Dead English Language Anime Magazines: “Animenominous!”

Publisher: BDC Enterprises, Inc
Format: 210mm x 280mm (Standard Magazine Size)
Genre/Type: Anime, Manga, Japanese Music, Convention and Events Coverage
Years Active: 1990 – 1993
Issues Published: 5

Easily one of the more obscure anime magazines published in North America, with one of the stranger magazine title names, the origins of Animenominous! began as a loose meeting of fans on a Bulletin Board System (BBS, a kind of forum prior to the invention of HTML and web browsers) in 1987. Originally called Animation Anonymous, due to the fact many fans were closeted, the name was soon shorted to Animenominous. The small group managed to create five newsletters called Anime-E (Anime Electronic Mail) which were posted on various BBS. With the success of those five newsletters, and the success of other early anime magazines such as Anime-zine, Animag and Protoculture Addicts, some of the members decided bring the newsletter into comic book stores as an actual magazine.

Based in New Jersey, the magazine’s core staff included editor Jeff Thompson, composition and typesetting from Luke Menichelli, who previously did the layouts and composition for Anime-zine and the furry fandom zine Furtherance, and comic book artist Steve Rittler who did the covers for the magazine, created the magazine’s mascot, Animimi and had a comic running in the magazine called “Jasta”.

Issue one was published in the summer of 1990 and featured the rather obscure Rem Ayanokoji from “Dream Hunter Rem” on the cover. This character was from an Ero anime OVA from the mid 1980’s which was later reformatted into a mainstream OVA series. Running 40 pages long, the features and topics in the first issue were typical of the interests of many North American fans of that era; “Urusei Yatsura”, “Captain Harlock”, “Patlabor” and “Kimagure Orange Road”. Although several anime companies such as Streamline Pictures, AnimEigo and U.S. Renditions had begun selling video tapes to the small but dedicated fan base, the bulk of the articles in the magazine were in the format of episode and character synopses. This is because VHS fansubs had not become widespread (and were virtually non-existent), so most fans had to rely on synopses or take up Japanese to understand the untranslated tapes and laserdiscs they either bought or traded.

One of the more interesting articles in the first issue is one on the “Girls with Guns” genre, though the author, Stanley Jacobson, seems to include titles which are clearly not in that genre such as “Gall Force”. As per many articles in magazines of the period, there is some really questionable information stated as fact. The article claims that the title character from “Iczer 1” is male, which is blatantly untrue. However in the mook (magazine/book) “Iczer-One Mediamix Special Part 2”, it does state that the character Iczer-2 is male (judging for the anime OVA this seems to be untrue as well). Perhaps the author gleaned the information from that mook and got confused. Interestingly the article also makes mention of a very obscure Osamu Tezuka TV special from 1983 called “Prime Rose”. It’s kind of amazing that fans in the very early 1990’s would even know about these titles.

However the article from Animenominous! that caused the most controversy amongst fans was the one on “Kimagure Orange Road”. In the character profiles it erroneously stated that the lead character, Madoka Ayukawa, is half American and a “burakumin”, that is an outcast, the lowest of the low, a term derived from the Sengoku period (circa 1467 - 1600) when a caste system was introduced in Japan. While the author of the article, Walter Higgins, may have confused the fact Madoka was American due to the fact her sister was married to one, however claiming that Madoka is “burakumin” is just plain odd. The second issue corrected the “burakumin” label saying that it was meant to be “ai no ko” (literally love child), which back in the Showa era also colloquially could refer to a person of mixed race (which was not explained in the magazine's correction). The “Kimagure Orange Road” article certainly did not help the magazine. It was often cited by fans of the franchise as being error ridden, with some who believed that due to this fact, the writing in the magazine wasn’t to be trusted. The first issue also contained a fantastic bibliography and filmography (up to 1984) of Osamu Tezuka who had died in 1989.

Rounding out the magazine is a six page comic called “Jasta” by Steve Rittler. It follows the adventures of a German World War I fighter pilot named Rupert Volsung who ends up in another dimension after flying through a vortex. There he saves a young female pilot from being killed by two spacecraft and finds himself in the midst of an intergalactic war. While it is very much stylised “anime art” of the era, the comic is relatively original and quite interesting. As the story progresses we are giving a lot of the backstory to the world Rupert has ended up in, obviously inspired from “Gall Force” with heavy influences from Leiji Matsumoto’s work. Unfortunately the comic disappeared from the magazine by the fourth issue. As I previously mentioned, Rittler supplied the magazine with most of its cover artwork. My favourite of his would be the second issue which featured the cast of “Ranma ½” on the front cover and on the back cover all of them transformed after they had been splashed by water.

