JELEINEN

Someone had snuck a camcorder into a theater and then later encoded it. It's what's sometimes called a "screener." That's what was used as the source for the digisub.

For what it's worth, there's animation in the background of the Japanese DVD as well. The black background was the way it was in the original theatrical release in Japan.

I've only ever heard of them as well. I guess if I really cared, I'm sure I could download something of theirs to listen to. The truth is, I really don't. It's not as if this is the first time a pop group gets an animated show. The Jackson Five had their own cartoon, IIRC.

As if "westerns in space" is something unique to anime? The concept is as old as science fiction itself.

Very happy to see they didn't compltely ditch the original look just to be modern, like a lot of other remakes/updates have. I'm looking forward to this next month.

Wow. I'm batting a thousand... Answer was "Twilight" by the Electric Light Orchestra. Next attempt: The infamous Fast Food Freedom Fighters was a fan-made parody dub of what film?

Ditto.

Getting paid to dress up to entertain children and putting on a body stocking so you can go out in public as a cartoon character of a different sex are two entirely different things.

I'm about 99% sure they're guys.

Okay, the answer was The Third Reich Decadent Coffee Shop. Name the song and artist featured in the Daicon IV film.

Ah, okay. Yeah, I've met an American who does this kind of cosplay once. I guess the idea is to not have any of your own skin exposed; hence, the gloves and mask. It's kind of creepy looking even beyond the crossdressing part of it.

You want to know what's worse? I'll show you what's worse. Sabrina's Playhouse . . . Before I click on that link, is it work safe?

What I liked about Battlestar Galactica (it was a 70's show, BTW, not 80's; we won't get into the horror that was BG 1980): - Mormons in space. This is the aspect that still facinates me the most about the series. It took an obvious inspiration from a real world source without necessarily hitting you over the head with it. It gave a much added depth to the series and was a very fresh idea; especially in a genre that generally deals with religion in a very negative manner. - Ancient astornaut connection. Funnily enough, I find whack-job ancient astronaut theories to be some of the lamest ideas ever, but BG managed to tie it in well. For one thing, it wasn't a focus of the show, but another piece of background material. It also helped build a definite style. Not just the crash helmets, but the clothes, writing, sports, names and art all had an obvious egyptian/greek/aztec influence (reversed engineered, from the show's perspective). - Memorable characters. Adama, Starbuck, Baltar et al were interesting people played by capable actors. What I didn't like: - Villians as plot device. The Cylons, though kind of cool looking, were lifeless (no pun intended) and two dimmensional. Maybe if TV censors had allowed them to be aliens instead of robots they might have been bettter, but as is they could have been replaced with a natural disaster with little consequence to the plot of the series. - Obvious budget constraints. BG was actually a big budget show for its day, but even then the necessities of science fiction strained even that budget. The worst offender was the re-used space combat footage

Obviously someone who never got to see the Christmas Special.

It's called being discerning. I don't need to eat chocolate covered brussel sprouts to know they'll taste like crap.

Wow. I thought this was an easy one...

Sounds like this is just a new B-grade SF show that got the Battlestar Galactica title slapped on it purely for name recognition. No thanks. I'll pass.

In Urusei Yatsura Movie 2: Beautiful Dreamer, what was Ataru and gangs' booth for the school festival?

Yeah they were, in the original. Did they drop the pseudo-Mormon background? That along with the blatant Egyptian/Mayan style influences were what made the original great, IMO. The whole thing was a fun twist on the ancient astronaut idea.

Full Metal Panic and Initial D. For bonus points: all three were also in Pocket Monsters (Pokemon), Wedding Peach, and Weiss Kreutz.

Assemble Insert had a bogus commercial in it.

Yay! Another show that's been pointlessly renamed. Sorry, even though I really didn't like the show, the original title of Ninja Mono sounds a million times better than the ubber-lame Ninja Cadets.

I'm not sure exactly how common homosexuality was among samurai, but it was far from unheard of. It was always in the form of an afair, though, as they were expected to have a wife and children like all the other men in their society. The practice wasn't discouraged, nor was it something talked about. Actually, most people would be surprised how common homosexuality has been among military groups over the ages. No one can say for sure why, but there are lots of theories: ultimate form of male bonding, not enough contact with women, gay men are more violence prone, etc.

What a load of sentimental drivel. Fighting was the reason for the existance of samurai pretty much up until the Tokugawa took over. It was then that they were turned into a true social class and stuff like honor codes were created to keep them in line. People "became samurai" all the time based on their fortunes on the battlefield, at least until laws were set saying who and who wasn't a samurai. Doesn't say much for lifestyle when a lot of samurai had been farmers living on millet a few years previously. Nor does the large amount of betrayal and backstabbing that occured during the sengoku say much for beliefs. We aren't talking about some guys who just practiced marital arts. These were thousands of men who did little more than drain resources off their society. The ones who did know how to fight were useless against anyone else except peasants. There were very few jobs they were allowed to do, by law. They couldn't own land. The few who could afford it sent their kids to school to become beurocrats. Some with wealthy enough lords (a minority) lived off their stippend. The rest lived hand to mouth and not more than a few turned to crime. Most of them weren't. Some had read the righting on the wall years before and gave up their status to become farmers or craftsmen. Most of the rest just cut their top-knot off when the time came and joined the modern world. It was only a few stupid ones who required gunning down. There are few things I hate more than people who try to idealize the past. Things like chivalry or bushido are what later generations come up with to make their anscestors sound like the good guys. The truth is that the past was dirty and smelly and it was fully of shitty people who did shitty things for their own shitty, selfish reasons.

See, that to me sounds hilarious. By the time period of the film, the samurai were little more than a joke. There hadn't been a war in over 200 years. These guys had no real fighting experience (duels were even illegal by this point). The ones who hadn't found jobs in the beurocracy were little more than societal leeches who couldn't be productive even when they wanted to be. They're only usefulness was in putting down the occasional peasant uprising. Against a real military they'd be completely ineffective, as history proves. Sad my ass.