So, firstly, let me start with wishing all of you who read this a happy new year. 2012 is lying ahead of us, full of glitter and promise – just waiting for us to come along and screw things up again ^_^

Of course, I’m trying to get away from all of the screwing up by making plans and setting goals, and hopefully this year, I’ll even meet some of them … but more on that in a later post.

The main reason for this post is to announce that I’ve completed my preview opinion of the series for the Winter 2012 season. I’ve used various sources for the information gathered on my preview page – although primarily I need to give thanks to the producers of two rather excellent charts (I’m including them both in the post below – you can choose which one you like best) – cowboybibimbop and Zana@Neregate. A fair amount of info also came from Moetron.com. More after the break :)

Read the rest of this entry »

Lately, I just tend to get a little bit excited when I come across one of the MMD PVs created by Wakamura-P – he really does do an epic job. I’ve posted a couple of PVs done by him previously (keep in mind, he only does the videos, not the music), and they seem to be fairly popular, so I figure I’m going to keep going :)

The song, Melody Line, was composed by SmileR (Piapro profile) and was posted to NicoNicoDouga last year, and this particular video was posted a little later at the beginning of this year.

Watch and enjoy!!

Like a lot of other anime related things and activities in South Africa, cosplay is probably another something that tends not to happen very often, and when it does, it happens at very specific events, and the groups are usually small. The exception was at the rAge expo this year, where we saw quite a turn-out, with some very good cosplay taking place.

Beyond that, there are a few other events where cosplayers would feel free to strut their stuff, and we didn’t see it happen anywhere else, until Cape Town based Genevieve Lesch and Sasha Perdiago decided to kick some Capetonians into gear and get them together for a day in the sun.

While not a cosplayer myself (yet…), I wasn’t going to miss this, and thus, armored with my Mirai t-shirt of geekiness + 10, and armed with something that I am now ashamed to call a camera, I headed over to Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens to join in the fun.

As to whether the kicking was successful? Well, firstly – how many people would you guess turned up?
Read the rest of this entry »

As someone that works full-time, studies part-time and lives in a country that’s far removed from the general doings of the anime universe, it becomes tricky to both keep up with developments and still write full on posts about it. So, I’ve decided to do slightly more regular posts with a summary of recent happenings.

I’m going to try and do this on a weekly basis, but I make no promises – it’s going to get done as and how I have time. I’ve also noticed that videos embedded in the actual post don’t make it through to the e-mails, so if you want to see them you’ll have to visit the full post.

While I am based in South Africa, I do try to make things as relevant to a broader audience as I can (and I hope I’m succeeding to some small degree); however, some of the news is going to be specific to the region. Feedback is always appreciated though – so please sound off in the comments or get hold of me directly via the contact form, Facebook, or Twitter.

Read the rest of this entry »

So news broke earlier this week that the word kawaii had made its way into the Oxford Dictionary, joining other previous Japanese-only words such as tsunami, bokeh and otaku. Another minor victory for anime-fandom around the world, and much silly dancing and cheering commences.

But then, I took some time out of my hectically packed dancing and cheering schedule in order to apply some logical thought to this, and I had to ask myself a question: But why?

Read the rest of this entry »

I generally don’t post enough. I realise this. Part of the problem is related to the fact that I tend to wait for something relatively substantial to come along before I post something. And then, when something substantial does pop up, I tend not to have time to actually sit down and write about it.

Epic fail there, huh?

Anyways – I’m going to try and pop in a few shorter posts from time to time – to keep things a little more on the active side over here. 7 November marked Animated Meanderings’s 4th Birthday (it’s been a while) and in honour of the event I figured it’s time to come up with some plans to make it better than ever ^_^

In any case, on to the actual reason for the post Read the rest of this entry »

The latest iteration of Yamaha’s Vocaloid software – VocaloidTM 3 – is being made available for sales today. In addition to this, some new voice libraries – Mew, VY1V3, and Megpoid Gumi – have also been made available, so expect some tunes using the new libraries to start surfacing very soon. I’m particularly keen to hear what Gumi sounds like with the new software.

Read the rest of this entry »

(source: culturejapan.jp)

It may come as no surprise to a lot of you – but Japan is struggling a bit at the moment. After the twin disaster of the Tohou quake and the near meltdown of the Fukushima Nuclear plant, Japan has lost a lot of the revenue it gains from it’s tourism industry – rather understandably, a lot of foreigners are a little shaky about visiting what may now be regarded as a pretty dangerous part of the world.

A little unfairly in my book.

Of course, I doubt these are the only reasons; one has to keep in mind that the world economy is a little shaky at the moment, and folks aren’t quite as keen to spend their hard-earned cash. The Japanese government though, has come up with a scheme they hope will turn things around a bit. Read the rest of this entry »

… although, while I would like to call it a preview – it’s turning into more of a review thing, since I’m running a little late as per usual. But time caught up with me, unfortunately.

So, incomplete as it is, the list of anime releases for the Autumn/Fall release cycle – with my thoughts attached, are available here – I’ll be updating with relevant information as we progress.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today, 31 August, marks the 4th anniversary of Miku’s release into the world, and for four years she’s been keeping budding video and music creators busy, and entertaining thousands, if not tens of thousands, of fans around the world. Or maybe I should be saying hundreds of thousands … at the time of writing this, the fan-count on the Hatsune Miku Facebook page is well over 250,000.

Miku's 4th Anniversary (credit: KarenT.jp)