Revenge of Sinterklaas: The 4th Annual Secret Santa Project

The idea of this project is for everyone who participates to be reviewing a show that they might not normally watch or might have overlooked. Everyone will get someone else in the project to review a series of their choice and in return review something picked by one of their fellow bloggers. The goal is threefold for everyone involved:

  • Mixing up what you watch and review on your blog.
  • Getting other people to watch things you feel deserve more attention.
  • A way to interact with other bloggers thus creating possibilities for cross blog readership, also it fosters an environment to try other cross blog experiments.

Here is how this little experiment will work: If you want to participate send us your Name, Blog, and My Anime List (or some other equivalent listing) page via e-mail (secretsanta.rt [at] gmail [dot] com) with subject: Secret Santa Participant. Due by Wednesday, October 10th. Make sure that your MAL (or whatever!) is updated as much as possible before you submit it. Also, if you will not watch fan-subs mention that in the e-mail, too.

We will send you back an e-mail that says we got your application. Please give us a couple of days to respond before sending queries about your application. 

After the deadline for participation, we will then make a circular list of everyone involved in the project that only we will know the order of. The order of the list will be made completely at random. Everyone will then receive the name, blog, and list of the person they are the Secret Santa for. You will then suggest three shows for the person all of which must be 26 episodes or less (yes, you can suggest movies, too). The shows must be subtitled in some fashion. Remember that you are picking shows that you hope the other person will like and give an honest chance. Look over their list and whether they watch fan-subs then try to pick out something good but unexpected.

Once we get everyone’s picks we will then pass on the shows to the recipients. No one except us will know the names of the person who gave you your choices. You then pick the show your are going to watch. Everyone is responsible for getting their own material for the review.

You then have until late December to watch the show you were assigned and write a review. On the week of Christmas everyone will post their reviews for the Secret Santa Project. We would prefer you to post your review on Christmas Eve but you can alter it as to the schedule of your blog. On Christmas Day we will reveal the name of who had who as a Secret Santa along with a small post about the project.

Again: If you want to participate send us your Name, Blog, and My Anime List (or some other equivalent listing) page via e-mail (secretsanta.rt [at] gmail [dot] com) with subject: Secret Santa Participant. Due by Wednesday, October 10th.

The September Line-Up

This month Sentai Filmworks continues its trend of picking up anime titles for home release before they’ve premiered. But not as many streaming announcements as I’d imagined, perhaps the first week of October will be the explosion. To top it all off there was the unreal shock of Rose of Versailles getting licensed! Every month seems to hold something delightful to celebrate.

Hooray! It seems that Mawaru Penguindrum was finally licensed as it was always meant to be. But the Rose of Versailles announcement was even more unexpected. So it proves that no matter what all licenses are still theoretically on the table. It is just some are far more likely than others.

The Line-Up is a monthly rundown of newly licensed in the U.S., newly streaming in the U.S., and newly announced anime and manga projects.

Continue reading

All Points Bulletin: Vinylmation – The Next Generation

If you have any suggestions for what to highlight on an APB drop us a line via email or Twitter.

Hisui’s picks:

Narutaki’s picks:

  • Vinylmation Debuting New Look
    I have not been a huge fan of Disney’ Vinylmation line of toys with the exception of their robot sets. But now they are bringing out new molds that will definitely entice me and are of course true to each character they create. No surprise these will be a bit more expensive than other sets and maybe that will save me from going crazy.
  • Ask Chris VS. His 14-year-old Self
    Chris made a mistake everyone and now he must go back and read this terrible comic that he once touted as great. This Captain America comic is truly bad but it goes so far as to be totally hilarious.
  • My Childhood Was a Lie
    Blowing on your Nintendo cartridges was harmful? Heck, I still blew on Gameboy Advance cartridges. And I’m pretty sure I’ve done that to clear the DS, too. OH WELL.

This was too cool not to share: