Sunday, February 17, 2008

Drunk on Anime

I have heard it said that it takes an annoyingly long time for animes be licensed and dubbed before they are ready to sell to us red blooded Americans. I knew it to be true of course as its only logical but I never really had the experience of going through the whole process with a series until XXXHolic. With XXXHolic I read the manga when it first came out, was overjoyed to hear that there was a not yet dubbed anime (which I sort of watched on youtube), and then a good…2 years later learned the Northwest U.S premier of it was going to be at Sakuracon. I mean WOW. 2 years later! The manga is insanely popular with its heavy emphasis on Japanese myths and all sorts of fairy tale and occult stuff. I really do love the manga. But I never got to watching more than…say 3 episodes of the fan subbed anime.

But the best part is not only is the English dub premiering at Sakuracon, but they have two of the voice actors from the series (Watanuki and Moru)!!!

Clamp really is amazing with the stuff they come up with. I remember I used to watch Card Captor Sakura as a kid (but never got to see the entire series) and they have so much stuff out there too. I personally only got into Chobits and XXXHolic. I like others as well, such as Tsubasa, but I like to think that XXXHolic is my thing and Tsubasa is my friends thing (yes it’s weird) just like the way the two mangas connect at certain points. XXXHolic actually connects to many other clamp series in the apperance of the occasional character or item thrown in at times such as the chobit ears used as a communication device or the apperance of Kazahaya and Rikuo from Legal Drug as workers at a Pharmacy (lol). I did finished Chobits with thankfully 8 volumes, but now that I’m older don’t like it as much. This is due to the fact that I actually think about the sex in it and am not as oblivious to the more adult stuff and the more controversial issues brought up in the manga. Chobits is like the anime version of the Notebook (movie) for me. I can’t like it because I’m morally torn between “should she have left her finace?” or “Its’ all okay, they were meant for each other.”

Okay, I’m way off topic now. My point is I’m super stoked for the Premier and can’t wait to hear one of my favorite mangas come to the “little” screen in English.

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