Updates - March 25th, 2007

Welcome spring at last!

The first day of spring was a couple of days ago, and I for one am glad to see it - except that I can already tell the pollen is starting to come out. I'm like a human barometer for that every year. :-)

On Blogging:

I'm sorry I have not posted much here over the last few weeks. I've been incredibly busy with regular store business. For folks that blog several times a week, or even several times a day, my question is - how the heck do you guys have the time? I always think of Glen Reynolds over at Instapundit. He posts maybe 10-20 times a day all day long, and I figure whatever else he does, his entire life must revolve around his blog. When he's not blogging, he's thinking about blogging, or looking for things to blog about, or conversing with people that write in about the blog. I seem to always have something else to do that needs to be done NOW. Anyway, my goal here is going to be to post at least once a week, so we'll see how that turns out.

On Business:

It has been another exciting week here at Anime Corner world headquarters, and I have several items to share with you:

Ergo Proxy 3 arrived on Friday - we had it air freighted in from Geneon so we could start shipping orders as early as possible. We're shipping it now and all of your pre-orders were filled by close of business on Friday March 23rd. Oh yeah, all of our copies of Ergo 3 in this shipment have the limited pencil board - we'll be shipping those first until they run out.

I spend a lot of my time here on 'logistics' - you know, figuring out where and when and how stuffis coming, and there certainly has been a lot of activity in that dept this week. We got a slew of new solicitations over that last couple of weeks for June and July titles and we'll have them all up on the site shortly. A couple of the new titles include Galaxy Angel AA and MAR which are already posted. Also, Geneon will be re-releasing Ikki Tousen in a Thin-Pak (same price, same bat channel) in June and won't be repressing the old box, so it will probably be unavailable for a short time until the new boxes come out. Finally, we now have the last volume of Inu Yasha up for pre-order - volume #55! Wow - 4 years to get a series released, it reminds me if Urusei Yatsura or DBZ. Now when are the rest of those IY boxed sets coming??.... -_^

We have a couple more date changes this week - in fact there have been so many lately they are getting hard to keep up with. Tactics 4 was pushed from 3-20 to 3-27, but became moot as it has already arrived. The new company Illumitoon pushed the BoBoBoBo 2 DVD from 4-6 to 5-1. They also announced that the Beet 2 DVD and the BT'X 2 DVD have been pulled entirely from the release schedule and will be re-announced at a later date. Since these titles have sold moderately well, one can only speculate at this point as to what their plans are, but we'll keep on top of things and let you know. Geneon cancelled the Paradise Kiss 3 Special Edition DVD, but the regular edition is still set to street on April 17th.

I know I've done a lot of talking about the upcoming Melancholy limited edition boxes. Sam, the product manager at Bandai, told me this week that they are producing exactly 20,000 boxed sets for the North American release, and they were surprised by the massive amount of retailer pre-orders for them that have already been placed. The boxes are made overseas and the order has been placed by Bandai, so Sam says quote "once they are gone there is no more - period". I can almost guarantee you that this box is now, or almost is, sold out in pre-release and will be allocated to retailers by Bandai. Sam said that retailers who order early will be more likely to get the product that they ordered. That's good news as we got our order in on the first day, so our units are right at the front of the line and we will be able to guarantee delivery of boxes up to about the first 500 pre-ordered (we're 82% of the way there now as of 3/23), and I will probably close the pre-order window once we hit the 500 mark.

We have posted quite a few new announcements for pre-order, some of the more notable include Wings of Rean, the 4th Naruto Uncut Box, the 2nd Prince of Tennis Box, the 2nd Ranma 1/2 Thin-Pak, and the first Freedom DVD (HDDVD/DVD) which will be the very first HD-DVD Anime release here in North America. I was wondering when that was going to happen. :-)

A lot of people have been asking us recently what we plan to do about the postal rate increase coming next month. Admittedly shipping charges have been a point of consternation for us as we try to offer you a great deal of choices, excellent delivery time and quality, and still offer shipping at a reasonable price. We have not increased our shipping prices in 3 years even though all of the carriers have increased their rates to us several times during this period. As shipping has become the 'condiment' of the internet shopping world (you know, serve a lower quality hot-dog but give the mustard away for free), it's become very challenging for us to try to put together a new shipping program that covers our actual freight costs but that fits the requirements of all of your diverse needs. We are currently working on a new shipping program that is similar to what we offer now, with our usual diverse selection or types, carriers, and quality of delivery, but that will also offer more choices for budget minded customers. We'll be integrating the new program into the new order checkout manager, and we would greatly appreciate any input on this subject that you guys have for us. Your comments help us better tailor our program to fit your specific needs, and that's what it's all about.

After many requests, we've expanded our trade in program to include video games, even really old ones. Check our trade in FAQ for details.

I have two great sales for you this week, one is a newsletter exclusive set of coupons that you canuse across the store, and the other is a nice set of overstocked figure discounts (up to 35% off) that we need to move out to make room for new arrivals. Newsletter subscribers can combine the two offers to save even more! See below for all the info.

To save 3% off any order over $75, use the following coupon code during checkout:

spring75

Or to save 5% off any order over $150, use the following coupon code during checkout:

spring150

Coupons are valid ONLY for NEW orders, and are good through Thursday, March 29th only.

You can combine the two offers to save even more!

We have some great new stuff for this week in just about every category from DVD's to Manga to Figures to Statues, and even some cool new character merchandise including new scrolls and a couple of rare Anime themed bath towels that arrived from Japan. Be sure to take a look at the excellent new Sana Horiuchi figure from Pia Carrot and the very large Tamaki Kousaka from To Heart as they are two of my favorites. Also, we have a few of both of the new Tandem Twins girls left over after filling your pre-orders - including the much sought after 'option' parts that bring the figures, well, to their full potential. :-)

Finally, we received a special shipment of art books that I was able to coax away from one of our vendors in Tokyo. Many of these gorgeous art books have been out of print for more than 5 years and since they are extremely rare we might only have as little as 2 or 3 copies of each.

This little shipment was a long time in the making, and I hope we are able to help you fill some of the holes in your collection. I know it certainly helped mine. :-)

Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Limited Edition Box - Available for Pre-Order!

Bandai has finally announcd the first DVD that will be available for the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya series, and they have done it right offering not only the first disk, but a beautiful limited edition collectors box to go along with it!

This lavish limited collectors edition will include DVD Vol #1 (episodes #1-4) and a gorgeous collectors art box (complete with a storage drawer for your extras!) that will hold all the individual DVD's once released. It also includes the original soundtrack, Cosplay Hair Ribbon, Pencil Board, and an exclusive Iron on!

This is going to one of the most important releases of 2007, and we are asking customers to please order now to reserve your copy as this box may sell out in pre-order and not be available after the release date. We have gone very heavy on these and have already placed our initial order with Bandai, however, because they are limited production and will be in such high demand there is a high probability that they will either sell out in pre-order, or they may become allocated which means they might become over ordered and Bandai may only be able to fill part of each retailers initial order.

Our customers have already started to pre-book this box very heavily, and we will be working very closely with Bandai to ensure our quantities so that we can guarantee availability for those customers that order with us early.

Series Synopsys:

On the first day of school a beautiful girl named Haruhi introduces herself as having "no interest in ordinary humans"...

