Category Archives: media

Rekindling My Love Of Anime With Inuyasha

I first got into the wonderful Japanese medium of Anime when I was a sophomore or junior in high school, with great classics such as Akira, Fist of the North Star, Galaxy Express 999 and Appleseed, to name a few. For those not in the know, Anime is Japanese animation that covers all mediums of fiction and aren’t necessarily for children. Some in fact are meant to be viewed by mature audiences because of adult content and graphic violence. Anyway, this refreshing look at animation blew me away upon first viewing. This wasn’t my childhood Hanna-Barbera cartoons. Not by a long shot.

Since that first time, I’ve tried to absorb Anime whenever I could and was an adamant viewer during my college years but for some reason my efforts have dwindled over time by many factors such as, no longer paying for cable and being preoccupied with other things. I did became aware, this past summer, that Netflix has grown its collection of anime and I have put a few in  my queue, but still I haven’t quite steered in its’ direction. Other shows were occupying me at the moment (see my previous blog entries on Mad Men and The Good Wife).

Well now that I was caught up with most of my shows I decided to give Inuyasha a shot. I had originally started watching this some years ago, back when I had cable and it used to air semi-daily on the Cartoon Network, as part of it’s Adult Swim programming. Needless to say, after re-watching the old episodes I had already seen and getting into newer plot points (well new to me anyway), I was immediately caught up in this world of feudal Japan and just couldn’t get enough. I literally have only 2 speeds with this show. Either I watch it till I pass out on the couch or I avoid it at all costs to get other stuff done (you can guess which speed I’m opting for right now since I’m actually blogging instead of wasting the night away).

Anyone who has a Netflix account and is new to Anime should definitely give this series a try. It has everything you could ask for in a show. Great characters, a long and challenging hero quest, drama, romance, comedy, great fight scenes, amazing visuals etc (I feel like I’m quoting the Princes’ Bride. Am I?). What more could you ask for? I would try to summarize it for you readers but I don’t think I would really give it justice. For this I have Wikipedia to thank:

The series’ plot follows a high school girl Kagome Higurashi who lives on the grounds of her family’s hereditary Shinto shrine. When she goes into the well house to retrieve her cat, a centipede demon bursts out of the enshrined Bone Eater’s Well and pulls her through it. As she leaves the well, Kagome appears in the Sengoku period of Japan. During the demon’s previous attack, a magical jewel known as the Sacred Jewel of Four Souls was embodied from Kagome. She then becomes the demon’s target and it tries to consume the jewel and kill Kagome. In desperation, Kagome unseals the half-demon InuYasha who was placed on a tree fifty years ago by Kagome’s ancestor Kikyo, the youngmiko of the village in charge of the sacred jewel. Although InuYasha destroys the centipede, the Sacred Jewel is later shattered into numerous shards that disperse across Japan. Even the individual shards are capable of granting great power, and are eagerly sought by humans and demons alike. Kagome and InuYasha set out to collect the shards to avoid disasters caused by Sacred Jewel of Four Souls.

So there you have it in a nutshell (thanks as always Wikipedia). So what are you waiting for? Go to your Netflix account and start watching Inuyasha already!

Pandora One and iTunes Match: My Music Services Of Choice

For the past few months I have been fiddling with different music services with free trials to see which one I was going to stick to for the rest of the year. MOG was my all-around favorite premium music service. They had the best quality sound files (326 kbps), their song selection came close to Spotify’s and they even had a radio function by artist that was similar to Pandora’s (Spotify just recently created their own radio service as well). Despite all this, I unfortunately cannot afford the $9.99/monthly service fee that’s needed to use this service. Because of this I needed to find some other alternatives.

Thankfully, iTunes Match finally launched in the US in middle to late November and I immediately jumped on it after fixing up my iTunes library (how can you argue with $25/year). With iTunes Match, I’m able to access my collection of 10,000+ songs which was something I couldn’t previously do with my 32GB iPhone 4. Granted this doesn’t give me access to millions of songs but at least I can now play anything that’s in my collection depending on my mood. Another bonus of this service that I found out accidentally is that it’s a good backup option for all your music. Sometime after I set up iTunes Match and let it match/upload my collection (took about 16 hours or so), both my external hard drives were wiped clean. I was trying to switch them out and in my haste erased both of them. At first I was a little freaked out but when I relaunched iTunes and saw all the little download iCloud icons next to all the faded song titles I breathed a sigh of relief and diligently restored my collection. So music back up for just $25/year is another thing to think about when assessing the value of this service.

Of course, I don’t always know what I want to play. I just have an idea of what genre I want to play. This is where internet radio services like Pandora and Slacker come in. One advantage that Slacker has over Pandora is the ability to cache radio stations for offline listening. However, Pandora One’s music quality is higher than Slacker’s (192kbps vs. 128kbps I believe), and, call me shallow, but I find Pandora’s site design more aesthetically pleasing than Slacker’s.

Plus, I like the idea of the Music Genome Project and felt inclined to give it my support. Granted, I would’ve had a greater selection of music  to choose from with Slacker and the offline listening will be missed, but it was prone to glitches from time to time and I do prefer quality of sound to quantity of lesser quality audio.

So for the next 12 months I’ll be using iTunes Match and Pandora One for my music indulgences. We shall see how my options will change a year from now.

UPDATE:

Not long after I made this post I got an offer for a free 30 day trial for Spotify LOL. Oh, well don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Will give Spotify a 30-day spin and then continue on with my choice of Pandora One and iTunes Match.

Not Thrilled About Community Being Shelved For The Midseason

Yet again, another show that I hold dear to my heart is in threat of being cancelled. This has been an affliction of my that dates back to my childhood when I fell for a show called “Manimal” and then “The Wizard“. The most recent show prior to Community was of course Joss Whedon’s “Dollhouse”; though it did have a series finale of sorts.

Anyway, back to the present, NBC is currently shelving “Community” for the mid-season, 30 Rock is taking it’s 8pm slot and somehow Whitney, the unfunny show with a laugh-track, oh sorry, live audience, is still going strong (do they still do that dated sitcom format?). Not to knock another show, for doing better, but really?! I tried watching Whitney for 2 episodes and just gave up. It didn’t make me laugh. Community on the other hand surprises me in every episode with a new take on the sitcom format, going into odd twists and turns making great geeky references and just making me burst into laughing fits with each line of hilariously clever dialogue. How is it that so few people are watching this show. Oh, right, it competes with American Idol every year and this current season pins “Community” against the rating juggernauts known as “Big Bang Theory” and “The X Factor“.

30 Rock should definitely fare better against that lot but why not give “Community” a shot after “The Office” at the 9:30 slot? Oh well, what’s done is done. Naturally there are some ways to help support this show to come back on the air. I opted for the “Save Community! Petition” and the goatee badge campaign. If you’re a fan of this great show like myself please help revive it, if for at least the remainder of this season.