Hey guys... I sure as heck need to get back to blogging on here ^^;;  Anyways... been having some good things happening.  People who follow me on Facebook and twitter know of the recent news n the voice acting front, I'll make a full post about that when everything comes together.  As for why else I've not been around (nor updating the blog and store like I should ^^;) is because I've been hard at work preparing Tenshi-Oni for release.  It's only a matter of time and I thought I post even newer images of the intro that I posted on G+ and FB recently.  I think this time I got the balance of text and imagery going.  If I can, I'll make a .gif of it as these two images don't give it justice.




I'm basically at the point of the "meat and potatoes" of the game.  Where I focus all of my time on the enemies, bosses and levels that Fumi will transverse now that most of her attacks, transformations, etc are done.  Once part is done, I'll have the first releasable build of the game! From then on I'll continue adding levels, a Story Mode, an Android port and more to updated versions....with the aim for the DLC to be free updates for those who buy the paid version of the game.  I'm, well, not into the whole micro transaction / trivial DLC purchase bit that other game devs and studios like to milk promote to gamers.


...
                                       

Sad day for us gamers. I first started playing video games in 1985, before I was even 2 years old and it was during that year that Nintendo, with the direction of Yamauchi, brought the Famicom to America effectively reversing the 1983 video game crash. That system of course known as the NES. If it wasn't for the NES and Super Mario, video games might have just stayed dead, lost to garage sales of the late 80's and antique stores of today. We wouldn't have seen the astonishing $800 million one day sale of GTA V and the impact video games have now on our culture. I can attribute video games as the source of my thirst for knowledge, my yearning to keep that child-like imagination, the source of my affinity to anime, voice acting and animation. I sit here today coding my own video game for a device that probably would have just stayed a phone or a boring PDA. Yamauchi might have been a bit tough on his programmers & designers...throwing out completed games that reached his desk, but we still can't forget that it was under his direction that video games returned from an almost certain death. 


RIP Mr. Yamauchi, us children of the 80's and 90's thank you for making our childhood, teenage years and beyond a more fun and imaginative place than it would have been without video games and Nintendo.

(header image thanks to Reddit)

(full news article on his passing)

Thought it would be neat to share this amazing and haunting image that looks very much like Angel Fumi from our game, Tenshi-Oni. Being that we are close to Halloween, I thought it's relevant to show this image. Beautiful, scary, haunting and powerful

source: http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=36841713

(The title of this piece is Ghost Girl, by the talented artist: Kriss)

Think it's about time I bring back #fanservicefriday? (and heck, the blog posts in general?).  Well, happy Friday to you all and enjoy this really beautiful, sexy and masterfully drawn anime girl image.  Not sure of the source on this one, but if you know, leave the link in the comments below.  I'm always for showcasing the various talented anime artists and given credit where credit's due ^_^

edit:
source: http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=23672223 (thanks +wara zashi )

I have to come clean about what has been up with my anime figure store this past year.  As many of you probably know, Hurricane Sandy devastated my area here on Long Island one year ago.  It wasn't just that storm that caused so much struggle for me..it was only the start of a chain of events that made me hate living on this overpriced island even more...

Back in 2006/2007, I brought this site back to life after I sort of kept it too quiet here.  My work schedule with my manager job at Friendly's, my Amway distributorship and college really made life a living hell from the trifecta of being a busy slave.  Heck, that terrible schedule was what got me kidney stones at age 22 back then and subsequently, I had to quit college shortly after getting my Associates in Computer Science.  This site, though mostly with no updates, was still enjoyed by fans...mainly due to our AMVs we made that were a hit on Newgrounds.

I felt it was my calling to bring this site up to speed and continue where I left off in 2004 with it.  I soon did a complete site makeover, created the blog, even got sponsored to do game reviews, be part of anime podcasts and in that time, created my anime figure business.  My goal, as it was and still is today, is to be my own boss.  I'm not and never will be complacent with taking orders from somebody else nor being told when and where I have to be on a daily basis like some wage slave.