She asks for any aliens, time travelers, sliders or espers to join her. Watching her weird behaviour is Kyon a boy who sits in front of Haruhi and is the only person who talks to her. Commenting on Haruhi's joining every club in school and then quitting Kyon unwittingly gives Haruhi an idea to start her own after school club which will become known as the Spreading Excitement All Over the World with Haruhi Suzumiya Brigade (the S.O.S. Brigade for short)!

Bandai's Announcement regarding the Limited Edition Episode Ordering

Bandai Entertainment has announced that they will include the broadcast order version of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya with the special edition DVDs. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya was originally broadcast on Japanese TV in a non-chronological order, however the DVDs were released in chronological order. Bandai Entertainment had announced that the North American DVDs would also be broadcast order, however with this new announcement, the series will be available in both versions. Broadcast order DVDs were never released in Japan, they will be unique to the North American market at the time of their release. The broadcast order DVDs will be included with the special edition releases, starting with volume 2, and will not include the English dub, they will be in Japanese only with English subtitles.

The asosbriogade.com website has a page with further details about the ordering of the series.

Bandi Press Release on General Release

THE MELANCHOLY OF HARUHI SUZUMIYA REGULAR EDITION SPECS ANNOUNCED; BROADCAST ORDER AND CD UPDATE!

February 27th, 2007 (Cypress, CA) – Kadokawa Pictures USA, Inc. and Bandai Entertainment Inc., made a new announcement today regarding the specs for the Regular Edition Vol. 1 DVD of the upcoming hit Japanese anime series, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.

“After announcing the Special Edition specs at this past weekend's New York Comic Con, we wanted to get the word out on the great features in the Vol. 1 Regular Edition,” said Robert Napton, Director of Sales and Marketing at Bandai Entertainment.

In addition to having the first four episodes in chronological order both English-language dubbed in Dolby 5.1 and subtitled with the original Japanese audio, the Regular Edition of Vol. 1 will include TV Broadcast Previews, Making Of… Clip #01, Making Of… Clip #02, TV Commercial #1, TV Commercial #2, Texless Ep.00 Opening, Textless Ep.00 Ending, and three episodes of The Adventures of the ASOS Brigade. Regular Edition Volume 1 will be released on May 29th and retail for $29.98.

In addition, up to six CDs are planned for release, with more being discussed, but will NOT be released on the same day as the regular and special editions on May 29th as reported by some news outlets. These will be released sometime later.

“Also, a lot of fans at New York Comic Con asked about TV Broadcast Order DVDs. As Mr. Takashi Sakuda from Kadokawa Pictures USA explained, Kadokawa Japan originally didn't want us to release Broadcast Order DVDs at all. Even though we requested it knowing many fans preferred that sequence, the first answer was no,” clarified Napton.

Takashi Sakuda, Senior Vice President of Distribution and Licensing for Kadokawa Pictures USA, explained the rest at New York Comic Con, “Because I knew you [U.S. fans] wanted Broadcast Order so much, I was able to convince Japan.” The compromise was to release Broadcast Order bonus DVDs in the Special Editions. Because they are bonus DVDs, they will be subtitled only with the original Japanese audio

Each Regular edition of the four English-language The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya DVDs will also contain many extras with details to come later.

Updates - February 25th, 2007

Hello everyone! It's been another great week here at Anime Corner world headquarters, and there is a lot to tell, so I'll get right to it!

New York Comic Con is happened this weekend, and that means we'll all be hearing about the big first annual Anime awards program they are having. My own personal votes, if you're interested, went something like this:

Robert's Votes:

• Best DVD Package Design: Hellsing Ultimate Steelcase


• Best Comedy Anime: Ah! My Goddess TV


• Best Short Series: Elfen Lied


• Best Long Series: Fullmetal Alchemist


• Best Manga: Death Note

It will be fun to see which series get the most votes and by how much!

We've been very busy this week, and I've got lots of news and announcements to pass on. The Final Fantasy Advent Children Limited Edition came in on Monday - on time! This is a one pressing deal from Sony, and many retailers sold out in pre-order and can't get anymore. We didn't take pre-orders for it because I have a long memory and didn't trust Sony to set a firm street date. They've been selling briskly since we made then available on Monday and I'm sure our current stock won't last much longer.

The Gunbuster boxed set that we announced late last week absolutely vaporized, and our first allotment is just about gone - which is amazing when you consider we ordered an estimated 4 weeks worth up front - boy did we blow that number! We've already gone back to Bandai Visual for more, but they are also sold out, so once we run out we might have to wait a few weeks until more are pressed.

Rozen Maiden and Karin are now up pre-order, which I'm sure everyone will be happy about. We're still working on getting the final SKU info from Bandai on Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - they sure are taking their time getting that out to retailers, and we'd like to put the first volume up for pre-order as soon as possible.

For everyone that has one of the Iria Collectors Tins (AWDVD-0402) on backorder, sadly Media Blasters announced this week that they have given up on the tin cases and put the sets on permanent moratorium. We will be cancelling all backorders currently on the books for the tin. MB will be re-releasing the DVD only that came in the tin in May, so at least we'll still be able to get the series, just not in the neat collectors case.

One of my all time favs, the Arcadia of My Youth DVD, is going out of print this Spring. All units are last call, and it will not be available after our current stock is depleted. If you're a Harlock fan, you MUST see this movie!

Couple of date changes this week. Black Cat 3 got bumped from 3-6 to 3-20, and Bandai pushed Hack//Roots again back to April 17th now

In the good news segment, we finally received our shipment of good (fixed) Gundam Seed Destiny 6 DVD's from Bandai, and everyone we had replacement tickets setup for has now shipped out and people are already writing in to say the new disks work perfectly. If you've been holding off buying Vol #6 because of the initial problems, you can order a copy now with no worries.

Per your many requests, we've expanded our trade in program to take regular non-Anime DVD's and CD's. A lot of you have asked is there is any way we can take regular movies in trade, and now you can send us just about anything as long as it's a licensed official release, in excellent condition, and is something you don't want anymore. See our trade in page for the full story.

It's been a great week for early DVD arrivals with some key items like 2nd Raid Vol #3, Solty Rei #2, and Disgaea #2 coming into stock. A very light manga update this week as everyone except Ice Kunion took a break. Still, there are some exceptional new volumes from series like Antique Gift Shop and Hissing. We were not able to get any new figures up for pre-order this week (nor did we get any new figures in except the Revoltech Optimus Prime's) but from our post last week a lot of people are asking us how big those die-cast Tachikoma's are going to be - we're trying to find out exact specs now, and will post them as soon as we have reliable information on EXACTLY how big they are.

That's it for this week. Have a great weekend - and, as always, ENJOY your Anime! :-)

Slippery When Frozen - Happy Valentines Day!

Our fulfillment warehouse will be closed on Tuesday Feb 13th and Wednesday Feb 14th due to the huge snow and ice storm that has passed through our area. Because of the heavy icing I do not want our employees taking the risk of trying to come in to work until the roads are clear.

We will resume processing and shipping orders on Thursday Feb 15th, and we will work around the clock until we are caught up. The storm we experienced is worse in many areas of the north eastern part of the country, so please expect delivery delays to areas effected by the storm.

I took these photos today around our development. As you can see by the ones below, the only thing the ice doesn't bother are the geese over at the lake. :-)





Thank you for your patience and understanding - we'll be sure to setup the next warehouse in Tampa FL.... -_^

[UPDATE 2/15]: We're back in this morning. We had to chip away through about 6 inches of solid ice to get the rear bay doors of the warehouse open - of course they open out! The bottled water company left our Tuesday delivery outside the back door. Not only were the 5 gallon bottles frozen solid, but they were encased in ice and frozen to the pavement. We had to chip those free as well and bring them in to thaw. I wish I had my camera with me for that one!

