, and they had Issue #1 of Dominion:Conflict, so now I finally know the whole story there(some great panels in it too :D). Innocence theater screens thread on the the Production-IG forums, just had a 'conformed' locations list copied to it from the US movie site's forums(which I don't partake in) today, adding to the tenative screen list that was already up. Checking Landmark's site today they indicated that the Uptown Theater(in addition to the Lagoon) will be showing Innocence as well here in Minneapolis.
I think I may have managed to get an information scoop of my own today too. I emailed Dark Horse a while back about their upcoming 2nd Edition of GitS, with an aside wondering about a collected Man-Machine Interface, and I finally heard back from them today. Lacking a witty lead-in, here's the text of the e-mail: "Yup, it looks like Shirow has agreed to let us add back in the previously edited material for the 2nd edition of GitS. It looks like GitS II is slated for release sometime early next year (hopefully January)." A good Shirow day for me, huzzah.
Spectacular, AnimeOnDVD.com's forums have a thread posted with a tenative Innocence theaters list, and huzzah for me, one of the Minneapolis screens is on the list :D
Just an hour or two back from an early screening of Aliens vs Predator, where I overheard a guy saying that Innocence was for sure coming to Minneapolis. Unfortunately, after some digging on their site, I was unable to confirm that. I did however find confirmation for Boston and Detroit openings. I'll be keeping an eye on that site and updating listings as they appear, but it seems to be just those two for the moment through the Landmark Theaters system.
Augh! why doesn't anyone tell me my stuff is broken, just discovered that my Exon Depot images were all screwed up! But that should be taken care of now. Slacking on the GitS Spoiler, but I did write up some other content in the form of a little GitS Continuities explanation, as I was getting sick of explaining it to people in IRC. That's it for now, off to waste time on something else.
Still working on those GitS spoilers, in the meantime though, I've got the OSTs just about up to speed.
Also, need to make note of something that's come up with the US release of the SAC special edition. Well, two things really. First off, there seems to be audio dropouts on the DTS track, specifically on the Japanese side. Second, and more stupefying is a serious botching on apparently all of the SAC OST+ that shipped with it. The track count is right, and the music's all there, but tracks 8(Velveteen) and 9(Lithium Flower) got combined into one, and track 12(silent fish ~ cruise) gets split 2:14 into the track. Bandai's supposedly been investigating the DTS issues, but there's been nothing said at all about the OST. At this point, if you were planning on getting the special edition, I have to caution you against if because of these, either go for the regular version or wait until they announce some sort of recall, if they do at all.
Well, for those of you with incomes, Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex Volume 1 is on store shelves across the US now, I even saw it at Target today. Unfortunately I won't be getting it, or anything else for that matter, until I somehow find a job. Other cool things that I won't be getting that I saw in this month's Previews magazine today include a variety of GitS, SAC, and Innocence figures, and more importantly, a 2nd Edition of the Ghost in the Shell manga that I've been writing up spoilers for. The new edition WILL have the previously censored material, be in the smaller 6x9" format, and come shrinkwrapped due to the censored pages, though I neglected to notice when exactly it was coming out and if it was going to go at a different price now. It's definitely big news for GitS fans, and something you should all be keeping an eye out for.
Unfortunately the upcoming Galhound statue wasn't in the current issue, must have been in last month's volume, which the comics shop didn't have on hand. Haven't mentioned that have I? Well, there've been preorder actions going on ebay for a Previews-Exclusive Galhound statue featuring the silver-haired girl from one of the first series of Posterbooks, straight off of her pose on the poster side of #6. It's another thing I'm really wishing I had the cash for, as that's almost cetainly my favorite illustration from any of his work done this decade.
I guess that's about all that I have to say at the moment, I'm still writing up those spoilers, and my web presence is going to be next to nil for an unknown period of time as I no longer have cable, and am stuck with 10 hours a month on NeZero at the moment. I'm going to try and keep up on my e-mail, which has become a massive battle against spam now, but if any of you are wondering where I am, that's what's going on, so please hold off on requests, but I'll still try to answer any questions you might have.
