It's been some time coming. The very funny work-for-free voice actors of Team Four Star had some hurtles to go through over the past number of months; stuff I'm actually familiar with. Their videos were doing insanely good and for good reason. The DBZ Abridged parody is a thing of genius. Even the American voice actors of DBZ loved their series and they got the go-ahead to continue their not-for-profit clips by FUNimation. Then came the miscommunication with content creator, Toei who unknowingly shot themselves in the foot by banning TFS's original Youtube page. Reason why it was a suicidal move on the part of Toei was well, the darn parody was getting a fan base that has been keeping DBZ alive and well long after the "geniuses" at Cartoon Network dropped the series.
Well, as of yesterday, Team Four Star posted up episode 11, the first of the long awaited Season 2. Below you'll find the clip and good god is it hilarious XD.
...
In reference to what I said above; I've had the same garbage happen to me on YouTube back in 2005 and 2006 when Youtube first surfaced. For those who've been with me since the beginning in 2002 know that back in 2003 I created some very popular AMVs that made it to the Collections of Newgrounds.com and even got the blessings from the group QED who's song I used in the "Love Bites" AMV. This site was having loads of bandwidth issues due to the downloads from the site pre-youtube for the AMVs. Once youtube came along in 2005, the videos did great with well over 100,000K views per vid. Then of course, due to images of Inuyasha during the series' peak, it seemed that Viz didn't understand the good the videos did for the series and the account got booted -_- It took me a year just for people to find me on my new account as well as try to tell people I was who I am. Most thought I was an imposter..of myself! Anyways, this little rant is to tell you guys at Team Four Star...that I went through the same crap. now that I run an anime store in conjunction to this site...you'll actually see Viz buy ad space here ^^ and of course I continue to sell their product and put $ in their pockets.
Many of you probably know Michelle Phan. For those who don't, she's a famous youtuber who also is an avid gamer and a big anime fan. Her typical videos consist of makeup and skin care tips and in a video she posted about four days prior to this post, make-up and cosplay tips for those want to look like a very well done Sailor Moon.
Check out her video below...and be sure to subscribe ^_^
(A little bit of info, (and sorta shameless plug ^^;) Danielle and I actually do have a store through the makeup/skincare company, Artistry that you can ask us for help on as well as purchase of material for any of your cosplay needs. You can also support Michelle Phan and her sponsors, IQQU or just use what you are accustomed too ^^)
First place winner: "stop ignoring your skin" by Jeff Gill
Second place runner up: "Busy Life Healthy Skin" by Adam Montoya
Third place runner up: "Vaseline" by Alexandria Jackson
Are you an aspiring movie maker? I know many of us anime fans are if AMVs are any hint of it. Well, got some cool news to share to you from my friends over at RocketXL and MOFILM. Some of you might know about the Times BFI 53rd London Film Festival that's in October. MOFILM and Vaseline want you to possibly win a trip to the Film Festival as well as get a hold of $10,000. Here's the details:
"Vaseline MEN has forged an exciting partnership with MOFILM, a pioneer in sourcing user-generated content, for the "Make an Ad" Competition which offers aspiring filmmakers the chance to submit a film by October 5 for the chance to win these amazing prizes:
- 1st Place prize is US $10,000 and a trip for two people to attend this year's London Film Festival, including airfare and lodging! - 2nd Prize: US $500 - 3rd Prize: US $500
Vaseline has created a creative brief around its Vaseline MEN Fast Absorbing Body & Face lotion that it is uniquely designed to fortify men's skin to make it stronger and more resilient, in just :15 seconds a day. Interested participants can download the creative brief, already available, at the MOFILM website http://www.mofilm.com/competitions/lff2009/terms to create a 90-second advertisement on the brief and upload it to the MOFILM website before the closing date of October 5.
The competition is open to anyone over the age of 16, with awards and prizes to be selected by a brand representatives and a distinguished group of independent judges.
You can also follow @MOFILMvaseline on Twitter for updates from Vaseline MEN and can tweet any questions about the brief or program directly to the brand."
Check this out guys. Who knows, your clip might be the one to win..just don't do the AMV route and put copyrighted material ^^;;
Well, it's been some time since my last AMV. Apparently I've been known as one of the pioneers in AMVs and I've even made it to the top of Helium.com's tutorial on AMV creation..but sadly, its been about 4+ years since my last one (I will make one eventually ^^;;). That hasn't stopped my fiancee Danielle. She has been on a roll with AMVs. Her Final Fantasy Crisis Core AMV was unfortunately removed due to the music artist's neglect for the free advertising and the fact that it got insanely popular.