As of 9:30am we have a full crew working furiously to get the order backlog caught up. We should be pretty much all caught up by tomorrow afternoon.

Irresistible!!

If you want a defintion of the word irresistible, here is Flash Gordon's (who writes our brilliant staff reviews) new dog Talullah...

...OMG, we just can't stop looking at the pictures...

Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya DVD Announced!

Bandai has (finally) announced that they will be releasing the first DVD of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya on May 29th. I know this will make a lot of folks very happy.

They announced the title in a video clip featuring three cute actresses dressed as characters from the series who 'invade' Bandai Entertainment's headquarters in CA and "liberate" the debut date for the first DVD in the series.

The highly anticipated Haruhi Suzumiya anime has been a huge hit in Japan where it has developed a cult following. An awful lot of fans have been e-mailing in asking us when it's coming out, and now we know!

We've contacted Bandai for SKU info and will have it up for pre-order the minute they provide us with the info.



Series Synopsis:

On the first day of high school a beautiful girl named Haruhi Suzumiya introduces herself as having "no interest in ordinary humans". She asks for any aliens, time travelers, sliders or espers to join her. Watching her weird behaviour is Kyon a boy who sits in front of Haruhi and is the only person who talks to her. Commenting on Haruhi's joining every club in school and then quitting Kyon unwittingly gives Haruhi an idea to start her own after school club. Thereafter Kyon and several others find themselves literally dragged into the Save our world by Overloading it with fun Suzumiya Haruhi's Brigade (the S.O.S. Brigade for short).

Updates - January 30th, 2007

I was talking a little bit in my last about how cold it was here at Anime Corner World Headquarters, but that was when it was around 30 degrees (F) outside. Last night it got down to 4 degrees with a 30mph wind so whatever perceptions I had last week have been shattered - it REALLY IS cold now! Of course, everything is relative, and while 4 degrees is extreme weather to someone living in Florida, it might seem like a nice day to someone living in, say, Minnesota. I was talking to one of our contacts at Navarre last week - they are up there in New Hope, MN. I was joking around with her that we would have to do lunch sometime, and she said lunch sounded great - as long as it was anywhere WARM!

Speaking of things that are 'relative', this coming Wednesday is my 37th birthday. Now before you all start sending in masses of birthday wishes (wink) you should probably know that it's mostly just a technical date and that I stopped officially aging at 29 (and mentally at about 17) so to me it's just my 8th 29th birthday... -_^

Seriously though, while everyone will tell you 37 is young, in Anime circles I'm considered 'relatively' old, at least among most of the fan base. Nothing is falling off yet though, and there are two or three Anime fans older than me, like my friend Jerry who turned 50 this week (happy birthday!). The cool thing about Anime for us 'old men' is that despite our rapid aging, it helps us stay young at heart - and that's all that really matters!

In the news this week we have one date change for you. Geneon has pushed the 4th Shana DVD a couple of weeks from March 6th to March 20th. We got the word that Solid State Society is coming to a DVD near you in July, and we've made it available to you in pre-order at 40% off MSRP for a limited time. Fun finally announced a new date for the rescheduled Initial D season 1 DVD boxed set (March 13th), and we also have made it available to you in pre-order for a short time at 40% off MSRP. In other news Funimation announced 5 new licenses this week as part of their 2007 kick-off event - Ragnarok: The Animation, Suzuka, Aquarion, Shuffle!, and My Santa. All 5 are set to begin coming out on DVD during the second half of 2007.

After getting some exchange requests, we hit up Bandai this week about the problem a few people are having with the Gundam Seed Destiny Vol #6 DVD where part of Episode 25 is not playable. Bandai did some investigating and found out that one batch (but not all) seems to have been delivered bad from the presser. Right now this problem appears to be effecting about 15% of customers, but we have pulled all of our GSD 6 DVD's and returned them to Bandai. I apologize in advance for any backorder situations that this may cause. Also, if you do have a bad disk, you can let us know and we'll replace it for you, or you can e-mail Larry at Bandai directly (vongl@bandai.com) and they will send you a new disk.

The backorder situation with Geneon continues (we are calling it the 'GENEON EFFECT' around here), as they still have not completed their warehouse move. A few catalog items have started to ship again, but all of the new January releases are still in transit and won't start to ship to retailers again until next week. We apologize for any backorder situations (or extended order holds) this has caused for titles like Disgaea - with Geneon being closed for almost a month now it's been a difficult situation for everyone. We're staying on top of them (I've really been giving them hell for not planning this better) and we will make sure we get these back in as quickly as possible in order to get your copies out to you. Hopefully in about another week this will all be just a memory.

Our work continues on updating our checkout process to make it more user friendly, and I think you will be very pleased with the results once we get it finished. One feature will be an integrated shipping/billing screen that will eliminate one step from the current checkout, and another will be a calculator right in the shopping cart that will allow you to apply a coupon code or credit code prior to checking out so you know what your order total will be ahead of time. And the big announcement is that we are planning to bring back PayPal as a payment method on a trial basis. Long time customers will remember the terrible fraud problems we had with Paypal back in 2004, but that was a long time ago and we're hoping things are better now. We've built an ASP right into the checkout process that will allow you to access your paypal account and fund your order quickly, easily, and securely through PayPal, and we are currently testing it to make sure there are no bugs or snags in the process. We're hoping to make that live around the second week of February, so stay tuned!

Lots of new DVD arrivals this week including Shadow Chronicles for all you Robotech fans, and the early arrival of the DBZ Vegeta remastered set. Since the DBZ set arrived early, I've extended the 40% off 'pre-order' price through the street date of February 6th, but they are shipping now! We have another batch of beautiful new PVC figures for you this week including the very large and beautiful 1/5 scale Chi's (we're calling her the B.F. Chi around here), and the burst version of Fate Testerossa which comes in a gorgeous window box. We've been diligently adding new figures for pre-order, and I've included a partial list below. Finally, since my birthday is coming up, I have some special B-Day coupons that will help you guys celebrate along with me!

To save 3% off any order over $37, use the following coupon code during checkout:

birthday37

Or, to save 5% off any order over $137, use the following coupon code during checkout:

birthday137

Or, to save 7% off any order over $337, use the following coupon code during checkout:

birthday337

Coupons are valid ONLY for NEW orders, and good through Wednesday, January 31st only, so don't wait!

Updates - January 19th, 2007

It's cold out here at Anime Corner World headquarters, but so far this winter we've managed to dodge the bullet of those ice and snow storms that have been hammering the western part of the country. It's good weather out here to curl up on the couch and enjoy a few new Anime episodes, and hopefully all those folks that will be ice'd in this weekend already have a few DVD's on top their entertainment center (and electricity) to view and enjoy! I know we will be!

Lots of stuff going down this week, so I'll get right to business. First, on the home front, Ron (our ops manager) got through his surgery just fine, and he'll be back with us in a few weeks. In Anime news this week are a couple of delays. First, Geneon pushed the release of Paradise Kiss 3 DVD back a week to Feb 27th, and Stuf needed to bump the first DVD of To Heart back a month from Feb 27th to March 27th as they need more time to get the quality of the transfer right. They also gave us the good news that the Season 2 Super Gals boxes are finally on the way to us, and in fact, they have arrived on our dock a few minutes ago and will start shipping today!


