Tonight marks a sad night for the Otaku community. Anime director and writer Satoshi Kon has died at the age of 47 from cancer.

Though not as familiar as Hiyao Miyazaki, Kon's works were surreal, thought provoking and over all brilliant. He was the master behind the films Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers and most recently Paprika. His work was heavily inspirational to me and I am deeply saddened by this news.

Though he is now gone, his last film is still slated to be released next year 'The Dreaming Machine'.

Goodbye sir, and thank you for your greatness.

Boy, the difference a month and an issue makes. Last month I went on a tirade against the issue, but this month has improved considerably, bringing the storyline back to the side of good.

Be warned! I give all the spoilers

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I will admit I was pretty late in switching to DVDs. In fact, most of my anime collection is still on VHS. I will not rebuy series I already own in entirety, and I have no problem in having some seasons all on DVD, while others all in VHS. Normally I'm pretty open to new technologies, but for me DVDs were a slow transition to make. I just didn't see what was so great about them. Granted, animated series look a lot better on DVD, but for the most part I could not really detect any grand difference between VHS or DVD on a CRT TV. And some recent events have really had me question the technology.

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I finished the game and I have to say I'm pretty impressed. I have two more hidden puzzles to discover and try to figure out that damn room puzzle (for some reason I just can't figure it out!) but otherwise the game is finished. The art was really cool, the animation was awesome, the storyline was good (though a tiny bit too predictable by the end) and the puzzles were varied and challenging. One thing though is that the game felt....short. Granted, most of the games I play never actually have real endings (Pokemon, Harvest Moon) or are really, really long (40+ hours) but I finished Professor Layton, while trying to go for 100 percent completion including the extra puzzles in just a little over 15 hours. I for the most part like my games a bit meatier.

Still, I very much liked it and plan to get Professor Layton and the Game With Like Four Different Titles Depending on Where it's Sold (AKA, the Diabolical Box) as soon as I can.

Two things you need to know are that I am normally pretty patient of dubs and that I am not a fan of Hetalia: Access Powers (don't hate the series, just not that into it).

My friend who is a fan gave me a link to the dub done by Funimation and he was outraged, and I can understand why. The dub is truly and entirely awful. It's 4Kids bad. And I don't say that lightly.

Hetalia: Axis Powers, for those unfamiliar with the series, is a parody of world customs, politics and traditions by anthropomorphizing countries into people. The series is somewhat controversial since there is quite a bit of implied boyxboy relationships, and stuff that people might otherwise consider offensive. When Funimation got the rights to the series some people were upset over the idea that the company was going to dub it. Funimation promised its fans that they would do a good job in translating and releasing it, with promises of awesome boxed sets to please the somewhat rabid fanbase, and that the characters would have authentic accents.

Yeah. Right.

The accents are not just awful, they are so badly done they are downright offensive. China sounds like a caricature white actor from a 1950s comedy, Germany sounds English, and Poland's accent was so bad I had tears of rage in my eyes (My mom's Polish so I am very familiar with how a Polish accent sounds like!) Even America's accent was screwy, why he had a Cali accent I will never understand. Typically, the Western world's view of an American is some cowboy type, even in Hetalia, so the more appropriate accent would have been a Texas one. Then again the voices are so badly acted that may have been what he was going for.

This dub now has me in living fear of the Black Butler dub.

If you are a fan of Hetalia, I strongly recommend you write POLITE RATIONAL emails and letters to Funimation to let them know how horrible a job they did. Since the series isn't entirely dubbed yet there may be hope for a redo.