As of late we have been watching an anime that you might or might not know called Munto. The AMVs below by Danielle and Sapphire Star showcase a bit of this rather short anime. Munto seems to put you in that dream world like anime in the past has many times. It's that same feeling you get when you wake up from a dream that you were very attached to, like another you in another universe. This feeling comes to mind when I watch Munto and did the same for Princess Mononoke and basically all of Miyasaky's work. Munto was animated by Kyoto animation, the studio known for animating Haruhi, K-ON! and Lucky Star. At times the animation looks simple and then it looks complex. If you can still find it left in the stores or on ebay..or just watch it online. It's a great anime and deserves a bit more attention than what it's gotten so far.
Without further delay, I present Danielle's latest AMV ^_^:
Here's the AMV that got me into wanting to view this anime and inspired Danielle. the AMV is by Sapphire Star:
I will note again, AMVs are free advertisement for both the music artists and the anime. The anime, Munto is owned by Kyoto animation, the original creator and all respected licences. The song "That's the Way It Is" is owned by Celine Dion; "Stand in the Rain" is owned by Superchick and all repected music labels. Please use iTunes, Amazon MP3 or anywhere that sells their music. Please purchase Munto where ever anime is sold as well...if it isn't here in my store.
Looks like the talented fan dubbers at Team Four Star brought out the long awaited episode 10 two part finale to their first season. For a while fans of this parody have been waiting but today marks the first year since their first episode. If you are a DBZ fan and particularly if you enjoyed the Vegeta saga..you gotta check it out. This is a wonderful Memorial Day present. Big props to TFS ^_^
If some of you are not aware..which I doubt, Hulu.com features full episodes of Naruto. Actually as of a few days ago, Naruto was ranked #20 on Hulu; so a nice little cheviot for us anime fans in an increasingly neglected US TV media.
If you all think free full episodes of Naruto and Naruto Shippuden are great, well Viz and their site at Naruto.com are doing a special WATCH & WIN contest weekly. In short, you watch the latest episodes of Naruto Shippuden on the Naruto.com site, answer a quick quiz and you can enter your info for a free weekly prize! The current prize for this week is a set of 5 Ninjutsu Figurines. The offical rules for the contest can be found here. So go do what most of you do already, go watch some Naruto but watch it via Naruto.com so the episodes won't only be free...you might win some free stuff ^_^
(oh for those wondering "When the hell are you going to do another contest Chuck?" I didn't forget, there will be more in the future. ^^;)
Happy Valentine's Day everyone! My fiancee, Danielle just made an AMV that is just perfect for today and I'll admit...its been a long while since I've promoted an AMV ^^; so hopefully the (hate) mail might stop.
There are plenty of FFVII AMVs out there but other than this being done by my fiancee, I thought this was a great overall video. Some of you might remember Danielle's other FFVII AMV but due to its huge popularity and since the music industry loves to protect their extra deep pockets without realizing AMVs are actually free ads for their artists..the video was booted ~_~
If you don't have a Valentine or lost yours today, don't fret since the time will come and some of you probably like the single life.
The song is a more modern version of "You Raise Me Up". Pardon my not knowing the artists. Once I know who sings this version I'll give credit of course where credit is due.
Looks like the latest Dragon Ball Z movie, Yo! Son Goku and His Friends Return!! is now live, subbed and in HD on youtube. We can thank user, dbzantossj for the uploads. Below is a sample clip. Don't know how long they will be up for though as with the licensing and stuff. We can all be thankful for this movie this thanksgiving and hopefully forget that Fox is trying to mock the series with the very sad looking Dragon Ball Hollywood movie. Many DBZ fans can be happy to see that Akira Toryama is back. Enter into youtube from the video to see more.
This is a few months late but I just had to write about this. After reading Sanjo-chan's blog on it I had to put in my two-cents. Many of you otaku know that Toonami stopped airing in late September. Many of us can thank Toonami for turing us into otaku. I started right at the very beginning in 1997 and I've seen up until about a year or two ago when Toonami only had Naruto as their only anime.