For the past few years, I was so very close to that goal.  There was a point where I was making more money than my job.  Had it not been for the enormous debt I got around the time of my college/past business fallout..I would have quit my job and just ran the anime figure business and this here site.  Heck..actually, there was a post I made back when I did put in my two weeks; I shortly retracted my resignation and still at the point of writing this...still work for that company.  It's a far better job than the hell Friendly's or later Office Max was; I sit in front of a desk and so some web dev for a camera store...mostly computer bitch work but it's better than serving retards who clammer for ice cream in the dead of winter back in my hometown of Selden.  Problem with this job is that, not only do I wish to not work for a boss, but also, the pay has been $15/hr for the entire 7 years here & I have to drive 70 miles round trip each day to do work I can easily do from home.  My schedule involves being a prisoner out in Amityville from 9-7/8 most of the work week.  I get Tuesdays off but it usually becomes a day of catchup and doing errands for others who think I'm taking a day off when in reality I'm trying to build our future.

Before Hurricane Sandy and the events after, Tuesdays were days I'd be spending most of the day shipping anime figures orders...and to survive on overpriced/mediocre/bad climate Long Island... I needed to be making 2-3x what my job pays me to truly be able to be free.  That, as any business owner will know, involves not just selling more but stocking more.  So, what I did was boost the pre-order quantities in my anime figure business by telling my suppliers, that I needed more stock.  There was demand for them though, I went based on customer requests and added a bit more.  As some of you might remember, I'd post only the quantities of figures I had set for pre-order...and not just put up items and wait for people to pre-order before I tell my suppliers what quantity to get. So, my stock grew...and so did the bills.  Again, nothing of an issue...except, logistics.  I was living at the time half of the time at my fiancee's and half the time at my parent's house.  My figure stock was all stored in the secondary room of my parent's basement and as the business grew, the space got less, the amount of time to ship increased and thus were I thought I could use the newly started at the time.. Amazon fulfillment.  Thing was, it took sadly until this year where Fulfillment by Amazon made shipping items overseas a possibility..great if Hurricane Sandy didn't hit...but was no help to me when I needed it for my business.

Reason I mention the logistics of my anime figure business is because Hurricane Sandy wasn't the first storm to mess things up.  In 2011, Long Island got hit with the worst flooding they have seen in years.  For the first time in my almost 30 years alive and coincidentally the time when the basement was so important... it got flooded.  Thankfully it was only one batch of figures, but financially, it was a bit of a blow.  Nothing too bad but the enormous amount of figure pre-orders pending loomed over my head.  It wasn't where I could sell the items, but if my supplier would be loyal to the quantities.  In most cases they were but there were times where I would not get figures promised and got stuck buying them from other retailers at or above SRP.

Then, fast forward a few months, Long Island gets hit with it's first Hurricane to directly hit it since Gloria in 1985...no, not Sandy, Hurricane Irene.  I since then elevated my figure boxes and kept them safe from the, you guessed it, second time in 30 years that my basement coincidentally flooded.  That wasn't the issue though..Irene, like Gloria caused mass power outages with my house without power for nearly two weeks after the storm...making my finances a bit strained and to not be a priority retailer with my supplier due to the understandably tough was to pay early..you know, because of a fucking Hurricane.

Fast forward to the ever end of 2011.  Continuing mindless family drama on my fiancee's end made it where she had to be booted out of the house...not because my fiancee was the issue.  No, the nut job in the home was a younger sister who probably shouldn't even have been left out of the nut house when she did.  It wasn't even her either, though it made our life hell to be involved in a household where ant hills where treated like mountains with people who were already emotionally unstable enough once stupid monr crap was blown out of proportion.  It was the equally crazy, typical Selden resident aunt and her baggage as to why my fiancee and I had to be booted out of her house.  Her aunt was being foreclosed on after years of no pay to her home and we were getting the boot.  Thankfully, my fiancee's grandmother offered us to rent out her beautiful, fully furnished basement apartment so that we wouldn't be out in the street.  As one might expect, our cost of living went up, but at the time my fiancee that summer got a second job watching a kid with CP and so the split rent wasn't going to be much and we were actually on track to clear my old debts and finally, finally have our wedding...since you know, we've been dating since 2002 & engaged since 2007.  Shipping for my anime business got a bit tougher as I would then had to ship back at my old home and then drive back to my current home..but with my fiancee now making about the same as I do in my camera web dev job...it was still tough but was going to be manageable.