Working on writing up some GitS manga spoilers for you all, I just have to say I greatly underestimated how much work this is gonna be with as closely as I'm going through it. In my writings thus far, I've got 11 paragraphs from the first 50 or so pages, with 300 pages or so to go, so I've qot quite a hefty bit left to do. With any luck, I'll have it done within the week, but I've done as much writing as I can today.
On a more technical note, I came across a cool bit of CSS trickery today that let me fix things up so the menu looks as nice in IE as it was in Opera, Mozilla, and other standards-compliant browsers. Not that any of you should be using IE these days due to its numerous security flaws, but if you are, it's just as pretty for you now.
While it's not something I'd normally post about, came across some interesting GitS-related info about Comic-Con in San Diego this weekend. Seems that Dreamworks/Go Fish will be giving an exclusive look at Innocence, dunno if that'll mean the whole movie or something else, but they'll also be giving away posters and postcards. Additionally, and of more interest to me, is that Bandai will be showcasing a playable demo of the new GitS SAC-based game.
From the news article - "The PS2 game allows users to play as one of three characters from the series: "Major" Motoko Kusanagi, Batou, and Tachikoma. It also features a single-player mode and multiplayer play for up to four players with such modes as team deathmatch and battle royal. The single-player game has about 12 different levels, in which players will be able to make use of about 15 different weapons and have access to various additional abilities like hacking into computers and having mind control over your enemies. The game's multiplayer mode will make additional characters, costumes, and weapons available, along with an additional multiplayer-only level." That bit about it being multiplayer really makes my mouth water, I didn't think I could be more excited about this game, but that really cranks it up for me even more.
Yay for you all, an update that took less than a month, lets see if I can do even more now. Wrote up a nice bit of character bios for Ghost in the Shell's Section 9 members, so go take a gander at that. In other news, Intron Depot 4: Bullets, after being bumped back from mid-June to mid-July to mid-August, has now been moved up to the end of July, so go preorder it at your favorite online retailer and look forward to going through it in a couple weeks or so. In other release news, the first volume of the Ghost in the Shell:SAC DVDs will be releasing July 27th, in a few different flavors, and collected versions of the Series 2 Posterbooks should be out August 24th.
Has it really been two months already? Sheesh I'm bad about this stuff. As you can see, new layout, huzzah, huzzah. Don't be afraid to yell at me if you don't like it, or praise me if you do, always welcome to feedback. In addition, I've added some information on a variety of items throughout the site, so start looking around, you'll probably find something new. The most immediate thing many of you will notice is that there's now a banner on the site. I go into that in some detail on the About page, don't feel like typing it up again or even copy-pasting it. I have a couple directory pages to put together yet, but otherwise, it's time for content to get added in as I can. I should also point out that I've been spending quite a bit of time in the #GitS-Fans channel on irc.rizon.net, so stop on by and drop me(pi8you) a line if you're so inclined.
Woohoo! Bandai/Manga has finally decided to release US SAC release information, read about it at Anime on DVD. I'm totally going for the special edition discs, though it means paying out the nose for it. Eventually I'll add the info into the SAC page, but I've got taxes to do. Maybe later tonight I'll work on it, along with the new layout I've been working on.
Updated the Soundtrack information for Appleseed and Ghost in the Shell, adding in the new SAC/Innocence soundtracks as well. I would have added info about the upcoming Appleseed CG soundtrack, but the only information I've found for it has been almost completely in katakana/kanji and thus of no use to me.
I finally finished up the Black Magic spoiler writeup, I think my next target is going to be the Appleseed and Black Magic animes, since they're lying around and I basically haven't touched them yet. I've got more news to share about the Appleseed CG, Innocence, SAC in the US, 2nd Gig, and more, but not tonight I think. Before I forget, I also added a few more cover scans for Man-Machine Interface, only three more to get, but I'm not fond of my roomie's scanner at all.
Nothing much new here, except to bring up the apparent death of mircx.com's IRC servers. For now I'm moving things off to #megatech on irc.sdvanime.com, which is now giving me fits on the bottom of the navigation to your left. I really hope to get to some stuff, but I just haven't been in any sort of mood to be rereading and writing, even though I've recently picked up the Appleseed, Black Magic M-66, and New Dominion Tank Police anime, as well as having more newsbits about the new Appleseed and GitS movies, SAC 2nd Gig, and other miscellaney that I've found or been pointed at.
I've gotten some work done on the Black Magic manga spoilers. Its not quite done yet, but the bulk of it has been written up now. Additionally, I scored a copy of the original Appleseed soundtrack and some of the Intron Depot mini-figures recently, so I should have more to say about those soon.
A whole mess of screenshots from the trailer DVDs have been added to the Appleseed CG movie page, but now I must be rushing to work.
Some minor tweaking done to a few files I missed, nothing more.
Alright, I've got the new wallpaper up, and I tweaked a couple more pages, so I am generally calling it set for now. I've got things that I want to write about, I just need to be conscious to check on and write about it. Damn I need more sleep, too bad I have to work =( Well, hopefully it'll be a slow day and I can write about something.
And it is finally done. I have a few more scraps of things to add in tomorrow, like a wallpaper to go with the layout, but I am up a fair bit past my bedtime here and have to call it quits for the night, as I have to work in less than 7 hours.
I feel really dumb right about now... I just realized I listed the IRC server incorrectly. It should be irc.mircx.com, no dash. Anyhow, thanks to a site outage at work yesterday, I spent my afternoon coding up another layout for the site, which I've been working on some more today. I'm still tweaking some things, but hopefully I can have it up sometime this weekend, and not without new content, I'll make sure I write up at least something before posting it. But now, back to work.
Also, the whole purpose of the update - added a new link to a fan translation project of the GitS manga from English to Portugese.
Before I forget, Artistic Genius is now on IRC, #megatech @ irc.mirc-x.com. Feel free to chat or whatever, I work full time so I'm not usually around until 9:30pm Central US time or so, but other people have started hanging out there. The next layout will more fully integrate the room listing, but for now, just this announcement and a blurb at the top.
Ugh, updating goes poorly, too much stuff vying for my time, not enough free hours to work with it. I did start a spoiler writeup for Black Magic, but barely anything has been added to it, so it's not being posted yet. The next posterbook should be out by now, but I don't have any imagery of it, so nothing to update there... I did pick up GitS 7 and SMB! 35, so I need to unbury my roomie's scanner and get the GitS cover scanned, as well as something else I picked up the other day... probably the biggest US-released Shirow oddity, the Intron Depot 2 Coaster Set. I couldn't believe I found it, or paid $13 for it, but I did, on both counts. I just wonder if they'll ever see actual use, probably not, but now I have no reason to ever buy coasters again. Ah well, I'll do a writeup on them, and scans, later, I need to sleep.
Whoops.... slipped into the bliss of broadband for a few weeks there, and then I finally landed a job. Haven't doesn much with the site due to this, but I got a little done today(in the form of some new posterbook information), and I might do some more tonight, depends on how much I feel like playing Valkyrie Profile.
Well, I've finally gotten the layout converted to this incarnation, which just about everyone I asked liked more than the other one I'd put together. I'd still like to use that other layout at some point, but for now it'll just sit idle on my hard drive. I also managed to type up some content relating to my recently acquired Cyberdelics box set. I also managed to snag issue 6 of Man-Machine Interface today, but I still have to get the cover scanned.
Well, went and tackled a bit of my to-do list up above, so now I've gone and said my piece on Neurohard. That's it, that's all you get today. Shoo.
Not a whole lot of updating from me, keeping myself busy with other things like finding work, playing games, and watching new series like Texhnolyze, Ikkitousen, and Narutaru, all good shit, mind you, or at least amusing. Finally got good scans of the new posterbooks, the samples are up with the rest. That's about it from me, still contemplating going over to the new layout, maybe by next month if I get motivated at all. Some kind soul has also apparently picked up the new Ghost in the Shell 1.5 for me down in Taiwan, still waiting to hear back from him to see about getting it shipped up, don't feel like disturbing his vacation. At any rate, once that shows up, I'll try and get something together for that. Hopefully I can find the right mood to work on other parts of the site, but until then, well, enjoy things as they are.