When I stated in the past that it was Final Fantasy VII that helped me become an otaku after years of just being a gamer, that was just half the story. I am still upset of the downfall of Toonami and anime in general on Cartoon Netwoork so I feel I have to let you know my story and where I'm going as an otaku because I might have a hand in what is to come. If you'd care to read on, here's my story:
Back in 1997, which was now 11 years ago, I was in the 7th grade. (Yeah, I turned 25 as of last Saturday so I'm an older otaku). Back then my days were basically that of playing baseball, hockey and football watching the New York Ranger's hockey and playing lots of video games after school. In September of 1996, Pokemon came to the US and I would watch it every morning at around 6am. I watched it not because I was an anime fan but because I was a fan of the game, which BTW still holds my record consecutive play time of 13 hours. Yes, I one day played Pokemon Blue for 13 hours straight. Sure wish I could have that kind of free time now. Anyways, anime's height in America at the time was the rare showings on Sci-fi channel and the occational Miyasaki runs on pay-per-view (Princess Mononoke to be exact). Finding anime was tough here at the time and as both a jock and a gamer, anime wasn't something I really knew of.
The popularity of Pokemon woke up the execs of Cartoon Network and thus Toonami months later came to be with its first host, Moltar from Space Ghost Coast To Coast; Cartoon Network's only in-house production at the time (more on those in a bit). During the spring of that year I was introduced to Final Fantasy VII by my long time friend, Tiago Barros. He had a Playstation and I was just a Nintendo boy so I went to his house often to fight him in Dragon Ball GT Final Bout, Bust-A-Move and of course watch him play FFVII. He would tend to leave mid game to watch Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z on Toonami. I didn't know what the appeal was and I just played the games while he watched. Shortly, I began to watch Toonami with him and with my love for Tifa in FFVII, I was all over the internet (aka the World Wide Web at the time) looking for more info and getting into Toonami and anime. It was then I became an otaku. I of course went beyond Toonami in terms of series to watch since not all anime was shown on there, but it was Toonami that got me into it in the first place (along with FFVII).
Fast forward to 2001-2002, I was in the 12th grade and I was in Miss. Beris' Web design class in New Field High School, mainly to kill time. A project was due to create a full working website and thus this site, Chuck's Anime Shrine, was born. Thanks to Newgrounds.com, in which alot of the design ideas came from, my site became popular with otaku since it was one of the few places pre-You-Tube to have AMV videos to view. Because of this site and my anime fandom, I met Danielle who is now my fiancee and turned this site into a business that is on a roll. Sales will be double of last years, very close to $100K and as of last month, my profits matched my job's income...even when I only listed and sold a fifth of the items I have on hand and not even a tenth of items on the way. I can safely say that my job is now completely expendable and my originally failed plan to escape the 9-5 rut is only a few months away or less.
As you see I owe a bunch to Toonami and have lots to be upset for them being gone, but here's the surprise you get for reading through this very large blog post; I'm going to use my newly gained anime presence to try to bring back something like Toonami or Toonami itself. Remember my good friend Tiago who I thank dearfully for converting me into an otaku? Well, for the past 5 years he's actually been working in Atlanta with Adult Swim and more recently with Cartoon Network headquarters. Toonami's death and anime's slowdown on Cartoon Network can be blamed for Adult Swim's transformation to Cartoon Network First Party Only shows but once I'm freed from the chains of a 9-5 job, I'll make this one of my big goals. So, Tiago, if you are reading this, I'll be in touch with you soon on some things.
Anime.fm is a site I recently aquired that even got the attention of our favorite blogger, Danny Choo and if you are reading Danny, turning Anime.fm into what Toonami was would be a great idea for us on it if you still want to work with me on it ^_~. Let's also not forget that I'll be training to be an anime voice actor along with making video games for Flash, X-box 360 and Apple iPhone so very soon my dream of being a force in the anime/game industry will be a reality. In other words, I have connection in the right spots.
Hope you guys like the new look of the site and the lack of updates was because of the huge number of anime orders I had to deal with so check up on my updates as they will be more frequent again. Though I didn't quit Berger-Bros like I wanted to a few weeks ago, the time is soon and with all that is in front of me now, my days an a meager employee are almost done. Below is the final broadcast of Toonami but I'm using this blog post to let you all know that anime won't die if I have something to do about it, since I might be in the coming months.
(Also, don't forget that Toonami still lives on with its Jetstream website)
As of a few days ago, the hilariously funny TeamFourStar Dragon Ball Z Abridged parody got its latest episode. Like many otaku, I've become an instant fan of the parody.
Speaking of DBZ's early episodes; Danielle and I have been watching the DBZ Season 1 Uncut DVD and its amazing how different the series is when you see it in its original form and not the bastardized first dub. I'm so glad anime brought to America has been kept whole and not filtered into a kiddy-Christian abomination...for the most part.