Well, as the theme seems to be with my fiancee and I...we aren't allowed a bit of happiness without some equal or greater unhappiness.  Once the word came in that her aunt was moving in and that we were to move into the new apartment...my fiancee lost her second, more profitable job watching that kid; her other job is a very low paying clothing retail job...and like most of those silly jobs, they aren't ones you can rely on for help.  She got fired for simply calling out sick one day.  The parents of that kid were nice at first but I found that they were part of a very strict and of course assbackwards-to-all-logic Christ cult calibur church...the types that force people into their religion and make it some sort of mission to bring others into the cult.  So, it was ok she was away from that environment but the finances weren't of help and I was stuck to pay for most of the rent..slowing our ability to move forward since most of my money was stuck in the pre-orders.

Almost up to Hurricane Sandy but the shit spiral got a nice little push in August of 2012. You see, my rating as an anime retailer was/is actually really good.  I was happy to told I was being spoken of very kindly on myanimelist and myfigurecollection.  My bending over backwards for my fellow anime fans and customers showed in my ratings on ebay, amazon and elsewhere.  Well, in August I got in a few Sonic The Hedgehog Nendoroid figures.  They were tough figures to get and sold very quickly.  I had about 2 left one night and I woke up to 3 orders split on ebay and amazon.  I had no choice but to cancel the order for the third person, who was a customer on Amazon.  I usually, and to the detriment of my finances, would buy the extra figure from another retailer and have it sent their way when I oversell.  I couldn't for this one case since the figures were all gone elsewhere but through me.  Amazon actually doesn't charge the customer until I as the seller mark it as "shipped".  So, with my cancelation of that person's order, they lucky never actually paid for it.  Problem was, I go and look at my feedback on amazon and there without warning, without any prior message to me was a 1 out of 5 rating with the words "customer service" The customer, without talking to me or even paying for the item...was able to sneak a bad feedback on my then flawless amazon seller account.  People of course didn't see the hundreds of positive perfect feedbacks prior to this one...and so my sales on Amazon tanked for a bit; doing ok on ebay and the site here but now hindered a bit because of a vague and misguided negative.  To add insult to injury..even before I talk about Sandy... the sudden drop of sales then kept me out of selling for the x-mas season on amazon since amazon needed a number of prerequisites to do so, prerequisites I passed for every year prior to that negative. Now, roughly a year ago today, here comes the second storm to hit Long Island in only two years, Hurricane Sandy.

 When I was in grade school and even a bit into college, I had a fascination with meteorology.  This storm was something you never ever see.  It was basically like the so-called "Perfect Storm" that stayed mostly off the coast back in the late 90's...of which that movie was based off of.  This one, though still considered weak compared to storms that hit the gulf and Florida often... was moving in and at the worst angle a storm can for the tri-state area and was the latest a Hurricane could really be here..thus has properties of both a nor'easter & hurricane.

So, like Irene, we lost lots of trees and had even worse coastal flooding than before.  People here on Long Island don't know when to stay the fuck home, be it because of their idiot jobs or ADD, so there was more damage and issues than there should have been in the first day or so.  No power for a about 8 days for us but surprisingly...power returned after only one day at my parent's house; unlike the 14 days it did during Irene.  New Jersey and the coast got hit worse so for us in central/eastern Long Island, the storm wasn't really much different than Irene...it was what happened after that made things far worse and the reason for my posting this and why my anime figure business was basically decimated...

Go back to roughly a day or so after the storm hit...residents here on Long Island get the news that oil/gas supplies were cut off for all of us.... thus, there was a mad dash to the gs stations.  Trees down, power out for most and here we started to see society break down because of the fear of a gas shortage.  Don't get me wrong, there was indeed a gas shortage but the panic here by the idiots who live on this sand barge made things 10x worse.  For over two months after the storm, gas was rationed at stations.  If you remember, I worked 40 minutes away (needlessly) in Amityville...so if anyone needed gas, it was me... yet I didn't run to the stations like a mad man.  There were cases where people would just go to fill there tank up $1 just because they can; yeah, that kind of stupid I live with here on Long Island.