The next three issues followed on in three to six month gaps. These issues had a mix of anime titles which were quite popular with fans and some more obscure titles not covered in other magazines of the era such as “Blue Sonnet”, “Galaxy Express 999”, “Cutey Honey” and “City Hunter”. Issue two also included an excellent article on Roman Album mooks including a list of Roman Albums published to date and a CD review column which become a regular feature. Issue two also included the first letters to the editor column. Most of the letters were quite positive about anime and the magazine itself, however one Australian, Ken Stone, was rather negative about sever popular titles. According to him “Dunbine” and “Gundam” were both “major wastes of space” and “Dirty Pair wasn’t that great”. Yeah, righty-o Ken. It’s always interesting to see who wrote into magazines like this and what fandom was like during early eras of fandom. However the only name of note I spotted in this magazine was Tim Eldred who is probably the leading English language source on “Star Blazers” and “Yamato” and previously worked for the franchise's US arm, Voyager Entertainment.

Speaking of which, issue two also had a “Yamato” article with author lamenting that North American fans no longer followed the franchise for a fair chunk of it's length. But the lack of fandom engagement with the franchise was to be expected as no anime had been produced since 1983. By issue three, a news section was included. However as with a many early anime magazines in English, a lot of the material presented as news was a bit suspect. One news article erroneously attributes the film “Only Yesterday” as being one directed by Hayao Miyazaki, another news article suggests “Nadia of the Mysterious Seas” would be getting an OVAs series. The magazine also stated that they would have an interview with Kenichi Sonoda in the following issue (with Animecon ’91 around the corner, which he was a guest of), however this did not eventuate. Other articles of note in the last couple of issues of the magazine include one on “My Neighbour Totoro”, an article recommending anime to beginners (bizarrely absent in most anime magazines of the era), a write up on the first big anime convention in the US, Animecon ’91, and one on “Gatchaman”.

The “Gatchaman” article is pretty extensive, running 16 pages long, covering not only the original series but the two follow up TV series; “Gatchaman II” and “Gatchaman F”. But the article also contains the author’s hilarious laundry list of “problems” she had with the franchise such as Jun’s supposedly bad haircut, the “bad” animation in the first 20 episodes, the fact the Science Ninja Team wear the same clothes all the time, the children in the show are apparently drawn “ugly” and the fact Berg Katse’s personality is all over the shop.

Issue five, the final issue, was delayed by almost two years. While the magazine had by this time expanded to 52 pages, it was apparent from the editorial that things had gone quite badly for the magazine in that time. Steve Rittler had already left the magazine by the time issue four was published to work on his own comic book projects. Luke Menichelli had also left the magazine which meant that Jeff Thompson was running the entire magazine by himself. Not helping things was the fact the magazine had moved address, but all of their mail hadn’t been redirected and a lot of it had got lost. Thompson promised that a sixth issue would follow as soon as he could replace Menichelli and Rittler, however that sixth issue never materialised. As far as I can figure out, the magazine still attended anime conventions in the US with tables in the dealer’s room or Thompson as a guest representing the magazine until at least late 1994.

Jeff Thompson would later work in the emerging US anime video distribution industry, first as a freelance video box designer then as an employee of the Right Stuf where he edited the famed paper catalogue for the company as well as working a producer on many of their English language adaptations of anime. He was also instrumental in helping start one of the biggest anime conventions in the US, Otakon, in Baltimore, Maryland. Sadly Jeff died in 2006, leaving large shoes to fill at the Right Stuf. Steve Rittler went on to illustrate the comic “Morrigan” in 1993. I think this comic didn’t get beyond one issue and Steve doesn’t seem to have worked on anything else after this. After Animenominous!, Luke Menichelli seems to have disappeared into the ether in terms of participation in fandom.

As I said at the beginning of this post, Animenominous! has to be the most obscure of all English language anime magazines published in North America. Back in the very early 2000's, it took me several years of searching to find all five issues. I found the debut issue via a bookstore in the UK and a few other issues from less well known online comic book shops which no longer exist. Currently the only issue I can find for sale is the third issue on eBay, selling for US$11. Issue four can be found on the Internet Archive. Due to the many errors in the magazine (well, not a great deal, but enough to be of a concern) and the fact you can easily get the information elsewhere, this is probably not a magazine that’s essential for most people’s collection. Unless of course you’re like me and enjoy collecting these English language oddities. However Steve Rittler’s art is quite fun and is easily one of the best elements of the magazine. It is a real shame though that a lot of these early anime magazines are lost to time and forgotten by anime fandom as whole, even to those who archive and document early anime fandom.

