Stephen Bajza
The-O Cast: Bad Stories Or No Stories?
We are BACK! Or, rather, rescheduled. Due to the overbearing pressures of school life, job life, life in general, we will not be strictly adhering to a weekly schedule for each Ocast, but rest assured this means we'll be upping the quality for each release.
This week: stories in games! The elite commenting crew of yours truly, Davis Fan, and David Chang all debate the existence of stories in video games and how they should be treated. Do we need stories at all? Should the bad ones just get cut? Would you love Street Fighter characters nearly as much if they didn't have backstories? All this and more await you!
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The-O Cast: Are Cosplayers Elitists?
You've heard about the drama on certain anonymous image boards, you've seen the expertly crafted costumes and well toned bodies, so the question remains: is cosplaying an inaccessible hobby? To help us answer this question we've brought on board a grand total of FOUR special guests. Making returns are boss man Theo and assistant editor Kevin. First timer Roger throws down with his cosplay photography expertise, and our super special guest not of T-ono.net is Kris Ling, known to some of you as Blizzard Terrak. Kris has made his way through the cosplay community as a photographer for about two years now and he's got plenty to talk about.
For anyone interested in checking out Kris' cosplay photos (there are many and they are good) check out his Deviantart account or Facebook group.
The-O Cast: Indie Games Edition!
Indie games! Listen to me, Davis, and David weigh in on independent games and how they're affecting the industry. How do these small budget projects explode onto the gaming scene? What do developers do to make them so popular? What are their advantages and disadvantages?
After you listen to the podcast, make sure you check out the Meatboy video Davis was laughing at right here. Also, to get a look at the indy game Amnesia: The Dark Descent which we proudly plug, check out the video David mentioned on youtube. (It is beyond hilarious.)
Download and enjoy!
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The-O Cast: Winter 2011 Anime Season Edition!
Winter anime season! Listen to an hour long Ocast where we hype up what's good and tear down what's lame. There are a ton of new titles out there this season, so you're going to need a few educated opinions on what to watch. Also, the longest news segment in the history of the podcast! Complete with everything you need to know about the PSP2.
We also have a new guest this week! Our very own Ben Chu throws down with his very broad and very detailed knowledge of this season. Hopefully we'll hear a lot more from him in the coming weeks and months. Unfortunately, this comes at the temporary leave of Davis, so his silky man-growl shall not make an appearance on the podcast.
There's a lot of great stuff to check out so download and enjoy! And comment to your hearts content. To make this podcast better for you we need to hear what you want and what you hate.
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Anime Expo AMV and Cosplay Contests!
Latest hot button news: Anime Expo is holding two contests, and one of them has a grand prize of $10,000! You can submit your magnum opus AMV for fame with the fans, or show off your amazing needlework in the masquerade for a chance at the cash. Read more after the jump.
Podcast Resurrection!
Oh dear lord in heaven, it's back! We've had to take a short break due to our co-host and overall awesome dude Osman Numair taking a quick four year break to study medicine. His studies, of course, completely dominate his life now, so no podcasting for him! We have, however, two new co-hosts: Davis Fan and David Chang! This week's podcast is all about the Fractale incident. We discuss the validity of the actions taken by every party involved, what recourse FUNimation has, and everything in between.
NOTE: We did have a guest on this week's podcast, Kevin Yen, but his audio did not record. Fortunately, there are only a few gaps where what we're saying might not make sense. If we react to something you can't hear, it's just Kevin talking! This shall not happen in future podcasts, be assured.
Funimation Launches First Salvo Against Pirates
Via Anime News Network, Funimation has recently sued 1,337 Bittorrent users for illegally stealing episode 481 of One Piece. Whether this is a reaction to the recent Fractale debacle is unclear, but the events seem too closely related for Funimation's legal action to be coincidental. The suit requires the defendants,
"shall destroy all copies of Plaintiff's [videos] that Defendant has downloaded onto any computer hard drive or server without Plaintiff's authorization and shall destroy all copies of those downloaded [videos] transferred onto any physical medium or device in each Defendant's possession, custody, or control."
Seriously, fansubbers?
Via Sankaku Complex today, it's been reported that the anime Fractale has been pulled from legitimate simulcast websites by the Japanese company because, wait for it, fansubbers have been releasing their own version.
Let's take a moment to put the pieces together.
An anime that is simulcasted, as in, it's released at the same time or earlier than the Japanese original, is being pirated.
We're not talking about an anime that's months or years late for its English debut, we're not talking about Amerian voice actor quality, and we're not talking about poor kids trying to save money. We're talking about a free simulcast being ripped and illegally distributed. Do you need to skip 60 seconds of commercials that badly? Are fansubber quality subtitles that much better than the professional version? There isn't a single legitimate excuse for this.
The issue of piracy is complex and it seems as though, barring a massive third-party economic investigation into the whole thing, we'll never get a complete and accurate picture of how much harm or good it actually causes. This, however, is blatant jackassery. In the case of Fractale, illegal fansubs provided no discernible benefit over the legitimate release, but piracy has directly and negatively impacted the American anime industry. As a cherished friend and industry professional once said, "If you don't pay for it, it goes away." Like I said, piracy in general is very complicated, but this incident is nothing but harmful.
One of the pervasive stances on pirated manga and anime from fans who partake is, "I don't care who distributes it, as long as I get it as fast and as free as possible." I imagine their dream world is a place where all the major manga and anime distributors outside of Japan have finally choked out and died, and all that's left are a handful of mega-sites dedicated to ripping Japanese pop culture. There they will provide translations that are chalked full of spelling, grammatical, and stylistic errors. Translations that are unregulated and unchecked, and possibly used to distribute viruses.
No, legitimate distributors aren't perfect and it would be ignorant to say our legitimately distributed manga and anime get by completely unscathed, but in my mind the benefits of legitimate distribution far outweigh the negatives. Before anyone accuses me of being on a moral high horse, let me say that while my position on pirating is largely impacted by the morality of it, more importantly, I just want my Japanese entertainment with some quality.
Is that really so wrong?
Hunting For Cheap Anime
Chances are, if you're hardcore into anime, you know where to browse for deals. However, since not all anime fans are as fanatical as the rest of us, it's worth mentioning how to obtain some decent quality shows on the cheap. I'm not talking about browsing through eBay for someone's old collection or finding that "good-enough" bootleg, but directly supporting licensors by hitting them up for sweet deals.
The-O Cast Buyers Guide Edition!
This is a special podcast! So special, we don't even have a number for it. Tune in to hear us chat about good buys and good deals this holiday season.
Please, as always, feel free to comment or email with tips and suggestions! Seriously, any news is good news.