We've being doing inventory, and as a result, I've got some great deals on overstocks that we'd like to move out the door. We've added these items to the store specials page, but I've also provided a short list below of the ones that I think are the best deals - most are priced between 40% and 60% off retail (this week only though), so take advantage of our excess inventory to grab some of these fan favorite titles while they are on the cheap!

• Betterman DVD Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set (Anime Legends) - Only $29.98! (40% Off Retail)


• Black Cat, Vol #1, The Cat Out of the Bag DVD w/ Limited Art Box - Only $23.98! (40% Off Retail)


• Clockwork Fighters: Hiwou's War, Vol #1 DVD - Only $16.49! (45% Off Retail)


• Coyote Ragtime Show, Vol #1, Fox Trot DVD - Only $17.98! (40% Off Retail)


• Geneshaft Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set (Anime Legends) - Only $23.98! (40% Off Retail)


• Girls Bravo Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set - Only $83.98! (30% Off Retail)


• Gundam Seed Movie Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set - Only $29.98! (40% Off Retail)


• Kyo Kara Maoh!, Season 2, Vol #1 DVD w/ Limited Art 'Book' Box - Only $23.98! (40% Off Retail)


• Michel, Vol #1, The Pilot & The Prince DVD - Only $7.49! (50% Off Retail)


• Naruto DVD Collectors Special Limited Edition Boxed Set #1 (Uncut) - Only $44.98! - (37% Off Retail)


• Negima, Vol #3, Magic 301 Limited Edition DVD - Only $20.98! - (40% Off Retail)


• Shingu: Secret of the Stellar Wars, Vol #1 DVD w/ Art Box + Bonus T/S - Only $24.98! - (40% Off Retail)


• Tactics Vol #1 DVD - Only $9.98! (60% Off Retail)


• Voltron: Defender of the Universe DVD Collection #1 Tin Box (Eps #1-15) - Only $23.98! (40% Off Retail)


• Witch Hunter Robin Complete Collection DVD Boxed Set (Anime Legends) - Only $29.98! (40% Off Retail)
  
• Zipang, Vol #1, Future Shock DVD + Art Box - Only $20.98! (40% Off Retail)

Like many of you, we prefer to ship your orders through the postal service. Priority Mail is one of fastest and most cost effective delivery methods (as opposed to media mail, which is not), and we are right next to one of the big regional postal sorting facilities (SCF) here in the mid-Atlantic area, so we can deliver your orders incredibly fast no matter where you are for a great price. Direct Creative (an online marketing firm) likes the postal service too, and recently did some fun shipping tests to see how far they could push the envelope by shipping non-machinable items ranging from frying pans to wheels of cheese. The things they tried to ship are hilarious, and the results are fascinating!

A lot of you have been writing in to ask about when Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya might be released, and in the spirit of that ANN recently did a poll to find out what series fans are waiting for most out of six recent license announcements. As of this morning, the results looked like this:
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (Bandai Entertainment) - 38.2%
Death Note (Viz Media) - 34.0%
Ah! My Goddess - Second season (ADV Films) - 7.6%
Rozen Maiden (Geneon Entertainment) - 5.1%
009-1 (ADV Films) - 1.5%
Ayakashi ~ Samurai Horror Tales (Geneon Entertainment) - 1.3%
None of these excite me - 12.2%

That's pretty definitive...

Otaku Blogger Steven Den Beste recently picked up the Battle Athletes OVA and liked it. That made me feel pretty good since I was one of the people that recommended it, and it would have been my ass if he hadn't. Phew! My career in Anime can continue a while longer... :-) He has quite a few interesting comments on it over at Chizumatic. Since then, there has been some discussion as to if the TV series is better than the OVA, and most people seem to agree that the TV series is better. For the record, I favored the OVA, but I like both versions very much. I saw the OVA first, and thought the length was perfect for the story they were trying to tell. The Battle Athletes TV series (Victory) is also very good, and the viewer benefits by being able to get much more back story on the events and some extra character development. I just felt that (like many Anime TV series) 26 eps was probably a little too long for this story, and some of the plot lines got a little tired before the end. They also had time to develop more characters, and I felt that the length of the OVA kept the plot focus tight on Akari and Kris, my two favorites. A little trivia - this is a pretty old release, but it sold great during the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens.



As many of you know, Funimation never finished the original uncut re-release of the DBZ Vegeta Saga last summer, and I know a lot of you guys were pretty upset about it. Now that the new boxed set is coming up, I've worked out a deal with Funimation to help makeup for the long wait. Not only are the episodes contained in the new boxed set uncut and brilliantly remastered in high def, but we're offering it to you during the pre-order period for a full 40% off the retail price! That's like getting all 39 eps of Vegeta for the price of one DVD! Get your order in today though, because we only have a limited number of boxes on order for the special price, and once they've been allocated this special price will be gone!

We have lots of new items for you this week, including several very early DVD arrivals like Trinity Blood 4, Air Gear, Pani Poni 2, Black Cat 2, along with new manga from Netcomics, ADV, and Dark Horse. We received another excellent batch of new figures including the girls from Eureka 7, a new version of Ingis from Orchid Seed, and the gorgeous Kotona Elegance from Zoids who probably could not be wearing any less otherwise she'd be completely nude! We also received the Elwing figure from Shining Tears that has been a long time coming and that everyone has been waiting for. Finally, we've added some of the latest pocky flavors and snacks to come out of Japan, including the delicious dessert called Yokan that is made from bean paste and has been mistaken during airport security checks for blocks of plastic explosive.

No, I'm not kidding about that! :-)

Busier than a One Armed Paper Hanger

I'm sorry I haven't posted anything in a couple of weeks. I actually took some time off over the holidays, and now I'm paying for it.

I started the year behind on paperwork, and things have just snowballed as the beginning of every year means lots of things hit that can't be put off. End of year inventory is one. That's huge. Certain business tax filings are another (like payroll filings so the employees can get their W2's before the end of January). Then there are the endless meetings and paperwork for insurance renewals, employee benefits package reviews, business license renewals (and the dreaded form 6 for declaring our assets so they can be taxed - yet again), annual meetings with the shippers to try to stave off another years worth of annual increases, renewing our vendor contracts - stuff like that. I've have at least one meeting with someone every day next week except for Friday. For the first two weeks of January the business allows me to focus about 90% on bureaucracy and about 10% on Anime, which sucks frankly. Sometimes it makes me look back on having a real job with nostalgia. Well, not really. That sucked too - but that sucked ALL year.

Anyway, I'm still up at 2:30am this morning plowing through paperwork, and I'm hoping that after a few more days I can get my head above water and post something meaningful here again.

Happy new year everyone! Watch some Anime for me this week.... :-)

Merry Christmas Everyone!

A very Merry Christmas from all of us here at the Anime Corner. I wish all of you, and your family, and happy and safe holiday season.

Sincerely,

-Robert

Updates - December 17th, 2006

Needless to say, it's been controlled chaos here over the last few days. We have been treating every order as time sensitive no matter what the shipping method is, and the crew here has really been busting butt to get as many orders pulled, prepped, and shipped as quickly as possible. They have been cutting off orders within minutes of the post office closing at 7pm, and we've been shuttling FedEx orders up to the Air Shipping station down the street as late as 7:30pm in the evening so they get on a plane that day. We hope all of your orders arrive on time and when you need them.