Anime On the Big Screen: “Detective Conan: The Crimson Love Letter”

Venue: Dendy Cinemas, Level 2, North Quarter, Canberra Centre, 148 Bunda Street, Canberra City, ACT
Date: Sunday 21 October 2018
Distributor: Toho Pictures (presented by the Japan Foundation as part of the Japanese Film Festival)
Format: Digital Projection, Japanese dialogue with English subtitles
Length: 112 minutes
Production Date: 2017
Currently on Home Video in English (as of writing): No

Unlike the horrible weather of the previous day, Sunday was a fantastic, sunny and warmish spring day with scant cloud cover in the blue skies above. Surprisingly Canberra Centre wasn’t crowded as usual. The second anime movie I went to see this weekend was playing as part of the 2018 Japanese Film Festival which had run over the previous three days. Two anime films played last year, however we’re back to one feature this year and it’s a doozy; a film based on a continuing franchise over two decades old that has made no real impression on western anime fans, let alone in Australia. I was given a survey as I walked in and told to complete it so more anime was programmed for future festivals in Canberra. I wasn’t going to argue the point of why in hell this film was programmed. There was plenty of other recent features they could have programmed such as the two Science Saru films; “The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl”, which oddly Melbourne did get, and “Lu Over the Wall”. However I made the comment that one of the better independent Japanese films of recent years, “One Cut of the Dead”, wasn’t even playing in Canberra for the festival, yet was listed in the line up for other capitals.

I really don’t get what goes on in the minds of the festival’s programmers. I honestly don’t. Despite the strange selection of the 2017 “Conan” movie, almost 50 people showed up for the screening. As per usual it was a mix of people; quite a lot of Japanese parents bringing their children to the screening, the usual film festival types, a couple of otaku types (with one rather large guy continually shoving popcorn into his face) and strangely a couple of groups of young women. Dendy had the Vapors song “Turning Japanese” playing over the PA before the screening commenced, which was quite frankly strange. Before I attempt to dissect the film, I think a quick rundown of the franchise is in order; based on the long running manga by Gosho Aoyama and published in Shonen Sunday, the manga became so popular it spawned an anime series in 1996 which still to this day gains high ratings and is now up to episode 917 as of last week. 22 films have also been produced since 1997, with this one being the 21st and also the highest grossing one at the time of release (with nearly a million tickets sold and ¥6.87 billion in box office receipts).

The series follows Shinichi Kudo, a high school detective who gains fame by helping the police solve murder mysteries. While on a date with his childhood sweetheart Ran Mori at a theme park, he comes across a shady deal being hatched by a criminal organisation, but is caught by its members and knocked out. They force a strange new poison down his throat in an attempt to kill him. However instead of killing him, it oddly shrinks his body down to that of a first grade child. To hide his true identity, Shinichi takes up the alias Conan Edogawa and tags along with Ran’s bumbling detective father, Kogoro Mori, in the hope Kogoro will take a case involving the organisation that poisoned him so he can obtain the antidote that can turn him back into his old self. When he is able to solve a case, he uses a tranquilizer to put Kogoro to sleep and impersonates him using a voice changer to reveal the solution. Conan enrols in a local elementary school where he makes friends with several classmates who form their own detective club called the Detective Boys. He also befriends a professor, Dr Agasa, who makes various gadgets for him to use in his investigations and often teams up with teenage detective Heiji Hattori and his not quite girlfriend, Kazuha Toyama.

This movie has the Detective Boys club along with Detective Kogoro, Ran, Heiji and Kazuha traveling to Osaka to cheer on Mikiko Hiramoto who is playing in Japan’s biggest karuta tournament as part of the high school karuta club she and Kazuha are in. A mock tournament is being played in front of the cameras in a local TV station with Mikiko and champion Momiji Ooka playing as a rehearsal. In between setting the stage up for the broadcast, Momiji bumps into Heiji and states that she has just met her future husband. Naturally Kazuha is rather miffed at this accidental meeting and interrogates Heiji to find out if her really knows her. The local police inform the station that a bomb threat has been received. The station is evacuated, but Mikiko goes back to retrieve a special set of karuta cards that will be used in the final. Conan, Heiji and Kazuha run back in to save Mikiko, but the bomb goes off during their evacuation. Mikiko manages to escape, but the others are trapped and decide to head to the roof. Conan uses his Elasticity Suspenders to lower Heiji and Kazuha to the ground, but a second explosion weakens the roof and he forced to use his Turbo Engine Skateboard and the station’s satellite dish to catapult himself towards the river. He doesn’t quite make it, however Heiji saves him by catching him in his arms.

In the aftermath we learn that Mikiko has broken her arm and can no longer play. She convinces Kazuha to play for her, though she feels that she is not up to Mikiko’s standard. Help arrives in the form of Heiji’s mother, Shizuka Hattori, a famous karuta champion, who teaches her everything she knows. It is later revealed that karuta champion Toshiya Yajima has been murdered. Several karuta cards are spread around the crime scene. It becomes obvious that the murder is related to the forthcoming karuta tournament, and soon people connected with the tournament start receiving threatening emails containing images of karuta cards which all have the word “Momiji” in their poems. It is believed that a man named Shikao Nagoro is behind the threats. Missing for several years, Nagoro was the leader of an elite karuta group in which Momiji was his greatest student. Conan believes the final target of the bomber is Momiji herself and that the bomber will strike in the finals of the championship.