I know, "dubbing" is basically the otaku "f-bomb" and fan dubbing tends to be all the more sinister but lets face it, anime dubbing has gotten better over the past years. With the advent of youtube, fan dubbing has been seen much more. Granted, like AMVs, fan-dubbing is a dime-a-dozen and its sometimes hard to find stuff that you just can't click away from amongst the sea of videos. Then there is stuff like the Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged Series. It's a very funny, fan-dub with practically all the voices done by the now famous dubber known as Little Kuriboh. If you haven't seen any of his stuff, I provided a few clips below. As of very recently, he's been guest staring in what has to be yet another very well done fan dubbing series, this one about Dragon Ball Z, also called an Abridged Series. Along with Little Kuriboh, a simply amazing group of dubbers known as TeamFourStar works these parody episodes. Danielle and I can't get enough of this fan-dub and already thousands of otaku have subscribed to their work. The voice of Vegeta, Lanipator sounds exactly like Chris Sabo and like Chris Sabo, he does a good chunk of the voices in the series. The other members of TeamFourStar, KaiserNeko, Takahata101 and the others and along with Little Kuriboh, couldn't be any better of a fan dub team. They really do give the real english dubbers (and writers) a run for their money.
One last thing about anime dubbing. As some of you might know, I was suppose to participate in the Bang Zoom! studio panel at Anime Fest 08 to hopefully get my foot in the door as well as an anime voice actor. That unfortunately was shot down due to the huge, huge crowd the latter two days had. No worries though, as I continue to break free from my job with my anime store, I'll be able to do Flash and dubbing myself to prove myself (please don't use my supposed podcast as an example ^^;, it sucked and wasn't really a podcast) plus I'm still in contact with Bang Zoom and will eventually attend their $300 lessons to get my old chorus voice back and improve my acting since both are a bit rusty. One of the other fellow attendees at Anime Fest 08, AnimeAlmanac was able to do an interview and in-depth report on the class when Bang Zoom did one in NYC not long after the festival. Check out the amazing blog post here and remember, if we american otaku are to get in the anime voice acting biz...its not all fun and games, its an art and must be done right.
TeamFourStar Convention Parody, LOL at last comment xD
First Episode of DBZ Abriged
Can't forget the amazing Yu-Gi-Oh Abrigded Series
LOL at the Beauty and the Beast Parody; f$%king birds! xD
Remember not too long back when my better half, Danielle made that great Crisis Core AMV with the song, Kiss My Eyes and lay me to sleep? Well, in the past few months the video has started to gain some momentum and is almost at 20K views! Due to the enormous amount of AMVs on youtube, this number is very tough to reach. My videos used to have those kind of hits but that was due to the fact that I was one of the first to post up AMVs to youtube.. (until that old account got erased ~_~). For those who haven't seen it, check it out below. Its definitely one of Danielle's best and fits very well to the Crisis Core atmosphere. If you don't have this game yet, be sure to buy it. Congrats Danielle for you achievement ^_^
Some of you probably are already familiar with the AMV Hell series. For those who are not, each AMV Hell video is about 1 hour of mixed and varied AMV clips. Each clip is about 15-40 seconds long and has an almost Robot Chicken feel to them. Since I noticed youtube changed their coding thus messing up my entire AMV section (~_~) I went on youtube to see that as of almost a year ago there was a 4th AMV Hell!; divided of course in 10 minute blocks. Below is one chunk of clips for your viewing if you haven't already. As for my AMV section, I'm going to fix it up again and I'm also going to announce who won the Fate/Stay Art Contest since it was yet again only one person who committed to their promise of submitting something. Tsk, tsk if you missed out. You lost a free anime figure. More contests will be on the way though so don't miss out or the same person will keep winning!
My fiancee was doing some youtube browsing when she came across this video. I love the Final Fantasy VII Play Arts figures and recently got boxes of both Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 for my store so after seeing this I'm tempted to tap into my stock a bit use them for stop motion animation. Kudos to youtube user ffjason for the hard work it takes to make stop-frame figure animation.
Out today is the new DBZ fighting game from Atari, Dragon Ball Z Burst Limit. As an avid DBZ fan, I'm excited about this one. It's for the PS3 and Xbox 360 and boasts very nice graphics. I like how fluid it all looks and seems very true to the series. From the looks of it, the stages are done very well and the formula seems much like Tenkaichi, which to me is a good thing. There is promise of some new fighting skills and other coll stuff.