As people could guess, I couldn't go to work, couldn't ship or receive anime figures for my business and was stuck just reading how to code C# in the dark. why was I reading about C#.  Well, since 2011, as you all know, as one of the many plans I have to try to be my own boss and run the helm,and just to fulfill a childhood dream and 10 year old promise on this site... I was coding my IOS game, Tenshi-Oni.  One of my good customers a few weeks before the storm wanted to help me get out of my stupid underpaying web dev job but possibly getting me in as a game dev with him over at Arkadium Games in NYC.  Very awesome, would be a dream come true to at least work in a place that caters to my goals as a programmer...and if you ever seen their facebook posts.. it's a fun really work environment; a damn dream job, even for someone like me who wants to be their own boss (ie: profit share in games you make with them).  For the past few years I've been in IOS development, but they were to be the first company making games for Windows 8 and thus, I had to teach myself C# / Windows game dev.  With his help, I revamped my resume, held my production of Tenshi-Oni back a bit and tried to get myself ready to put my best foot forward...well, about 5 days after my resume was sent to their HR department, you guessed it, that's when Hurricane Sandy hit.  Also, to make it worse, their offices in NYC were part of the area that was flooded and without power.  It wasn't until December, when some other crap happened, that they then basically forgot about me as they went to more super senior game devs...and not somebody like me who's been trying to crawl out of my underpaid job hell thus having not "true" experience other than what I'm able to to in my little free time.

So, for two weeks, because of Sandy, I couldn't go to work...I couldn't ship anime figures, I couldn't even receive anime figures not just because of the pay..but because the UPS trucks couldn't even get here.  Then, my boss, a man who cried for Hurricane Sandy donations all because his food went bad in the fridges of his two mansions, kept the hours at my job lean.  For the month of November 2012, I basically lost an entire month's pay.  So, where was the money going to come from to pay for the bills and old debt I just barely could pay for without a hurricane causing man-made armageddon?  Yep, I had to cannibalize my anime business.  That involved selling things off quick on ebay; ebay auctions being then and now the worst way to sell anime figures since most are completely underpriced final auction prices...due to bootleg figures on ebay being dressed as real, but really being fake and for Buy-It-Now prices that are below what us legit anime figure retailers buy this stuff from from our suppliers.  Speaking of suppliers, Hurricane Sandy kept me out of communication from AAAanime for a few weeks.  In that time they supposedly had a new and big batch of pre-order figures that were waiting for me to pay them for.  Tough thing to do with what just happened on this side of the states...they were living fine in California while people were stabbing each other here for a $1 worth of gas.  I do a few weeks later pay for the pre-order to them, thanks in part to underpriced ebay auctions that should have sold for 2-3x more.  Then, I look and some figures were missing.  I was suppose to get a number of figures, most of them were for customers who not only were waiting, but paid me in advance for them.  The other figures that actually did come, had to then be sold off on ebay in the same, sad way where the buyers on ebay didn't get that the $20 final auction was actually for  $115 1/7th scale figures...yes, KaKa anime from Hong Kong was selling the figures for $40...but people still didn't realize those were bootlegs and mine weren't.  So into December, I go and try to sell down my stock and buy back figures that AAAanime didn't get to me because I wa later told I didn't pay in time..again, ignoring that my part of the earth was ruined by a Hurricane.

Think that's bad enough? Wait, there's more.  One week after the storm hit, my fiancee's mother and grandmother separately fell.  Her mother fell outside and broke her wrist and her grandmother, our landlord, fell inside before dinner and broke her hip.  Then, in December... with Sandy's damage still prevalent (hell, parts of the island STILL haven't been helped a year later) we get hit with the biggest blizzard in the 30 years I've been alive.  It was a bad storm, but, the salt in the wound was that my town, Lake Grove, got hit with 37 inches of snow that night while the rest of the area only had about 15 inches of snow.  Yep, those pictures of cars abandoned in the highway that were i newspapers all over the world and on reddit...were only a few blocks from me.  Can't find the exact image right now, will probably make it the title image of this wall of text, but that was right at the intersection at 347 near the Smith Haven Mall , Lowes and the then empty Borders Books location; actually the same spot where my old job at Office Max was.  It's since became a Staples.  This lead to more delays in my anime business and more financial heartache; making my new debt almost mimic the life destroying old debt I got from my stupid dealings when my amway business was growing.  Since then I've been job hunting but like with Arkadium, I've gotten nothing but rejections, unanswered resume submissions and even promised positions that then get retracted.  No help whatsoever no matter how hard I fight the universe back.  At one point, I was actually suicidal.  It was brief and maybe only spanned about a week in the middle of 2012, but I had it.  I'm the type that fights back when life pisses on me but every person I guess has their limits of how much shit they can take.  Don't worry, though things are still kind of shitty, I'm back to laughing at life as it piles the shit on..waiting for my moment to punch it in the face and show it who's boss.