This film, like the last six “Conan” films which preceded it, was directed by Kobun Shizuno, who is better known to anime fans as the director of CG anime such as the recent “Godzilla” trilogy and “Knights of Sidonia”. Besides Shinzuno, there isn’t any other really notable staff who worked on this film. But on the voice acting side of things though, there are some really big hitters; Megumi Hayashibara plays Ai Haibara (who plays only a small role in the film, but a large one in the “Conan” universe), Yuko Miyamura (Asuka in “Evangelion”) playing Kazuha Toyama, Akira Kamiya (Ryo Saeba in “City Hunter”) plays Kogoro and Minami Takayama (Nabiki Tendo in “Ranma ½”) as Conan.

On the positive side of things, much of the action is really well done. There are approximately three major action sequences and Shizuno shows off his fantastic skills in all three (Shizuno storyboarded the film as well). He certainly knows where to place the camera to obtain some great shots. According to interviews for the film, manga author Gosho Aoyama cited the recent live action adaptations of the manga series “Chihayafuru” (also made into an anime with the live action films being screened at this Japanese Film Festival) as inspiration. Much like “Chihayafuru”, this film makes use of the beautiful surrounds of the Omi Jingu Shrine which in real life hosts the national karuta championship. In the game play of karuta itself, Shizuno cleverly uses the cards flying in the air as moving screens to depict the action in and around the game being held. The closing credits also uses really beautiful live action footage of the area in and around Omi Jingu, which I thought was a great way to end the film.

Now having said that, I really struggled with this film. As it was part of a much larger franchise that I practically knew nothing about (apart from the few episodes I managed to catch on TV in my travels to Japan), I attempted to read up on as much as I could before I went. However it’s pretty hard to jam over 20 years of the franchise into a quarter of an hour or so of reading. As the cast is rather large (and even with the fact many characters did not appear or had mere cameos in this film), I found it really hard to work out the relationships in the film and generally couldn’t get their personal idiosyncrasies that had been built up over the last two decades. Coupled with that was a rather convoluted mystery involving karuta cards and organisations linked to the game with characters being introduced left right and centre at a rapid rate.

Adding to this hellish mix was the rather bizarre world of “Conan” in which not only do you have to suspend disbelief that a teenager has been shrunk to the size of a young child, but also that he solves crimes and uses his unconscious girlfriend’s father and a voice changing bowtie in order to announce the culprit of the crime, because no one is going to believe a child. And this is despite the very realistic world settings. The gadgets Conan uses are really silly and implausible (turbo propelled skateboard?!) and the action sequences have some plainly absurd moments. The worst offender is the action sequence at the TV station. One part involves Conan escaping the burning and crumbling roof top by riding his turbo skateboard around and around the TV station’s satellite dish in an effort to gain speed so he can jump over the road into the river several hundred metres away. It’s utterly daft. Meanwhile the bomber standing outside the burning building is depicted as if he is wearing a black zentai suit, which I assume is to hide his identity from the audience, however it just looks strange, as nobody in the crowd seems to notice this weird man in a black zentai suit grinning manically. Other methods surely should have been considered to hide his identity from the audience. Why they chose this method baffles me.

I also didn’t think much of most of the animation. It doesn’t really get above TV animation level for the vast majority of the film. The music isn’t much chop either. For the most part it’s quite dull synthesizer music that at times sounds like it escaped from a B-movie. Adding to the film’s woes are the subtitles. First up they were white and quite thin and didn’t have a great deal of black border to them. Any time there was a light or white background, they could be extremely difficult to read. The translation wasn’t up to snuff either. There were a lot of grammatical errors and obviously the script editor or translator couldn’t work out how to handle the puns and wordplay all that well. For instance if there was a bit of wordplay, the line would be translated literally, plus the line would also romanised in Japanese. Apparently the audience was meant to read all the subs in a very short time frame, then work out the pun or wordplay for themselves. This film was screened in Singaporean cinemas last year, so I’m assuming the version screened here is identical to Singaporean one. Odex was the distributor, who are pretty notorious for their shitty subs and translations. It certainly looks like their work.

Summing up, I couldn't get into this film much at all. It was too hard me coming into this film fresh without really knowing the history of the franchise. It was extremely difficult to work out the convoluted mystery, keep track of the suspects and try to figure out who all these characters are and how they relate to each other in the “Conan” universe. I also couldn’t suspend my disbelief in spots. Parts of it were a bit too silly. The choice of this feature for the film festival beggar’s belief; a movie from a 20 year franchise that is pretty much unknown to a lot of western anime fans, let alone general festival goers, involving a mystery set around a card game unfamiliar to the vast majority of westerners. I mean the manga series is a relatively good seller for Viz and American late night show host Conan O'Brien has recently raised the profile of the series, but come on! At times the film did interest me, I did like part of the mystery and lot of the action sequences where fun (when you could suspend disbelief), however it wasn’t exactly a fun experience for me. 5 out of 10 and I’m being quite generous.