Friday was our 'official' cutoff for ground and US Mail shipments to get in the system and still have a chance to make it to you by Dec 24th. That said, most UPS ground and Priority Mail shipments put in the system up through the 18th might still get to you on time. After that, it will all depend on how close you are to our facility (and if you have good joss). If you need to be sure your stuff arrives on time, I cooked up a great Flat Rate 2nd Day air deal for only $12.98 that should have you smiling! This offer is good until Monday, and it gives you guys a way to get time sensitive orders on time for a good price even at this late stage of the game. After Wednesday of next week, please choose FedEx overnight for your time critical orders and we'll do our best to see that it gets to you before Christmas weekend.


One of the small pleasures of doing customer service this time of year is answering the hundreds of customer e-mails that poor in - especially at the last minute from panicking people who are desperate that their attentions are seen to. As I spend my Sunday combing through e-mails and returning timely and courteous answers, here are examples of a few and how, well, after a long day I would like to answer them:

'I need an item by Christmas, but I can only ship it to a PO Box. Why won't the store allow and order to ship FedEx to a PO Box?'

Sometimes I can't believe how many people still don't know this. Only the postal service can deliver to a post office box. Your SOL for Christmas delivery without a street address for air service. No, I can't 'make' FedEx deliver there, no matter how bad you want them to. Happy Holidays.

'My credit card is being declined, but I know it's good. Why won't your @#$%ing store take my credit card??!!'

Your bank's declining it, not us. Why don't you call your @#$%ing bank and find out why your balance is overdrawn, or you last payment hasn't been processed yet instead of bugging me. Happy Holidays.

'I'm sorry, I need to cancel an order I just made immediately as I do not have enough money to pay for it. I need a full refund and the order canceled ASAP!! Thank you for your time.'

What do you tell the folks at the supermarket when they've just checked and bagged 100 items and you find out your debit card is overdrawn? ~sigh~ Clearly my time means little to you, but thanks for saying thanks and taking up a little more of it. I live to serve. Happy holidays.

'My order shipped on the 11th via Priority Mail and it's now the 15th and it has not yet arrived. Please explain to me why it is not here yet since I paid extra for Priority Mail, and please check and see if there was some problem that delayed shipment'

DO you have a calendar? Every mother loving SOB on the planet, and their brother, is shipping parcels to someone right now. There is so much extra volume that postal workers are committing ritual sepuku by the dozens. Keep your pants on, it will be there shortly. Happy holidays.

'How late can I order and still get my items before Christmas?'

Basically, about 3 Days ago. But if you select Air and order now and we still have everything in stock we might still pull it off. You're welcome. Happy holidays.

'Some other store says they can ship by ground up until the 19th and still guarantee Christmas delivery. Why don't you?'

No one can guarantee ground delivery on shipments that late. They lie. We don't. Happy holidays.

'I know you're really busy right now, but when you get a chance can you tell me when XX series is going to be released on DVD?'

Considering I've never even heard of 'XX' series, it's probably a long way off getting out on DVD here in the US. By the way, we do have an upcoming releases page you can check, but that's OK, you're probably assuming that we might have missed it. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. And yes we are very busy, but thanks for at least acknowledging that. Happy holidays.

'I just placed an order [Sunday Evening] and I just wanted to make sure the order ships out first thing on Monday so I get it by Christmas. Thanks!'

There are about 1,000 orders from Friday and Saturday ahead of you, but I'll tell you what, for fifty bucks I'll move you right to the head of the stack. Yeah, I said fifty bucks - by tomorrow morning it might be more. I know, the audacity to give my people the weekend off. Oh, I see you ordered all $5 sale items, choose free shipping and used a discount coupon at checkout. Yeah, we'll jump right on that one. Happy holidays.

Anyway, just a little fun after 3 weeks of non stop work. All names have been changed to protect the guilty. One of the studios sent me a bottle of Sake as a holiday gift.

After this week, I'm certainly going to be able to put it to good use... -_^

A couple of notable date changes in the news this week. Illumination pushed back their entire catalog including Vandel Buster, BtX, Am Driver, etc. See the full list in our news clips below. Geneon also let us know that the release of the initial volume of Princess Racoon has been changed from January to June 07. No reason was given for the delay. Bandai (our favorite company this year -_^) told us that the Gundam Seed Movie trilogy Box (26024) is now sold out at their level, and they are not sure if they are going to repress it again, so (~ sigh ~) we've put it on 'Stock on Hand' status and we'll see what happens.

Finally, Geneon delayed the Ergo Proxy art box one more week, and is now telling us we should have them on Monday or Tuesday next week. We'll see.

Terence, who is a regular RACS customer and also an avid photographer, has put up a site with pictures from several of the cons he attended this year. His gallery is definitely worth a look. His photographer friend Jerry also has a nice site setup with many cos-play picks from his recent Convention stops.

We got so many e-mails from folks about our 48 hour sale (basically saying it was too short), that I decided to keep it running through the weekend until Monday to give everyone more time to take advantage of that rare deep discount coupon we're offering. See the side bar for complete details and coupon codes - they are good through this weekend on every item in the store (EXCEPT our Cardcaptor Bundle)! The figure sale will continue through next week, and the coupons can be taken right on top of those sale prices. We've got end of year inventory coming up, and the less we have to count the better - so I'm going to try to keep these kind of great deals coming at ya!

Our first batch of the last call $69.98 Card Captor Sakura DVD bundles have arrived and most shipped on Friday. Our entire first batch is going to fill pre-orders and we've already pre-sold about 70% of our current allocation of them. We have these priced at 87% off the retail price and 10% to 15% lower than some of those 'brand x' guys and people are gobbling them up very quickly. If you still want one then get your order in soon as I think these bundles are going to sell out in a few more days. After several interminable delays, we have finally received our copies of Eureka Seven #5, just not in time to get it a blurb in this weeks newsletter.




We also got in IGPX #7 and the latest re-release Yu Yu Hakusho volume. They will get official notice on the site sometime shortly. We received a fairly large new manga shipment this week, and while we were able to get the first 45 books posted to the site, the rest (about 20 more) will be following up this weekend as well. Most of the distributor and studio warehouses close up next week for the holidays and don't reopen until after the new year, so I'm not looking for many big new figure and toy arrivals until early January...

...that's fine though, it will give us a chance to rest and digest some of the stuff we already have. And goodness knows, we'll need it! :-)

Updates - December 9th, 2006

It's crunch time!

Over the next few days we will fill more orders a day than we usually do in a week during the rest of the year, we will respond to every sort of customer question regarding stock levels and delivery times, and we will be totally exhausted by the time it's all done! Did I miss anything? Oh yes, a reminder that if you are just now getting your holiday gifts ordered then you have officially waited until the last minute. :-) If you are ordering over the next few days, please make sure to check our holiday shipping schedule and choose your shipping method wisely. Please don't automatically expect us to be able to get your order out the day you place it (though we will try very hard).

Also, don't forget that super saver orders by their nature get the lowest priority on the shipping line and that orders shipping FedEx Overnight, then 2nd Day, then Pri Mail, then Ground service get the highest priority on the line no matter what order we receive them in.

In Anime news this week, I have to sadly report that ADV has informed us that Golden Boy has finally gone permanently out of print, and they will no longer be replicating it - probably due to a license expiration. There are several other older ADV titles that have been on backorder for awhile and we have inquired to them for status updates. Geneon reported to us that the new Fate/Stay box that we received this week is completely sold out at their level, and we won't be able to get anymore until near the street date. We had just enough out of our first allocation to fill all of your pre-books and a few new orders, and then immediately had to put it back on pre-order status. We'll have them in stock again around the 19th, but that shipment will include the remainder of our allocation from Geneon as we won't be able to get anymore after that.