The past year has been me paying back customers who per-ordered (and paid) me in advance.  As of this post, I still owe 3 people their figures. So...this is why since then, there really hasn't been any new anime figures on the figure post and why for a while, I didn't blog anything.  I felt my "empire", my life's work crumble.  The awesome notion of being an anime retailer then became a painful thing to think of.  Heck, I nearly lost faith in all anime as since this issue, there's now 100's of anime retailer on ebay and amazon and the processes that gave me so much trouble then...are now all too late in being finally convenient.

Despite all of this, I did finally get some glimmer of hope.  There's still Tenshi-Oni to finish and get out into the market before another 5 different iPhones and IOS updates are announced, our Facebook page has grown immensely, I feel I now have the fandom and more that we had in the past.  This only then opens me up to have an audition for this blog again, future youtube content and more.  And...as you guys might have heard, I've finally became a voice actor.  I have two recurring commercial voice roles for two big companies...I'll leave the details in another post but I feel that it has given me hope for the future.  I'm a bit cautious to be too happy as you can see (and with now 200+ "failed" auditions since getting these roles for other places),  it was such a wonderful feeling to get these roles.

Also, as of yesterday, I got a job offer from EA, yep Electronic Arts... to be a senior game developer with IOS.  The only bit of studying I need to do is to just get back to making Tenshi-Oni ^_^  It can be an even greater job offer than what Arkadium Games was.  Yes, I know many gamers and anime fans alike have their qualms with EA; trust me, I've posted my opinions with some of the business decisions...but this might be a new page in my life.  If I get it, I'd have to move to Salt Lake City, Utah; which would also get me closer to voice acting opportunities since NYC isn't the place for animation voice over work anymore.

Who knows what will happen with EA, but here's what I plan for my future and the future of this site...

• As you see, I'm back to blogging.  Blogging is not only something I like doing for this site, it also paid some bills at it's height an I'll bring it back to that and better.
• Tenshi-Oni.  The game is moving forward; recently I fixed it to work well in IOS 7 and for iPhone 5 and above devices....and I even got a new music artist on board; Steven Lu.
• Site redesign.  I have in the works an HTML5 / CSS3 version of the site and blog.
• Anime.fm.  I really need to also make that site worth going to; once situated, I will make it worth the name.
• Return of the store.  Soon I'll close down the store for inventory and redesign.  Oddly, Google is removing their Checkout option so I'll be down a payment method...I'm going to replace it with Bitcoin payment option.  The store will have what I have in stock, will showcase the Cafepress products more and eventually, I plan to put anime figure pre-orders up.  Sadly, AAAanime.com dropped my account with them after the Hurricane Sandy fallout..but I now work closer with an even biger (and closer) distributor...the ones who help me get great access to the anime and comic cons... Diamond Comics.  Since this whole mess happened with me, they because Good Smile Company wholesalers and so, I can return to Nendoroids and more once the customers patiently waiting get their figures and my finances are more stabilized.

Ok, it's not exactly Halloween yet, but since Halloween this year is during the week, I'd imagine many of you (myself included) are celebrating at a halloween party this weekend.  It's that one time of year when everyone cosplays, even people who don't know what cosplay is.

Since many of us anime fans are pretty much experts in this field, feel free to show off any really cool costumes you've come up with this year.  (you can do so in the comments below if any of you would like ^_^)

As with other holidays, anime artists show off their work to celebrate the season.  Here's a number of other anime halloween themed images for this year...

