November 7, 2010

Otaku Helping Others! Part 2

For today's "Otaku Helping Others" post the subject is:
HAVING A DREAM!
Luffy: "I'M GONNA BE KING OF THE PIRATES!"

We are otaku. We watch way more anime than the average person. Even if we are busy with work or school we still find time for watching anime. Suprisingly, through all of my anime viewing I've found another meme or concept that links many anime shows and Japanese culture itself. That meme is having a dream or goal.

You might have thought, "what is my dream"? You might have thought of something that you're aspiring toward and then thought, "is my dream worth anything?" or "is my dream beautiful?". And if you're not creating bombs or other destructive material (the creating bombs part was told to me by my mentor) then the Japanese through anime and personality will tell you, "ANY DREAM IS GREAT AND BEAUTIFUL!".

Take Azuma Kamuma from "Yakitate Japan!"
Yakitate Japan is an anime about a teenage boy who aspires to be a bread creator who can create a bread that can be known as Japan's signature bread, like French bread is France's signature bread. But really? Bread? A whole anime dedicated to bread? Well the anime was so thoughtfully created that the making of the bread and the emotions of the people involved are so great that people can't stop watching it! So even if you're dream is to be a baker then you're dream is a honorable one.

What about Onizuka from "Great Teacher Onizuka"
The choice of picture aside. Onizuka aspires to be the greatest teacher in all of Japan. He's got alot of vices (being lazy, a yakuza member, a virgin, a porn watcher, etc) but he puts them all aside to chase after his dream and they don't get in his way. In fact when he's inspired by his dream he inspires his students to be better people!

Naruto is an anime where the character has, "an impossible dream". Most characters that have dreams in anime have impossible dreams. In Naruto's case he wants to be the Hokage of the Leaf Village, the title held by the strongest and most badass ninja. Naruto starts out as a class clown who's got no power at all and he's gone through alot... He's still not Hokage in the story but he certainly is a badass ninja right now in the current story.

There's many more characters like Ash Ketchum from Pokemon who wants to catch every Pokemon and/or be the best Pokemon trainer in the world. The show is more than 500 episodes long and he's still not the best Pokemon trainer yet...

For a recap, and take some notes, it's great to have a dream and the more IMPOSSIBLE the dream is the better because everything's possible with determination!

I'm a member of the penpal website Interpals and I'd casually chat with any Japanese penpal and if I so much as mention something like trying to get a degree, writing a story, or even having a small anime blog. Even if I'm like yeah man it's whatever they'll tell me, "You're dream is very great" or "You have a good dream". It always humbles me because we're all people with problems and for someone to say that to me, it shows me that anime is doing it's job there. No I was just kidding. It shows me that anyone who can inspire others whether they be asian, white, black, spanish they're truly great people. That's why I'm here to tell you to keep working on your dream no matter how big or small it is. It's your dream and that's all that matters. (And my mentor specifically said as long as you're not making bombs or destructive material, i.e. not trying to hurting others). If your dream can HELP anyone, even just yourself, DON'T GIVE UP!

This is RPGHero signing out!

November 5, 2010

Jpop Video of the Night!

Pretty People by Monkey Majik
I choose this one mindful of current events, especially for the times we're living in today.

The Japanese in this song's chorus roughly translates to:
Pretty people they're living all around the world, we try to make it better, smiling and laughing pretty people.

Hey I'm not the Japanese expert so I'll put the true Japanese when I find out from Chansu.

The english version is different just in the chorus where they say:
Pretty people they're living all around the world, we try to make it better look at each other deeper, you'll see us pretty people.

Oh and I can conclude that video concept is, taking care of the environment. Recycling and not littering ^.-

November 4, 2010

Jrock Video of the Night!

Colors of the Heart by UVERworld


» English Translation«

More DBZ Abridged

I just felt like posting these... All credit for their creative genius goes to "TFS"
They're in order since last time...





There you have it episodes 4-6 of pure comedy...

November 3, 2010

RPGHero's DaiScoop!

Yes there it is! Another regular post from RPGHero!

DaiScoop means BigScoop! Like when reporters talk about the next big story they filmed or wrote...