Geneon also let us know that there won't be anymore Hellsing Ultimate Limited editions made until after the New Year, and only a few at that. We have already sold 80% of our Limiteds, and we are shipping those first come first serve until they run out.

We have had excellent order fills so far this holiday season, but a couple of items have caused us some consternation like Stray Little Devil 2, Tsukuyumi Moon Phase 2, and Tsukihime 2 manga's. All three are sold out at the manufacturer and we probably won't be able to restock them until after Christmas. On the DVD side the Ergo Proxy Vol #1 w/ Art Box still is not in, but Geneon promises that we should have it no later than Monday next week. Also, Bandai was late getting out Eureka Seven Vol #5, but we're expecting both the regular and special edition to arrive today - hopefully - or Monday at the latest. :-)

The final piece of news is another disappointment. 4Kids announced this week that they are giving up on the One Piece series due to low sales and ratings. Honestly I think the execs at 4Kids need an education in Anime fandom, as they obviously licensed the title primarily for TV broadcast and thus did not option the unedited Japanese content for release. This meant that Viz had only the terrible edited dubbed version to release on DVD, and accounts for the low sales numbers and TV ratings. I remember when Geneon tried to do the same thing with Cardcaptors. The really bad news is that 4Kid's contract ties up the license until 2009, so there is no chance for an uncut release until after that. You can get the full story on this over in our news section.

All of you know that I pick 3 or 4 of your comments each week to feature in the newsletter (a little shameless promotion), but here is one that I wanted to highlight. Richard, who is currently serving in Iraq, wrote in a couple days ago to say:

"Wanted to say that again and again this site delivers beyond expectations. I always seem to get the good prices, good products and good delivery times. I even received my items in a timely manner while stationed in Baghdad, Iraq. The greatest thing about that is that unlike some services, Robert's Anime Corner Store actually ships to APO/FPO addresses. Without this site, my tour of duty would have felt much longer than it was." - Richard

The greatest thing about getting feedback like this is that we have the honor to serve those who are serving our country. Hats off to YOU Richard! We're glad we could make your tour a little easier and you and your mates will be in our thoughts and prayers over the holidays.

We've posted several more excellent Q1 and Q2 2007 figures for pre-order.
Here is the latest rundown:

Emma
Hauruhi
Angel
Shinku
Louise
Amano
Rin

It certainly has been an excellent week for new arrivals. Aside from a few studio glitches which I mentioned earlier, we have just about all but a handful of DVD titles scheduled to street prior to Christmas in stock now, including Black Cat, Ergo Proxy, Trinity Blood 3, Hellsing Ultimate, Rumbling Hearts, Fate/Stay, Paradise Kiss, Naruto Season 2 Uncut, and the list goes on and on! This is the last week for non-panic holiday shopping, so be sure to checkout our specials page for all the great holiday deals we are currently offering.

We still have our entire figure section on sale (these make great gifts!), and we are also offering an additional 10% off a selected list, which you can find here.

Our $5 soundtrack sale is still in effect for a bit longer, that list is here.

We still have a few titles left in our Geneon $5 DVD sale. Some are only $4 now.

We have lots of closeout titles discounted up to 75% off retail, which are listed here.

And finally, as you may be aware, Geneon's license for CardCaptor Sakura is expiring on Dec 31st, and the DVD's will not be available after that date. We have done a deal with them that allows us to offer you an unbelievable price on all 18 of the uncut subtitled series DVD's. We expect these bundles to arrive in about a week, and we will shipping them first come first served. If you don't already have it, this will be your last chance to get the CardCaptors series before it goes off the market.

Cardcaptor Sakura Complete Series Set, Vol #1-18, DVD Mega-Bundle (Uncut Subtitled Edition)
Your Price is ONLY $69.98! - Retail Price $539.82 (That's 87% off the Retail Price!)

Now that's a deal worth offering! Happy holidays!

Updates - December 3rd, 2006

So far so good, things are going smoothly here at Anime Corner world headquarters during the first week of holiday cyber madness. Our new facility gives us so much more capacity that we have not had any problems getting orders shipped on a daily basis. We are also seeing truly excellent fill rates and very few stock outs or backorders thus far ('thus far' being the key operative there), much better than last year. Orders are being delivered even faster this year. We are now able to get most pre-orders shipped out the same day the product arrives, and we are able to get the store updated almost in real time. For instance, yesterday when the Naruto uncut boxed sets arrived, the site was updated to reflect that they were in stock within 40 minutes of them being unloaded. Even though they came very late in the day, pre order tickets were printed last night and the orders have already been filled early the next morning. I want to give kudo's to our staff who are doing just a fantastic job of keeping everything running smoothly during the rush. This coming week will be the real test, as the start of December seems to have kicked people into a shopping frenzy and our order volume so far over the weekend has been...

well...

...it's going to be one hell of a week!

The folks in the mid-west have seen a virtual white out this week due to the first major snowstorm of the year. It looks like just rain and wind for us here, but I'm sure there will be some limited parcel delays in the effected areas, so keep that in mind when ordering and give your parcel an extra day or two to be delivered.

This week Flash Gordon completes his reviews of the Patlabor TV and OVA series with overall ratings and episode guides for the original OVA and the New Files releases.

In the news this week we have a few more product delays. This year the studios across the board have really been struggling to get their releases out on time, and I can't remember when there have been more delays and cancellations. Geneon managed to ship the first DVD of Ergo Proxy on time, but an issue has delayed delivery of the box version until sometime next week. Even as of this morning they were not able to pin down an exact delivery date. Media Blasters says the new Invader Zim boxed set probably won't be shipping to retailers now until the 2nd week of December. They also delayed the second Voltron Tin, resetting the release date back a couple of weeks to 12-12. We've had some trouble recently getting timely manga restocks from Dr. Master, and I'm trying to find out what the story is there. Finally, things have been a little sparse stock wise on the import side as we have not taken any new deliveries from Tokyo since September. We now have our first post move import shipment in process, and will be getting our import stock back up to par shortly. I want to thank everyone waiting for an import CD for their patience during this period.

Anyone planning on getting me something for Christmas? This is what I want ...

We have several new figure arrivals for you this week, including a wonderful version of Ryogi Shiki and another excellent Igunis figure, this one from Max Factory. Now that the relocation is behind us, we have also started putting up new figures for pre-order - the first of which being two beautiful figures from Rumble Roses due in next April. Don't forget, our holiday figure sale is still going on and you have the chance to really stock on one some great figures right now at close to our cost. We also have another excellent manga update this week including two new series Nosatsu Junkie and Soul Rescue from ToykoPop, and new additions to series like Girls Bravo, Moon Phase, Beck, and Yubisaki Milk Tea.

Geneon did get Hellsing Ultimate shipped on time, but just barely. We received the regular edition on Thursday, but the limited's are not due to arrive until the day before or of the street date. We'll get those guys shipped as soon as they hit the dock. We received our Hellsing Ultimate screener copies last week, and after watching it a couple of times I think the worst thing about it is going to be the long wait between volumes! ^_^ I'm checking right now on the status of Eureka Seven #5, and I'm hoping Bandai will tell us it's already in transit since it streets next week. On the flip side of the delivery coin, ADV has been getting us their titles 2 or 3 weeks early. Last week we saw Pani Poni Dash arrive, and this week we received Nerima Daikon Brothers which was originally not scheduled to come out until Dec 19th. We also received the FUMOFFU and E's Otherwise thin-paks a couple of weeks early. Hopefully this trend will continue and all the other pre-Christmas releases will be in stock in plenty of time for you to enjoy them over the holidays.