More Dominion: Conflict commentary would have been forthcoming, but someone bid-sniped me in an auction for the whole run of the comics.... you know who you are, damn you ::shakes fist like a crotchety old man::
Been a little bit here... Not a whole lot going on on the site right now, but that's because I'm semi-busy in the background. Over the last week or so, I've gotten ahold of scanned versions of most of Shirow's manga, so now I finally have material to work with for redoing the Black Magic and Orion sections, and doing my Appleseed and Ghost in the Shell writeups, Ghost in the Shell being the only one I've started on as of yet. I've also been working on getting an IRC room up and running. It should be up and going now, at #megatech on the irc.mircx.com server. The main reason it's been taking so long is that I was having issues getting the fserve up and running. I'll probably add info on that to the info page eventually, but not at the moment.
I'd be writing that, and the other stuff up some more, but I got a layout idea in my head a few days ago, so I've been working on getting that together. It's almost ready, but I'm still tweaking a few things around before going through the pain in the ass copy-paste process of converting all the pages over to the new layout. Particularly as this layout is more categorized in the navigation structure. I don't mean to shut people out from the site, but I really wish people would update to the newest iterations of their favorite browsers ::coughNetscape4userscough:: so that I, and others don't have to decide between ignoring you or coming up with ugly code so that things don't look too terrible in your browsers. Of course, I also wish the major browsers would follow the same standards and render things the same way, but sadly pipe dreams like that rarely come true.
A quick update at the moment, a Brazilian fan was kind enough to send along scans of the Dominion: Conflict covers I was missing. I think I've got the cover for Phantom of the Audience lying around somewhere, but I'm not sure where.
A bit of an update today, I've added a section for Ghost in the Shell: Innocence, sparse as the availible information is. I've also added an episode guide for GitS: SAC, and will work on adding briefs for each episode when I get a chance to rewatch the series. I've also thrown in a couple more Links to the various animation groups responsible for making and publishing the various Ghost in the Shells.
Not much today, just a new wallpaper that I cooked up last week using the MMI #5 cover, a new Link, and fleshing out the Appleseed character profiles a bit, though I still need to add in proper imagery for the characters.
Back online, actually been back online for a few days, just getting used to the cable flow =) There's a new wallpaper on its way, just need to watermark and resize it, that'll go up sometime in the next few hours. I also expanded a bit upon the information in Exon Depot, and tweaked the Goodies section a bit, and I'll possibly be making new avatars for it soon, as there's a bit of white space there.
It's moving time! Moving in the morning, packing my computer up now. I should have service of some sort by next week, but until then, I'll be incommunicado. This mens I can't answer any requests or questions for a bit, so please don't get miffed at my lack of response.
Nothing much today, just a scan of the cover for the latest issue of Manmachine Interface, and a few images I'd forgotten to upload. This'll probably be the last update until after I move, unless I find some time to go through and scan some things I've been meaning to get to but haven't yet. Of course, that'd just mean I'd have the scans I was after, not neccesarily that I'd get any info up with them as well.
A major update today, as I've gone and done a whole new layout, converted everything over, fixed some typos, and tweaked the information on a few pages. For more information on the layout, look to the new site information page. Me? I'm getting this all uploaded and then I'm gonna go eat or something, 7 hours is a long time to be working on this. If you do spot any problems navigating the site, let me know.
Well, I'm having a hard time deciding what Exon Depot scans I'm gonna leave up, being the odd collection that it is, so they'll continue staying up for now. I'm working on a wallpaper based off of the only Intron Depot 3 scans I'm willing to make, but I can't seem to get to a point where I like it, so I'm going to keep working at it before letting anyone see. About all I've managed content-wise beyond that is to add some information to the Video Games page, and keeping the Posterbook listing current, as well as a couple of other tweaks around the site.
I'm sorry, I'd love to have the drive to tackle the stuff that really needs tackling, but I just can't bring myself to do it of late. So for now, this is pretty much how the site will remain until after I move next month, and possibly for a good while afterwards. I've also been thinking about doing another redesign of the site, one a little more open and flexible, but I'm having problems coming up with a navigation structure I like, nor do I look forward to converting 60+ pages to a new layout, even if it needs it badly.
Well, I've gone and stripped most of the calendar scans, sorry everyone, I just don't want to get corporate wrath pointed my way. This means that much of the Exon Depot scans are coming down soon as well. I know this is all hard to get stuff, but as I note on the calendar pages, many of these images can be found in the various Intron Depot books, which are not nearly as hard to come by as the calendars. I am toying with a new layout idea, except that it uses some javascripting that Opera treats a little wierd and NS4 just won't handle at all, so I'm gonna keep an eye out for a less buggy version of the menu setup I'd like to use.