Anime On the Big Screen: “I Want to Eat Your Pancreas”

Venue: Dendy Cinemas, Level 2, North Quarter, Canberra Centre, 148 Bunda Street, Canberra City, ACT
Date: Saturday 20 October 2018
Distributor: Madman Entertainment
Format: Digital Projection, Japanese dialogue with English subtitles
Length: 108 minutes
Production Date: 2018
Currently on Home Video in English (as of writing): No

In the space of a few weeks there are three anime films in local cinemas, with two on this weekend. Spring has arrived and while it’s rather warm it's also a bit stormy. Instead of rain all day there were several short torrential downpours accompanied by lightning. Not the best weather to go out in. And despite the weather as per usual the Canberra Centre was packed. There was a desk full of promotional material for the Japanese Film Festival near the top of the escalators in the cinema which was currently under way. I’ll be going to see one film from that tomorrow. It was a pretty low turnout for this late afternoon session of the film; seven people, a Malaysian family of three who really seemed to enjoy the film, a couple in their early twenties, myself and one other bloke. With these regularly low turnouts I sort of wonder what the future holds for theatrical anime… Anyway, let’s talk about the film;

In a town in Toyama Prefecture, an unassuming, quiet 17 year old teen boy routinely goes about reading books, all the time ignoring his classmates. After having an appendectomy, he returns to the hospital a few weeks later to have the stitches removed. Sitting in the waiting area of the hospital, he notices a book on the seats in the next aisle. He tentatively looks around for its owner and finding no one decides to read the cover; “Living with Dying”, written in pen. Inside he is slightly startled to see it’s the diary of a girl in his class, Sakura Yamauchi, which chronicles her life with a pancreatic disease which she knows will soon end her life. Suddenly she appears in front of him asking for the diary back. Sakura realises he has probably read at least some of the pages, so she confirms to him that she is dying. He rather aloofly tells her that he doesn’t really care for other people and as it is his turn to be served, walks to the counter. Sakura is rather intrigued by his response as it is most definitely not the usual response she hears from people when she tells them she is dying.

Much to his annoyance, Sakura pesters him to hang out together. Initially she helps him at the school library (being a loner and a total bookworm, this totally suits him), where he puts returned books back on the shelf. The chatty, happy go lucky Sakura tells him that she has told no one of her pancreatic disease outside her family. One day she tells him that she heard that in other cultures people eat parts of organs to cure their own sick organs and jokingly suggests she wants to eat his pancreas to get better. Sakura later manages to drag him around town where she saves an old lady from being shaken down for compensation money by a gang. He questions if she has no fear due to her limited time, however Sakura denies this. Classmates see both of them out together and they become the talk of the class. No one can figure why Sakura wants to hang out with the most antisocial guy in class.

The pair are go to an all you can eat sweets restaurant where Sakura’s best friend, Kyoko, spots them and publicly questions Sakura why she is dating him. Kyoko is incredibly protective of her friend and is unashamedly hostile towards him. Sakura accosts him at school and warns him not to hurt Sakura. Later Sakura shows the boy her bucket list and despite his reluctance to be with her they cross off a number of activities she has always wanted to do. She tells him that she needs him to be her friend until the end. During the summer holidays Sakura asks him out for a short day trip, which ends up being a two day overnight journey to Fukuoka. They see the sites of Kuyshu, but when they return to hotel Sakura realises she has made a booking error and has booked only one room. She gets beer and snacks from the local convenience store, which shocks the rather conservative boy as both of them are not of drinking age.

Despite that the two of them end up playing truth or dare, in which the boy discovers more about Sakura. He also accidentally finds her pills, insulin and syringes which keep her alive, which affects him greatly. The night ends with her being too drunk to get up, so she forces him to carry her to the bed and also to sleep next to her. Sometime later Sakura coerces him to visit her house. She becomes a little too playful and hugs him, suggesting that they both have sex. However she backs off saying it was a joke. Rather frustrated, he picks her up and pins her to the bed. Realising he has done the wrong thing as Sakura cries, he leaves disgusted with himself. Outside he runs into the class representative, Takahiro, whom he doesn’t realise is her old boyfriend she has recently broke up with, and accidentally ends up insulting him. Takahiro punches him and Sakura runs outside to stop Takahiro from hurting him further. Thinking he could win her back, Takahiro is baffled by her response. The boy now realises that he needs to be beside her until the end.