Back in 2007, I added the anime figure store to the then 5 year old site and it got off to a great start.  It was just when popular (and sadly highly bootlegged) Nendoroid figures, Alter statues & Kotobukiya Bishoujo figures got their beginnings.  The store was loved by fans of dannychoo.com...slowly creeping up the popularity list of anime stores with the likes of hobbystock, Amiami, and others.  The store even got a nod in BusinessWeek and I have always been so humbled by the kind comments people made on myfigurecollection.com and figure.fm.  I have to say, the anime community has some of the best customers and it was sad to see things fall to pieces when Hurricane Sandy hit (details in this previous post).

Life has been hard this past year with things even recently adding insult to injury (ie: our apartment getting flooded this Thanksgiving break)..it's been a slow and arduous step out of the financial and emotional rubble.  With what I had and what I almost accomplished (fully automated store using Fulfilment by Amazon) and now seeing everyone and their dog selling what used to be a more niche product line... link many things in my life, I feel I got there too late or fell off the race tracks due to events out of my control, while I not only fall back in line in said race, but there's now more "racers" amplifying my obscurity & track to regain.

Back in September, a glimmer of hope came in the form of voice acting work.  As of today I got 4 voice jobs with 3 different and large companies; Jack & Jones, World Vision & a hiking shoe company I can't exactly name yet.  Even more recent, I got invited to an anime game audition & got a few roles in an independent anime RPG game.  This success in what at times still seems to be a sea of chaos, dysfunction, bad luck & calamity has kept me going and I'm thankful to say that the gears of possible change have started moving.  Today, Cyber Monday 2013, I announce that my anime store is in fact "back".  It never really left but it was in such shambles that it was better no sales really happened in the interm.  Pre-orders might still have to wait; I know I missed out in providing all of you some amazing figures like the Attack On Titan figures, the Necomimi, mind-activated Cat ears, and the fully replicated Sailor Moon wand... just to name a few.  For now, the inventory in my store will be the older stock that I've had and either couldn't or didn't have the time to list.   As of right now, my ebay store and the main store here reflect what I actually have in stock and can ship out to anyone who wants them.  Granted, at the time of this post, the figures "featured" on the main store's banner are long gone, but if you see a figure in actual store part of the site (and somebody didn't just a few moments ago buy it), it's there.

There's a bunch more to post and I will throughout the x-mas season and beyond continue to list what I have and make offers if I can on the older stock.  Once these items are cleared out, I expect to be back in gear with taking pre-orders.  Thanks to new partnerships with Diamond Comics, YesAnime & Bluefin Distributions, I can provide some really great figures in the future...and hopefully...one day, be back on AAAanime.com's good side.  Anyone from that distributor reading this....I apologize for the pre-orders that were left in limbo; Hurricane Sandy messed things up bad and I want you guys to return with me as I pick up the pieces.

So, welcome anyone who's new and who has been here for a long while.  I plan on updating the look & feel of the store, this blog and the site in general so the goal is to also post all the content I should have been;  I do wish to return to getting games to review, anime to discuss in the podcasts and all the other things that either forgot I was here or simply thought I left.  I'm not gone, and neither is the Tenshi-Oni game nor anime.fm.  I have a rocking Facebook page with over 6K followers and we are only getting started.  Posted some videos onto Youtube with more planned that don't just include cute animals and what might be considered "extended Vies" of daily life.

Heck, even while writing this, I got the first order on the site in the longest time.

So, I wish everyone a happy holidays and it's time to get to work...there's so much to do and I won't let life kick me down, no matter how many times it tries to ^_~

Let's face it, TV as it used to be is, well, a dieing model.  Studios and telco companies can kick and scream all they want about it but when you have a number of streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Crackle, Crunchyroll and others...who in their right mind would pay $100+ a month for a service that 90% of the channels you don't watch and still bombards you with commercials?  A question for anime fans is, where does anime viewing sit in all of this?  Back in the early/mid 90's, the only way to get any kind of anime in the US was to nab bootleg VHS tapes.  The only anime really playing in the states at the time was Sailor Moon and later on, the Ocean dub of Dragon Ball Z.  Eventually Toonami helped in bringing anime to the masses with Inuyasha, DBZ, Sailor Moon, Cowboy Bebop & FLCL leading the pack.  Toonami At Midnight became Adult Swim and anime receded a bit back until last year when Toonami made it's return.  Other than Scifi SyFy having their own block of anime... this was the way to legally watch anime on TV....that is, before internet streaming.