Updated the Soundtracks page with the soundtracks for Appleseed, Black Magic, and Dominion. I've also added a bit more information to the Posterbooks, and written up some Dominion(Manga) bios. Coming to my senses here with respect to copyright laws and all, particularly in light of what has happened at projectshirow.net, I'm going to be taking down most of the links to larger versions of the Calendar and Exon Depot scans, leaving only a few working on each page. I'm still trying to decide if I want to leave the thumbnails as is or make some slightly larger ones that you can make out some detail on. If I go the latter route, I will also probably let you e-mail me asking for a few images at a higher resolution.
Ugh, I hate getting sidetracked, this stuff always falls by the wayside. Doesn't help that I've been sick the past week either >< At any rate, just a little bit of new content here, and none of it having to do with the above to-do list. I just recently got my copy of Intron Depot 3, and have put together a writeup for it, though no imagery as yet as I don't have the heart to tear apart my book for scanning. Having just gotten copies of both versions of the Ghost in the Shell game soundtrack, I put together a Soundtracks page for you to look at, as I myself have had a tough time finding some of the info. I also found a new MMI tidbit that you'll want to check out.
Sorry, been working on my wallpapers site for the most part this week. about the only new content I've managed here is a bit of omake on the wallpapers page, a little clock app from the ID2 CDs. Looks like Uppers is about ready to start a new run of Posterbooks, so I'm gonna be keeping an eye out for those.
Nothing new added in this update, just stating that the domain's back up finally, and that I resolved my JPG issue, so now it's just a matter of my getting to work on things again, which will probably be tomorrow, unless I decide to watch through all of Vandread tomorrow, which is a strong possibility. That doesn't rule out an update, it just makes an early one highly unlikely.
Wrote up information on the Ghost in the Shell Solid Box, still need to add in images, but installing MS Office and then getting rid of its Photo Editor made my system forget how to make JPGs, so further scan work is on hold at the moment. I also tweaked around the menu and some of the formatting on the site, namely getting rid of underlines in favor of bold text, and tweaking the menu to the left.
Worked on GitS:MMI today, scanning various covers and writing about the evolution of Manmachine Interface, though I still need to write up the spoilers. I also added information on the Dominion mangas, but still need to do character and spoiler information there.
Added in what images I will put in the Posterbooks section, and I'd love to give everyone the full things, but there's those tiny words in the TOS that say no adult content, and I'd rather be here with most of the stuff rather than giving people nothing by not being here. I've also added the last of the calendars that I'll be providing imagery for, the Dark Horse 2003 calendar.
Just a small update today, as I just can't get in the working mood. All there is today is a couple new wallpapers, well, I've had one of the piar since mid-December, I just never got around to posting it...
Well, I've decided to launch it publicly here, so I now present to you version 2 of the site, missing most of the same info it has been missing for quite some time, but with a few things fleshed out in greater detail, as you can see by the updates below. Pay attention to the checklist above, as I decided to shift my format on spoiling things, and so both Black Magics(m, a) need to get overhauled again, as does Orion, which is still the original content. With that in mind, be wary of a few spoilers in those sections.
Went through and watched Ghost in the Shell and Dominion this morning/afternoon, screencapping away and writing up the info on each.
More stuff being done, In the past few days, I've added information on Shirow's M.A.P.P. mouse, both the GitS Anime and TV series, Gundress, Intron Depot, and I've reworked both Black Magics(m, a). Later on today, I plan on rewatching GitS and Dominion, and possibly reading through GitS, and then updating their respective sections. Appleseed is probably gonna get stuck at the end of my to-do list, just because of the fact that I have to go through 4+ volumes of information. Orion probably needs a little tweaking as well, but it's ok for the moment.
Been updating some of the info around the site, primarily in the Black Magic manga and anime sections, but a little bit has been done in Appleseed's character info as well, still alot to convert over, but of course, wallpapers and calendars were the first things to get revamped with the new layout. Also, be sure and check out the links page for more great Shirow info.
