After having a somewhat iffy day (got some stuff done, a lot of stuff still not done yet) I got an AWESOME surprise in the mail

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Just watched This Video from Marz Gurl over Bang Zoom! beginning to fizzle out because of lack of revenue. Of course they are blaming piracy again, and Marz Gurl made a lot of good points that the market they are targeting, mainly, doesn't have the money to buy the DVDs, and thus, are the ones most likely to pirate. Personally, as I've said before, a big solution to this, beside simulcasting, is lowering the price on DVDs. When I see 20 dollars boxed sets at Best Buy, even when I'm broke, I tend to load up on the suckers. But spending 40 dollars on 13 episodes as opposed to spending 20 on a 6 ep and 7 ep disk doesn't seem like saving money to me.

Streaming has proven to not be a particularly profitable endeavor, as sites like Hulu and YouTube have already started charging, or will soon start charging for their content.

But the meat of the video I got annoyed with was Marz Gurl's approach to anime fans in general. She makes the blanket assumption that all fans are interested in all things, and said that the anime industry should start making more series targeted towards adults (by which she meant a sophisticated audience, as opposed to Japan's current solution of just making more Hentai so they keep older fans interested.) This is something A LOT of anime fans tend to do. The fact is being an Anime fan is like being a Sports fan or a bibliophile. Not all Football fans like hockey, and a lot of lacrosse fans can't stand golf. If you like Horror you might not like Biographies. Same thing with Anime.

Most of the things MarzGurl says she likes are series I wouldn't buy in Goodwill.

I am in my mid-twenties, so I am definitely an adult, and I like to think I have pretty sophisticated tastes. I like fine cheeses and chocolates, I read a lot of history, scientific research and classic literature and love to discuss politics. But I like magical girl series. I like series where young or teenage girls get magic powers and fight evil in puffy outfits and with pretty magic. This is why I wrote the Sorcerer's Apprentice, it was my desire to put an definite American spin on the classic Magical Girl formula. I don't like fighting series. To me a fighting tournament to determine the fate of the world makes just as much or as little sense as cards games to determine the fate of the world. I generally don't like gangster or mafia stories. I find Mecha to be incredibly boring and repetitive. And because of this I don't like other Otaku to speak for what kind of series I want to watch, or somehow view me as inferior. Just because a series is about teens, or young kids doesn't mean it can't be sophisticated or engrossing. After all, Black Butler's main character is twelve years old, and I wouldn't call that series for kids or young teens. So Miss Marz Gurl, I'm sorry you don't find many recent series to your tastes.

But just because something isn't to your taste doesn't mean it's bad or kiddy or 'unsophisticated', it just means it's not something you like.

Got the Tokyopop newsletter the other day with a picture of some Hetalia merch and a cryptic comment to check their Facebook page on Friday to see news on Hetalia. I can only assume that this news is that they got the English rights to translate the series. Funimation got the rights to the anime a couple months back, and it seems to have made a lot of the fans pretty anxious. This can only make the fans more upset.

While, as I've blogged in the past, Tokyopop isn't the worst translator, but they do tend to be extremely sloppy. I only hope that they keep the APH fans in mind and do a good job for their sake, as this fandom tends to be somewhat ravenous.

Studio Ghibli is making a video game

Oh my gosh this looks so cool. I don't care what kind of video game it is, I would *love* to play it. I don't know if it will come to the US, but all I have to say is IT BETTER. I love Studio Ghibli. Sadly, I have yet to see Ponyo, but I definitely would get this game right away.

But Nintendo needs to stop pricing their games so high, I'm still annoyed with the $40 price tag for Pokemon Heart Gold.