I'm going to be doing a full review on it in collaboration between rocketxl.com and Atari so we'll see if it makes itself stand out form the previous games. Check out below at some of the videos and bring back your DBZ spirit.^_^
It would have been cool if I had this when I played through Crisis Core. Awsome hack by Acidmods member Blizzrad that makes it so he can play any game on the PSP with a DualShock Controller. Image and story via Engadget.
For any otaku who didn't know, Japanese music artist Gackt is in fact Genesis from FFVII Dirge of Cerberus and the recent Crisis Core game. Character designer Tetsuya Nomura is a big fan of his work and had him create his song "Redemption" for Dirge of Cerberus. If I'm not mistaken, Gackt even did the Japanese voice for Genesis in Crisis Core. It is also rumored that FFVIII's Squall was also based on Gackt. It'll be great to see him again when Square-Enix makes the next installment in the Complilation of FFVII series.
I also attached the Redemption video for you all to see.
My lovely fiancee Danielle recently showed me the works of the lady you see above; Vanessa Mae. Couldn't go without blogging about this extremely talented violinist. Many of you probably already know her and don't need an intro from me. Her music is a stunning mix of fast violin playing and techno music. People who are familiar with my AMVs know Euro techno is my music of choice (Right now di.fm's Euro Dance stream is blazing in my room.) So I simply love this stuff. Many of you otaku will appreciate this so I placed a video of hers below via youtube and user paganini123. Vanessa worked on the music for Disney's Mulan along with many other gigs. For those otaku who don't know, she also did the Sailor Moon Medley which I bet is now running through your head. Check out her other videos too; unlike many techno song videos which just beg us to make AMVs since they are so horrible, hers are just as artistic as the music played....but an AMV done by me of one of these songs may be a possibility ^_~.
If you are like me and used to play Street Fighter 2 back in the arcades in the early 90's or just a fighting game buff in general you have to be psyched about Street Fighter 4 coming out. Originally the first clips of the game showed the sick trailer with the new "ink-styled" animation and then just Ryu and Ken fighting. Now more characters have been added to the list like Guile, E. Honda and my personal favorite, Chun-Li. Just check out this amazing video below or click here if you can see it. Thanks to YouTube user MasterBigode and DannyChoo for this one.
Many fans are excited about the release of Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core. The prequel to not only the number one video game of all time but the very reason this site exists in the first place. Sorry for the brief Holiday hiatus, the blog is back on and what better way to kick off the end of 2007 with a new AMV. Danielle made this one using the song "Prelude 12/21" by AFI. Click here to view it if you can't see it below. Be sure to comment on it both on youtube and here. I think Danielle did an amazing job on this one. Also, as always remember that no ownership is taken on this or other amvs. Be sure to buy the game when it comes out (might be in the anime store, too) and buy the album to support them. Enjoy ^_^
The list of anime-based Hollywood movies keeps growing with Speed Racer as promised in the most recent ComicCon. If you haven't seen the sick trailer yet, check it out here. Anime fans have alot to look forward for in 2008 with Speed Racer coming out in May and Dragon Ball in August.
Just in time for the holidays (and due to more fan mail), we decided to bring back the Love Hina Christmas AMV Danielle made a few years back. The song used is Maria Carey's version of "All I want For Christmas." Remember all amvs are fan made free advertisements for both the music artists and the anime. So please support both by shopping for them where music, anime and videos are sold. Click here to view it if it is not visible below. Happy holidays from Chuck's Anime Shrine.
This is a great AMV featuring Cloud and Tifa from Final Fantasy VII Advent Children. The song used is " I Surrender" by Celine Dion. Danielle finished this one a few days back. Been getting too many requests for more amvs made by us ^_^; so we had to give you some more. As always, please remember that all AMVs are just fan made videos and no ownership is taken. Support Celine Dion's music and the Final Fantasy series by shopping at any store that sells music, anime and movies. To view the video, click here if you cannot see it below.
Due to some requests I brought back the AMV Danielle made a few years ago that featured XTM's amazing "Fly On The Wings of Love" song. It's a great Euro-Techno song and it fits well with the clips. Check it out in our amv section, too if the video isn't viewable below.
After a bunch of emails begging for it back, I re uploaded my "Night of Fire" AMV. I feel its not as good as my other videos and it also looks like YouTube butchered the quality of it but I hope fans of this video I made back in 2004 enjoy. The main theme was fan-service of anime girls ^_^;