Today's DaiScoop is titled:
Abridged Anime Series on Youtube, Something American Fans are Good For
We all know that NicoNico is like the Japanese youtube, where there are many cool things that ordinary people created about anime, jpop, and other Japanese memes. When you look at our youtube what you'll find dedicated to anime are comparison videos, random people live talking about their favorite anime, fandubs, and other stuff. According to my sources the best thing that we can do with anime and youtube are Abridged series. Whoever started this trend started a pretty good one. Abridged Anime series are quite possibly the only way that many Americans are able to watch popular anime because they're short and hilarious. 

Abridged series are best when they try to stay as close to the real story as possible but pick out quirks about the series and characters and make jokes about them that fit well with how the story actually works. They are worst when the creators make something that is nothing like the story or characters just to push a cheap joke. And there you have it! The informative part of this post. Now lets check out some abridged series.

These DragonballZ Abridged episodes were created by "TFS"
Just check one out and you won't watch a full episode of DBZ ever again ;)


Check you Yu Yu Hakusho Abridged (Yu Yu Hakusho actually is one of my favorite shows)


Check this one out it's the funniest Yu Yu Hakusho Abridged Ep 

Here's one of Bleach... The voices aren't as accurate...

And One Piece...
Remember when I was talking about better and worse Abridged series'. Well this one isn't that good. It's funny though if you like references to real people.

If you liked the DragonballZ abridged series I recommend watching them! And subscribe to thier creators TFS.



November 2, 2010

J-huh Video of the Night!

Today's Japanese music video isn't really music video but an anime theme... Sorry :(

I could not find Comet Cloud by Rhythem anywhere! It's not a music video :(

But I had to show everyone this song! It's theme song of the anime Yakitate Japan!
It's an anime about making bread... I'll talk more about it after I watch more of it... There will be lots of posts about the unusual nature of this anime... (You didn't know that Yandere -see Yandere- isn't the only wierd thing about anime, yes there's positive wierdness too but you already knew that...)

Well I wanted to show this to you because of the lyrics.. One of the may reasons I love Japanese culture... Their thoughtfulness... And why I try to be the same kind of person... Anyway here's the video!

Be sure to read the lyrics!!!

Who's who in the world of Otaku!

I'm going to start of this series right. "Who's Who" posts can be about singers, artists, writers, social activists, voice actors, etc however they're all real people although that may be debated because most of them work to bring you the anime characters and themes we know and love. For my first "Who's Who" post I am choosing to write about a genius mangaka (Manga Author) by the name Eichiro Oda.

Eichiro is a man of very few photographs, a trait common to certain genius' and great men. However his work speaks for him:

He is the creator of the HIT manga and anime series: ONE PIECE!
Check out our One Piece Recommendation for the summary of One Piece and Anime Peeps I Care About Post inspired by the anime!

Before that he created short stories/manga in a series called Wanted!
I don't think you can buy this one at any ordinary manga store... especially here in America... I wish though.

He collaborated with the creator of Dragonball, Akira Toriyama, to create Cross Epoch a short story about a world where DragonballZ and One Piece exist together.
Check it out at NBST

Click above and you'll see, One piece is currently the third ranked anime in Japan for the week of October 4th. One Piece is third to two anime which are vintage anime. The first of which, Sazae San, is like the Japanese Simpsons in that it's the longest running cartoon there and still running today. 
SO ONE PIECE IS A PRETTY DARN BIG DEAL IN JAPAN! 
I'll go further to say that it's the shounen anime king there, it beats Naruto, Full Metal, Bleach, all those.

Why hasn't it dominated the USA cartoon inventory?? Well there's actually a story about that...
When One Piece debuted in the US in around 2004 or 2005 it was brought to people by the 4KIDS company that brought America Pokemon. Pokemon was a MAJOR hit in the USA and Japan thought they would do the same with One Piece, they entrusted another hit to them. However 4KIDS messed up the voice acting, changed the opening and ending themes, and censored out most of the show. What worked or whatever they did with Pokemon could not be done with One Piece and therefore the public in America rejected One Piece as stupidness. Only few people who could see the greatness of the story itself continued to watch the 4KIDS mis-presentation until it was taken off the air. Funimation in the recent few years picked up One Piece and fixed it up to be truer to the Japanese version however it hasn't been put back on TV for public audiences. And that is why One Piece isn't beating out Naruto and Bleach here in America, and yes I know those are good shows too.