This is the third adaptation of Yoru Sumino’s light novel which was originally published in 2015. It has spawned a live action film, released last year, and a manga adaptation. Both the novel and the manga will be published in English by Seven Seas Entertainment next month and in early 2019 respectively. This anime adaption was produced by Studio VOLN, a relatively new studio whose only claims to fame are a co-production of the recent “Ushio and Tora” TV series and “Idol Incidents”. They also produced a new anime film for the “Garo” franchise called “Usuzumizakura -Garo-“, which came out in Japan earlier this month. The director and screenwriter, Shinichiro Ushijima, is also a relatively unknown quantity. His previous directing credits include several episodes of the TV series' “Death Parade”, the newer “Hunter x Hunter” series and “One Punch Man”. I do find it quite interesting that a lot of new anime films coming to cinemas are helmed by pretty much complete unknowns. Producer Aniplex seems to have faith in him and the studio though. The film made its Australian debut a bit over two weeks after the Japanese theatrical release at the Madman Anime Festival in Melbourne, and is in cinemas just a bit over six weeks after the Japanese release.

From what I’ve seen in a lot of the reviews so far the film has polarised many people. Because of that my expectations were relatively low going in. I was happily surprised that the film easily exceeded those expectations. First of all the promotional material and the story synopsis lead you to believe this going to be a really overly sentimental, mawkish tear jerker of a film. Secondly, it does seem rather obvious where the film will end up. Perhaps I have become rather sentimental in my old age, but I didn’t feel my emotions were blatantly manipulated like they were in “Maquia”. In part I think this is due to the writing and fact Sakura is not portrayed as some weak, sickly girl we forced to feel for. Instead she’s presented as an incredibly cheerful and outgoing young woman. Her illness is barely touched upon and we never see any obvious decline in her health or her looking fragile. When the end comes, it's like a bolt out of the blue. There is no gradual decline as you might expect. I am rather glad for this as I thought I was going to be put through an emotional wringer.

I’ve seen some reviews completely miss the point of the unnamed lead male character (who is finally named in the last reel of the film). It’s not about wish fulfilment for young men. I certainly don’t view it as being a fantasy about dull men getting the good looking girl. It’s clearly about having empathy for others, about bringing joy into other people’s life. Sakura trusts the boy because of his initial reaction to her illness. He won’t treat her as some fragile object. In return she brings him out of his shell. I honestly don’t understand why some people can’t see this or why they have a problem with it. The other thing I took from the film is how awful the pecking order is at Japanese schools. Apart from one exception, the teen named “Gum Boy” in the credits, everyone in the class seems to ostracise the unnamed protagonist when he gets close to Sakura. It’s pretty awful and its little wonder the boy doesn’t want to get close to others.

While the first two thirds of the film concentrate on the relationship between Sakura and the boy, the last third does become somewhat schmaltzy with a number of “cute” shots of the elderly and children built around a hospital scene and after Sakura’s death (you know it was coming) and a rather odd pastel coloured dream-like sequence built around the boy reading her diary. There are also three Japanese pop songs (the opening, insert song and end credits) from various pop rock bands which don’t help the story at all. All three sound the same and are rather dull, like a lot of commercial pop rock songs from major Japanese labels. The title, although explained fairly early on in the film, is rather odd, especially to those not familiar with its origins from certain Asian cultures. Considering the bemused responses to the film's title I've seen online, I’m surprised it wasn’t retooled for English speaking audiences, especially since neither the light novel nor manga had been commercially released in English yet.

Despite the fact this film has received some quite negative reviews, I really enjoyed it. It has been quite a long time since a theatrical anime film has actually surprised me. The street cars and the depiction of the town in Toyama Prefecture look fantastic, as does a sequence involving the tragic young couple watching fireworks. The last two reels of the film do veer on becoming quite maudlin, but manage not to teeter over the edge. The film really is a bit of tear jerker, however I felt a lot of this emotion was rather genuine. There’s no blatantly obvious manipulation of emotions like you see in other recent films (“Maquia” being particularly bad in this area). It seems the director has adapted the material fairly faithfully. I have read that people (including the novelist himself) prefer the novel or live action adaption, however I am coming in fresh to this film and have not experienced either. I quite liked this adaptation and am looking forward to whatever director Shinichiro Ushijima does next. Oh, and by the way, stay until the after the end credits. My mantra for modern anime films is wait until you see the Eirin mark and copyright details before walking out of the cinema! 7 out of 10.