Getting anime throughout though has always been tied to it's pirated roots; be it the bootleg VHS's at a con, to downloading unseen-in-the-states series and movie specials via Kazaa, ThePirateBay, or any other site over that time.  Many of us did and still bought our anime legally when available...but you can bet if some sort of region lock or other restriction was there when we had our money ready to actually, legally own the content....we'd us these sites too.

Today, and not surprising to anime fans, yet still a shocker to some studios...online streaming has become the way to go when it comes to watching anime.  Give the fans what they want and my goodness..they'll watch it! Crunchyroll started as one of those "bad" sites and eventually became a name in anime streaming.

Streaming is here to stay and thankfully for us anime fans who actually want to support the industry... there are more and more sources of legal anime streaming.  You can see anime on Netflix, Hulu, and of course Crunchyroll... but there's now another service with anime...Viewster.  Not only is Viewster now providing anime for the US & UK but soon it'll add other countries to that list as well as more anime titles.  The more legal streaming services the better.  I know there are shows that Crunchyroll & Netflix will drop that I still wanted to complete.  Viewster could very well help fill in that gap since their focus outside of anime is for movies and series that are more niche.  I'll keep you guys all posted on Viewster since I might be working out a deal to stream some anime here on this site...or maybe even via my other site that needs a 2013/2014 upgrade... Anime.fm.  Any way to help legally watch anime, get more anime to the masses and quell the need to pirate, I'm for it ^_^

Mainly testing if posting to Blogger can now simultaneously post on the Chuck's Anime Shrine facebook page, Twitter and G+ all at the same time... so here's a Kill La Kill pic for fun ^_^ #killlakill

Beginning a big push to bring my sites back to life, implementing current social media, RSS, CSS3, HTML5 paradigms and basically programming everything to work seamlessly across all that this site and my other site are located and can be in today's socially driven internet.  Basically creating Chuck's Anime Shrine v5.0.  This blog here is still in dire needs of some cosmetic updating but in addition to putting Anime.fm on G+, I reactivated the long dormant Tumblr page.  Should be synced to this blog and more so that way, those of you who use tumblr, can also be plugged into anime news, game reviews, anime pics, anime figure listings and more as I continue to build things up.

Nothing much on tumblr yet, but the goal is to make it just as vibrant as it can be.

Back again from another hiatus ^^;;, but for today's #fanservicefriday post...here's an amazing (and a bit NSFW) image of Saber Lily.

Notice the big difference today with the blog?  My push for improvements across the board for all my sites, stores and blogs continues today with the reveal of this new look and feel to the blog.  It's all HTML5/CSS3/W3C compliant, mobile and tablet friendly and a big improvement from the older blog that was having some growing pains from the advent of social media's boom since the blog's last update back in ~2009.

Due to the nature of Blogger's widgets and XHTML setup, I unfortunately can't do a 100% pure turnover and so... don't mind me as I fix up the place a bit more and iron out some CSS bugs & discrepancies.  I still have to reinstall the disqus comment system as I don't want to again have everyone's comments be lost to another update..though the template I used to get things started does wonderful comment formatting.  Also, I plan to put back the rotating fan banner since I simply love the banners you all made of our mascots over the years and want to keep them posted (and you all can submit more if you like :3)... as well as the blogroll that I welcome any anime and game-related blog/site/deviantart/pixiv site, etc to join.

Want to thank the people over at http://www.bloggertipsandtricks.net/ for the awesome template that saved me a bunch of time in setting this up.  Gotta run, still got some work to do on this and next up, Anime.fm, tenshi-oni.com and my own personal blog.

The pixiv artist KD has done a number of really great images that have passed through the social media sites a few times.  This one just titled with a music note is either Miku Hatsune in a school girl outfit (#serafuku) or just an original character similar to Miku.

In case any of you missed it yesterday (and didn't go to SDCC 2013).  After the long wait, here's the first trailer to the new Godzilla movie.  Yes internet, as a Breaking Bad fan, I know Bryan Cranston plays a major role in it. (ok, I'm psyched about that too).  There is some hope that this could be the Hollywood-created Godzilla movie that fans have been wanting and not the "that's a lot of fish" joke that "Zilla" from the last Hollywood Godzilla movie was.