In the mean time, we'll stay on top of everything and concentrate on getting all your holiday orders shipped as quickly and as complete as possible!

[UPDATE]: The Invader Zimm DVD Boxed sets have now arrived. Figures. :-)

[UPDATE]: Bandai reports that Eureka 7 Vol #5 shipped late from their replicator (par for the course these days), but they are now shipping them out to retailers, so it looks like it will arrive here around mid-week this week.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Since my parents passed away several years ago, Jamie and I now normally go over to her parents house for holiday dinners, but this year it looks like I'm going to be sitting this one out at home due to not feeling well (it's something that's been coming to a head for awhile now, but I won't bore you with the details). I'll be thinking about all you guys out there though, and I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. Of course, we'll be back to work on Friday running a full shift to make sure we keep up with processing your Holiday orders.

Our store wide 15% off figure and toy sale has been pretty successful so far, and since I'm not feeling well (I was stuck at home tonight) I went ahead and used the time to finish keying up the holiday figure specials on the store. Ron and Fuller put together a list of about 20 of our most popular selling figures and toys, and I went ahead and keyed them up for an additional 10% coupon discount. I think it's definitely worth a look as the two sale discounts together puts the price of these guys and gals about as close to cost as we can afford to sell them. I'm going to announce this in the newsletter on Friday, but you saw it here first.

You can find full details right here.

One of things we're working on this weekend is a boxed set page, and we should have that completed and up in a couple of days. We're also working this weekend on posting Feb and March solicitations including some of the series coming from the new studio Illumitoon like Bt'X and BoBoBoBoBoBoBoBoBo. On Wednesday I talked to Richard Ray, the executive VP down there, and they seem to have a really squared away operation setup and I'm looking forward to seeing some very high quality Anime releases from their label.

This will be our 9th holiday season serving Anime fans. Considering how hard we work over the holiday's taking care of everyone else (and really not having much time to celebrate ourselves), I thought I'd mention that you might want to give a little more thought to the clerk or customer service rep at some store who is working long hours to help you meet your shopping goals. Many retail stores are opening up at midnight tonight to get a jump on the Black Friday rush, and while most people have a 4 day weekend, the folks that work in retail will not have much of any weekend at all. Running an online store, I at least get the privilege of being able to work from home this Saturday and Sunday, but even many of the people that make-up the Anime Corner crew will be cutting visits with relatives short to come back so we can process orders on Friday. For online retail, e-mails come in 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and no one is going to tolerate waiting 4 days for their questions to be answered. Anyway, try to have a little more patience with the people putting in those long hours at work while you're doing your shopping and enjoying your time off. They are working very hard for YOU and appreciate the extra patience you show them during this hectic time of year.

Have a great weekend everyone, and enjoy your Anime!

Updates - November 17th, 2006

The holiday season volume has started to ramp up, and we're buckling down and getting ready for the onslaught that is only a few days away. Bring in on!

:-)

Seriously though, this year the studios are going to use the holidays to clear out inventory more so than any other time in the past, so sellouts and stock limitations will rule the day towards the latter part of December. If you have any critical gift items that you need to pickup then don't chance it, order as early as possible to help us make sure you get everything you need on time.

To encourage some of you would be 'late' shoppers to get your orders in early, we've discounted our entire figure and toy section 15%. In addition to getting a great deal, you'll have first dibs on all of our in stock toys and figures before they start selling out later this month. I'm going to be consolidating a list of all our sales and special offers here on the blog throughout the holidays, and I'm going to be offering some exclusive coupons here later this month, so be sure to check in often to keep up with the latest store happenings, product status reports, and special deals. Here's what we have currently:

• Pre-Holiday Rush 15% Off Figure Sale
• Geneon Fall Bargain Basement $5 DVD Sale
• Give the Gift of Music $5 Holiday Soundtrack Promotion
• Great Deals and UMD Closeout Sale
• Discontinued Items at Closeout Prices Up to 75% off Retail

You know it's going to be a bad evening when you get home and your broadband connection doesn't work, and that's what I ran into Friday evening. I have a pretty high end business class ADSL connection at home, but I use an older 3-Com 812 ADSL router for the connection.

My network closet at home. No I don't tie up my NIC cables like I'm supposed to. Linksys Wireless-G access point gives me secure wireless for my laptop computer, everything else is hardwired Cat 5e. My 3-Com 812 spare is sitting on top of my regular 812 (mounted to my dumb hub), which turned out to be working pefectly.

I like it better than some of the newer plug and play routers (like a Speed Stream or a D-Link) because it allows you to manually setup just about every setting there is for an IP connection, and it supports VPN and a whole bunch of other features. Last night I came home and my connection was suddenly unavailable, and it took 3 calls, an onsite visit, and about 2 hours of phone time for us to figure out the problem and get it fixed. Our carrier, Frontier, uses PPPoA (PPP over ATM) for the connection, and this requires that an account name and PW authorization be built into the router configuration. Turns out that in my setup, the login domain was changed on their end from citlink.net to frontiernet.net (as part of some network wide upgrade process), and my old router could not be automatically updated remotely. One interesting thing is that since I'm pretty savvy on this sort of stuff, I had to get to a level 2 tech before we were even able to discuss probable cause - all the level 1's just have a check list they go through, most of which I had already done before calling in. The onsite tech that came out told me the router was bad, but I had a hot spare and that didn't work either. The level 2 support guy zero'd in on the problem right away, where it had eluded two level 1 techs. Apparently, they were not aware of their own network changes in progress. Anyway, it's fixed now and thus this post is now up.

Speaking of internet connections, after a 2 month wait Verizon finally hooked up the facilites for our T1 (which is actually though Quest) out at the new office, and we have weaned off a less than optimal WiFi connection we had setup as an inbetweener. The T1 is incredible, speed tests give us rock solid 1.46Mb down-stream and 1.41Mb up-stream. We are running an internal server, VoIP for the phone and fax lines, and VPN out to my house so I can access the office server from home. The VOiP sound quality over it is excellent, and it provides our phone lines for about 40% of the cost of regular business landlines (not to mention it eliminates having a long distance carrier) which paid for the extra cost of the T. Best thing about it is that it's about as close to 100% reliable as you can get, I even picked up a spare Cisco 2524 router with T1/FT1 module for about $30 (those routers were around 2 grand years ago, but can be had for nothing now and still works great for a T). The WiFi connection we had was really terrible. It was a 1mb 'burst' level connection that had a terrible latency and was only up about 91% of the time - which means it would be down off and on about 90 minutes a day. Glad we're off of that!

OK, I'm rambling, back to business... -_^

Peter Paine put up some images on his side blog (that he obtained from this guy) that show some of the real places that can be seen in the Onegai Twins anime. Visiting the real places that are shown in an Anime series is considered a very 'Otaku' thing to do in Japan, but I think it's extremely cool and just had to post a few of the images here for you to see:

Not too much going on in the news this week. We did get the word from Funimation that the new Initial D Box set has been put on indefinite hold, so we've taken it off the site and unfortunately we've had to cancel any pre-orders for it. Hopefully this item will make a reappearance sometime next year. Funimation did finally make the big announcement about the re-issuing of the entire DBZ series (by saga!) in High Def format, with the Vegeta saga being the first set released in February. This announcement also means that Fun will not be repressing any of the original version DBZ DVD's, and we have placed the entire lot on 'stock on hand' status to be safe.