Anime Music Video Compilations: “Genesis Climber Mospeada: Love, Live, Alive”

Publisher: Victor Entertainment
Format: VHS, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue
Length: 50 minutes
Original Release Date: 21 September 1985
Animation Exclusive to this Release: Yes
Other Sources (Japanese unless noted): Genesis Climber Mospeada Box (Laserdisc, 1992), Genesis Climber Mospeada Volume 6 (DVD, 2001), Genesis Climber Mospeada Box (DVD, 2007), Genesis Climber Mospeada Blu-ray Box (2013), Robotech: The Complete Set (DVD, 2013, USA, Japanese Dialogue with Optional English Subtitles), Robotech: Love Live Alive (DVD, 2014, UK, Japanese Dialogue with Optional English Subtitles), Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles and Love Live Alive 2-Movie Collection (DVD, 2014, UK, Japanese Dialogue with Optional English Subtitles), Genesis Climber Mospeada Blu-ray Box (2017)
Currently Availability (as of writing): Genesis Climber Mospeada Blu-ray Box (2017)

Very few anime music video compilations have ever had a commercial English language home video release. This one only made the cut as it was attached to the “Robotech” franchise. Announced and released in 2013, “Robotech: Love Live Alive” is an adaption of the original “Mospeda: Love Live Alive”. It’s a pretty dire adaptation which pads out a 50 minute music video compilation to about 90 minutes, mostly with recycled animation from the “Mospeda” TV series. Luckily some video releases of “Robotech: Love Live Alive” got “Mospeda: Love Live Alive” subtitled as a bonus. This is a far more interesting video. Created as bookend to the TV series, it follows the character Yellow Belmont as he makes his way to a concert he is performing at. First up though, a rundown on the “Mospeda” series;

By the mid 21st century, mankind has begun to colonise Mars. In 2050, a mysterious alien race called the Inbit invades Earth. The population is decimated and the Earth is all but defeated. Those who can leave Earth via shuttles and seek refuge on Mars. In 2080, mankind regroups and reequips themselves with newly developed military hardware in an attempt to wipe the Inbit from the face of the Earth. But the forces from Mars are decimated before they can enter the Earth’s atmosphere. Three years later a second force is sent in to directly attack and destroy the Inbit’s main base, called Reflex Point, which is located in North America. Amongst the troops sent in from Mars is Lieutenant Stig Bernard who proposes to his girlfriend, Marlene, just hours before the troops are scheduled to attack. Though she initially tells him she wants to think it over, Marlene says yes moments before he is about to be deployed and hands him a pendant with a holographic message inside it.

As per the previous battle three years ago, the Inbit attack the fleet before they can enter the atmosphere. The battle does not go well for the Mars troops, with many of the fighters wiped out. The ship Marlene is on is destroyed while entering the atmosphere, but Stig manages to crash land somewhere in South America in his fighter. Seemingly the sole survivor of the battle, Stig, unfamiliar with the Earth’s weather and wildlife, is stunned and sadden by Marlene’s death as he watches the holographic message she gave him. Regardless, Stig decides to procede with the orginal pan and heads to Reflex Point using his Ride Amour, a transformable motorbike named Mospeada, which can turn into a robotic type of battle amour. Along the way Stig comes across a young man called Ray, also on a Mospeada which he has salvaged from a crashed battleship, being attacked by the Inbit. Stig destroys the attackers and asks Ray if he knows where the other Mars troops are. Ray says he hasn’t seen any troops for a long time.

Despite the fact the pair don’t get along well, both ride to the next town where they come across a short childlike young woman called Mint who has just been dumped by her boyfriend. After Stig asks the townsfolk if there are any troops stationed there, they are directed to an abandoned section of the town where the Inbit attack them. Later it is revealed that the townsfolk sold them out to the Inbit in exchange for protection. Disgusted with them, Mint leaves with Stig and Ray for the next town. There the trio discover the townsfolk are harassed by a local gang. They come across famous wandering female singer Yellow in a bar, and along with a woman named Houquet Emrose (who helped them fight off the Inbit in her own Mosopeda in the previous town), throw them out of the bar. The gang later kidnap the friend of a man named Jim Austin, a former soldier who hides the fact he is a deserter. But with the help of Stig and his new colleagues, they manage to free Jim’s friend as well as fight off an Inbid attack which happens almost simultaneously. When Yellow asks to join Stig his hodgepodge crew, he says he won’t let women join. Yellow then reveals that she is actually a man. Yellow soon joins Jim, Houquet, Mint and Ray on their journey to Reflex Point.

All of the songs in this compilation are form a newly recorded album of the same name which was released on the same day as this music video compilation. As far as I can figure out the vast majority of songs are originals, with only a few being re-recordings of previously released songs. Most songs are sung by Jin Haneoka (who previously performed songs for the “GoShogun” anime) who is backed by While Rock Band who wrote and performed most of the music on the previous “Mospeada” soundtracks. Interestingly Jin Haneoka's name is written in hiragana on the album, while his non-anime music album releases have his name written in kanji.

“Mind Tree” performed by Jin Haneoka and While Rock Band

The first video contains all new animation. It depicts Yellow riding his motorbike through forests and later small cites in ruins as nature takes over seems to swallow them whole. The scars of the now ended war are apparent with hulks of old battle damaged war machines dotting the landscape. Yellow stops for a short break in his journey and reminisces by going through old photographs of his colleagues. Yellow later arrives at the concert venue which is out in a field. In the band’s trailer he greets his fellow bandmates and gets ready for the concert.