 For this week's #MoeMonday image.. here's a wonderfully drawn Mami Tomoe image by the artist, fal maro.

 source: http://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/1274371?tags=fal_maro

First this blog, Anime.fm and now the Kawaii blog. I've gone and fully redesigned the page's code, look and feel. The template I used as a skeleton for the design was actually distributed by a fellow anime fan... http://www.softwanime.com/.

 The Kawaii Blog as we call it is my fiancee Danielle's own blog. She talks about anime, animation and other topics there, so check it out ^_^

In addition to the new blogs...I went and updated the rather neglected CharlesGaffney.com to show a bio of my my various work and to be a platform for my voice acting work as well (in addition to my voices.com profile of course ^^;;)

What this has to do with this site is that well, the rest of the site is next in line to get an HTML5/CSS3/W3C upgrade ^^, same thing with the Tenshi-Oni site.  Actually speaking of Tenshi-Oni, expect some new screens and hopefully a trailer soon ^^

...now, on to some needed rest... been coding like a mad man @_@

Here's the first #FanService Friday pic of 2014... it's Airi Totoki from IDOLM@STER

Source:  http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=41238830

For today's #MoeMonday image, we have this cute image by the anime artist, Chiri (Atlanta), aka aratant.

source: http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=25915769

Today is the day many of us on the internet are taking a stand against the NSA and the horrible, unconstitutional, broad and invasive mass surveillance they have on ALL of us, not just the citizens of the US... but the entire world.

The NSA has placed gag orders on major companies while they bug their software and hardware, they even go as far as using the games on your smart phones to mine everything about you.

They can turn on your phone's microphone at any time.  They can and do have all of your email content, your personal photos, every bit of detail about your life that they can harvest and put a case against you when ever they feel that you might fit their ever changing and broadening definition of a "terrorist".  Take it from me, a New Yorker who was a senior in high school when 9/11 happened.. 600 people died in my area...but since that day, the government has been using the lives of those lost like tools to violate the rights of those living.  My area, Suffolk County on Long Island was one of the first areas to use red light cameras amongst other new laws that at first appears to be for safety but later were found out to be mainly for profit, control and cataloging without a warrant.  We've been the testing grounds here before these things get implemented for the rest of the country and the world... all in the horrible dishonor to those who died on 9/11.

For anyone that's somehow still not phased by the NSA/FISA court violations on our privacy/rights... I'll see if I can provide a timeline of events, lies by the government on these and the Snowden documents proving these to be lies.  As a 30 year old computer scientist as well, I feel I have the same calling as Snowden in getting the word out on how bad this surveillance has become.

Here's a plan of action on what to do based on Reddit Admin hueypriest:

If you're in the U.S., Call Congress today. Dial 202-552-0505 or click here[1] to enter your phone number and have the call tool connect you. Ask your legislators to oppose the FISA Improvements Act[2] (a bill that attempts to legalize bulk data collection of phone records), support the USA Freedom Act[3] (a bill that works to curtail NSA surveillance abuses), and enact protections for non-Americans. Details on these bills and other legislation can be found in the blog post.
Here's what you should say:
I'd like Senator/Representative __ to support and co-sponsor H.R. 3361/S. 1599, the USA Freedom Act. I would also like you to oppose S. 1631, the so-called FISA Improvements Act. Moreover, I'd like you to work to prevent the NSA from undermining encryption standards and to protect the privacy rights of non-Americans.
If you're not in the U.S., demand that privacy protections be instituted[4] .
It takes five minutes, and it DOES have an impact. Make the phones on Capitol Hill melt down, Lawnmower Man 

Here's a link for non americans who wish to fight back:
https://necessaryandproportionate.org/take-action/EFF

Here's a link for those who wish to add their name to the class action lawsuit going against the NSA and government for this

http://www.rand-2016.com/nsa_lawsuit_signup16.aspx?pid=0610


Just like with SOPA and PIPA, if enough of us fight back we can help end the NSA's surveillance.


image by http://vashperado.deviantart.com/art/r-e-c-h-a-r-g-e-384275509


reddit post

http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/1xm3qu/today_we_fight_back_against_mass_surveillance/