We've been working hard this week to keep the site updated not only with new arrivals (as they hit the dock), but also getting all the great upcoming item announcements built on the site. We've added tons of upcoming titles like Coyote Ragtime Show, Utawarerumono, Tales of Phantasia, Gakuen Heaven, Solty Rei, Best Student Council, and many others. Be sure to keep an eye on the upcoming releases page as we're updating it daily as the announcements come in.

We were a bit surprised, but none-the-less very pleased, to see several December DVD titles arrive this week including Pani Poni Dash! and Bleach. With the holiday rush coming, the sooner the studios get them out the better. We received the elusive 2nd Raid boxed sets and promptly sold out of them, but I was able to call in a few favors and get them restocked, though only a few. We also saw the arrival of the 3rd Tenchi Ryo-Ohki DVD in a beautiful limited edition Tin art box. This box is limited to the first pressing, so I'm sure they will run out quickly. And the Jubei-Chan box came after we had almost given up hope. Bandai had to delay it's release a couple months due to a license renewal, but they are here now and ready for your enjoyment!

We have yet another excellent manga and book update for you including new volumes from Cheeky Angel and Red River, plus a new title called Punch (that Jamie says is excellent!).

We also received a new figure shipment that contained several overdue favorites including the sexy Chitose Nambu, Burst Angel Jo, and the kneeling Kan-u Unchou. Pre orders are shipping now, and we won't have many left once they are processed. And finally we have some new Gundam Seed kits for those of you who like to model. Stay tuned for even more great new items arriving daily!

Ok, enough of my blabber-mouthing, I've gotta get back to work! -_^

Updates - November 10th, 2006

Well the elections are behind us - which means no more awful campaign adds on TV and radio. And we look forward to serving our new Democratic overlords.

This Saturday is Veterans day, and I want to say Thank You to all of our wonderful service men and women. It's a privilege to be able to help so many of you with your Anime needs while you serve our country, and I want to personally thank each one of you for your support, and your dedication.

In the past, I've taken some heat from some Anime fans for supporting our troops openly here at the Anime Corner, and it may have even cost us some business from people (especially from some of our overseas customers) who felt my comments in support of our troops were, well, inappropriate. I still have a few e-mails archived that I keep to remind me of how judgmental people can be. The fact remains that I proudly served in Army National Guard (1/170th 29th Div Lt ARNG) for 6 years back during the first Gulf War, and I got out a short time before my unit was deployed to Bosnia for a year as part of the NATO peacekeeping force. In 1990 I won the division soldier of the year award and had the opportunity to go to the 29th Division Reunion that year in Carlisle, PA and meet some of the men who stormed the beach on D-Day at Normandy in 1944. Hearing them tell their stories (and drinking to the 29th with those men) was a surreal experience that effected me very deeply, and one that I will never forget. All of the wonderful people in our military that put themselves in harms way now, and in the past, will always be my brothers and sisters, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for them - you see I understand why they do what they do, and the sacrifices they make - and personally I don't care if other people do or not.

With that in mind and in honor of Veterans day in the US, here is a wonderful music video by Australian Beccy Cole. She supports her troops regardless of her fans' opinions - and so do we. To all of our brave men and women in the military on your day, this is for you:

We're currently in the process of reworking our sale and specials section in a more friendly tabular format. We've also updated the specials and closeout sections and have added several dozen more series to the list (not to mention we dropped prices on some of these to as much as 75% off retail!). Here's a summary of what we've got so far:

• Geneon Fall Bargain Basement $5 DVD Sale

  Give the Gift of Music $5 Holiday Soundtrack Promotion

  Great Deals and UMD Closeout Sale

  Discontinued Items at Closeout Prices Up to 75% off Retail

In the news over the last couple of weeks have been a lot of the inevitable major product delays we always see around the holidays. First, ADV has delayed the release of the 10th Anniversary Edition Eva boxed set indefinitely. If the pre-order numbers were too low, well, I would guess that not a lot of fans are ready to plunk down another $250 for yet another version of Eva. I say release the box for $89.98 and give people an opportunity to buy the jacket separately. In any case, we have had to cancel all pre-orders for the sets on this announcement, and I apologize that we won't be able to get these out to you guys that did want a copy.

Synch-Point announced that the FLCL Ultimate box will be delayed from 11-21 to 12-27. Basically, Synch-Point didn't think they could get it out by Christmas and didn't want to foster that hope so they set the new date post holidays. Media Blasters also told us that they are going to miss the street date of 11-7 on the Ah My Goddess TV Series box. They said their replicator is waiting for replenishment on some of the individual volumes before they can assemble the box set, and that they are hoping to have delivery to retailers within a few weeks - which leaves the question open ended as to whether they will be able to get this box out for the holidays. We'll just have to wait and see.

Speaking of Ah My Goddess, we also got the disappointing announcement this week that because of the cost, Media Blasters was forced to pass on the 2nd Season of AMG. This does not mean that it won't be released, and I'm sure another studio will pick it up, but it keeps the title in limbo for awhile longer. Check the news section for some comments from John Serabella (the owner of Media Blasters).

Production I.G has updated its Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - Solid State Society interview series, this time with scriptwriter Shotaro Suga. Their interview with producer Tomohisa Nishimura is still available here.

We currently have another review in the works from Flash Gordon, but I could not get the editing done in time for this weeks newsletter, so it will appear in next weeks issue. To keep you busy while your waiting, here is an interesting test to see how compatible you are with Rei Ayanami (and you KNOW you want to take it!).

We finally sorted out several late titles this week with the arrival of One Piece 5, Trinity Blood 2 Limited, Kaliedo Star New Wings 6, Megaman 11, and Tactics 2. Most of these were just late ships, but a couple were studio mess-ups that we had to jump through some hoops to get in. I think I made a couple people down at Funimation mad this week, but they'll just have to live with it because I don't like having to fix other people problems (especially when it effects our customers) - and I don't mind telling them so (that means you Larry)! -_^

Yet another really nice new manga update this week with 7 new series including Rose Hip Zero which after the first volume looks very promising! Hey - Ron just popped in and told me that the long awaited first volume of FMP 2nd RAID just arrived and is currently getting allocated to pre-orders. As I said previously the Art Box sold out a couple weeks ago at the wholesale level, but the good news is that we received our entire order and should have a few left over after all the pre-books are filled. Anyone who wants a copy should get in your order now before our remaining stock vaporizes.

[UPDATE]: It turns out we had only 22 copies of the 2nd RAID box left after filling all the pre-orders. I doubt they'll last the weekend unless I can scope some more from somewhere else.

[UPDATE #2]: I have so far been able to turn up 30 more boxes from my 'extensive' list of resources (i.e. - calling in some favors). They will be here on Tuesday. It's a good thing, because the original remaining 22 we're sold out before Midnight on Friday... The search continues...

The CD sale continues go well and several soundtracks have already sold out. I'm going to keep that sale up until all of that sale stock is gone. Finally, I put our entire UMD section on sale this week. UMD never came up to the expectations we had for it, but at the sale prices these volumes are still great deals and would make excellent gifts for any PSP owner.

As always, all sale stock will be allocated first come first served. I'm sure you wouldn't want it any differently...