For certain reasons the old 4KIDS dub was purged from existence (at least on youtube) so all I can show you is the bad censorship they did. They made many guns into water guns, cigarettes into lolipops, blood into nothing, knives into thin air, etc. I know these things are bad but c'mon One Piece is a world where they're all worthless anyway, WHY CENSOR THEM? 4KIDS should work for the Big Man Above... Alittle inside humor I think.

Anyway back to Eichiro Oda
 He worked hard to bring everyone the best anime/manga ever!
Oda remarked that his interest in pirates came from another show called "Vicky the Viking". Even Oda had to be inspired by something else! Check out his wiki article!
Wikipedia bio of Eichiro Oda

Will you finally go out and watch ONE PIECE?!!

Thank you for checking out my first "Who's who in the world of Otaku!"


November 1, 2010

I thought this was funny so...

The blog/feed master Crunchy Roll Pulse found this and I had to repost it!

Otaku Helping Others! Part One!

Hey guys! Halloween is now over so I'm here to start damage control. If you've been reading my comrades posts then you know the yandere personality is scary O.O

But I'm really here to talk about Helping Others! In my new weekly post!

Exactly! I'm here to fly in the face of criticism with more positivity!

POSITIVITY!
Tomoya and Nagisa??

For my first Helping Others article I'm going to discuss a Japanese meme. Well they might not even be aware of it because it's deeply embedded in every facet of their culture.

I'll be listening to a Jpop song or watching an anime and I can't begin to count the number of times I'll hear "Kimi no Tameni". The amount of times I hear that phrase in Japanese programming by far outweighs how many times I hear it's english counterpart, "For your sake" or "I'll help you" in American programming.

It's such a general phrase I can't really include the hundreds of anime or songs that have included it in their dialogue.

Then I started to think. If we all started to think more like that then the world would at least be alittle bit of a better place. We're all trying to figure out how "I'm" going to get by, how "I'm" gonna pay the bills, how "I'm" gonna score with the next person, how "I'm" gonna go to the doctor, how "I'm" gonna beat this next RPG (that one is uniquely RPGHero). Instead of thinking about "number one", our own selfish self we could stand to think about the people around us. Whether they be our family, friends, or just strangers we meet on the road. If we thought about their sake we would be able to do so much more and live for so much more, even if it's just to help them find change for the bus or let them get ahead in line to get their train on time.

So when you start to do whatever it is that gives you purpose and freedom, think about why you're doing it and think about all the people in your life you can say "Kimi no tameni" or "For your sake"!


The ending theme of xxxHolic, a clip from AZU's song "Cherish". The last part is: "If your heart is hurt and the tears won't stop falling, I'll sing for your sake, again and again".

This is RPGHero signing out!

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Welcome to
The Otaku Reviewers



This blog, "The Otaku Reviewers", was started in February of 2010 on this very same platform, Blogger. At first, it was a venture into the informational and informal world of comics, anime, video games, and Japanese culture. In other words, just a random blog.

Over time, the founder of the blog credited with the pseudonym "RPGhero" was joined by two fellow bloggers and friends with the names "Chansu" and "Deretsun". Together the three bloggers looked up interesting Japanese culture facts, recommended new anime, talked about their own "otaku" interests, and traveled across the United States to various anime conventions.

There have been off periods when the blog ceased production of content and there have been times when there would be dozens of blog posts per week. The schedule varies depending on the lives of the people behind the alias'. However the pattern is that we always get back into the game with even newer information about Japanese culture, anime, video games, and other nerdy hobbies.

The motto of our blog is:
"A cure for your apathy and an inspiration for your dreams. ...Applies to Otaku, anime fans, J-pop junkies, and the like"

The purpose is to blog about cool stuff related solely to anime and otaku stuff. There's no other reason we're doing this.

If you like our blog, please support us in however small a way that you would like. We appreciate our readers!

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