“Fire!” performed by Jin Haneoka and While Rock Band

Night has fallen and Yellow is ready to perform. He walks out of his trailer towards the stage and is given encouragement by staff members along the way. On stage he calls out the crowd to hype them up and rips into his first song. Early into the song the new animation ends and switches to footage form the TV series. Most of it is sourced from the early portions of the first episode but it also includes several scenes from various battle sequences. This song is a remake of “Yattsukero!”, originally performed by Mine Matsuki and While Rock Band which was first released on the first “Genesis Climber Mospeada” soundtrack in December 1983.

“Clap!! Clap!! Clap!!” performed by Jin Haneoka and While Rock Band

Though there is no footage of the concert in this video, the crowd can be heard cheering as Yellow goes straight into his second song at the concert. Most of the footage for this song is sourced from episode nine, “Lost World Fugue”, which is probably one of the odder episodes in the series. It involves most of the cast falling into a “Genesis Pit”, which like an experimental area for the Inbid. The area looks like the Jurassic period and filled with dinosaurs. Random action footage from several other episodes is mixed in.

“Dream Road” performed by Mine Matsuki and While Rock Band

We go back to concert and new animation where Yellow addresses the crowd stating that the concert has got off to a great start. He says the next song is a love song. Here Yellow reverts to his female voice, provided by Mine Matsuki who not only provides his singing voice but the female dialogue for Yellow in the anime. The song soon switches to footage from the anime, mostly culled from episode 11, “Lullaby of Distant Hope”, in which Yellow reminisces about his former fiancé whom he had to leave.

“Midnight Rider” performed by Jin Haneoka and While Rock Band

We take a break from the concert as a female journalist interviews Yellow in his dressing room. As Yellow now dresses as man and no longer performs as a woman, the journalist asks him why. He later talks about his former colleagues he was with during the war. The footage then cuts to several clips from the show highlighting their relationships within the group. After a couple of minutes of clips, we briefly return to the interview before finally going to the song, which is naturally 100% footage from the series, mostly battle sequences and various performances of Yellow singing.

“Crystal Moment” performed by While Rock Band

Unlike the other songs on the compilation, this one is an instrumental. From what I can gather, unlike While Rock Band’s other tracks for the series, this album uses drum machines quite heavily. They are also quite high in the mix as well, possibly too high. For me personally I think they do drown out the rest of the instrumentation and are quite distracting. Like most of the videos in this compilation, various battles sequences make up the footage. A clip from the show at the end of the video highlights Yellow’s first encounter with the humanoid Inbid pilot Sorji.

“Devil's Eye” performed by Jin Haneoka and While Rock Band

While like the majority of songs on this compilation this video does contain mostly edited shots from the TV series, this one is slightly different as it also contains around six rather stylised drawings of Yellow inserted several times during the video at various points, drawn by Yoshitaka Amano who did the original character designs of the cast. Amano is probably best known to anime fans as the original character designer for “Vampire Hunter D”. At the end of the video, a clip from episode 15, “The Ballad of Breaking Up”, is inserted which highlights the temporary break up of Stig’s group.

“Blue Rain” performed by Jin Haneoka and While Rock Band

The clip from the previous video segues into the next one. This song is a remake of the TV series’ ending them, originally sung by Andy Koyama and Mine Matsuki, which first appeared as a B-side to the 7 inch vinyl single of the opening theme, “In Search of Lost Dreams”, in May 1983. I keeping with the theme of the song, the editors have taken things a bit too literally and have included mostly sequences involving rain, especially episode 21, “Arpeggio of Assassination”. Episode 23, “Black Hair's Partita” in which Aisha, a young woman with amnesia whom the group discover and take in, has her secret revealed to her astonished colleges.

“Love is Free” performed by Jin Haneoka and While Rock Band

We are treated to another clip, this time from the penultimate episode, “The Dark Finale”. Here Stig’s group say their goodbyes as they prepare to go into battle against the Inbid at Reflex Point, not knowing if they’ll see each other ever again. The song itself is mostly set to footage from this episode and the final one; lots of battle footage, some from orbit and some on the ground at Reflex Point. Towards the end of the song, we are treated to new animation of the concert as it ends and Yellow says to the crowd “Love is free, love is love!”. This song is an original by Jin Haneoka, the only song on the album which wasn’t composed by While Rock Band.

“Heart Wave” performed by Jin Haneoka and While Rock Band

With the concert long over, Yellow sits on the stage by himself late at night with his eyes closed. Lights shine on his face and Yellow open his eyes to find Stig, Ray, Jim, Houquet, Mint and Aisha holding torches waiting for him. The group reminisce about the old days around a campfire near a tree in the rain (recalling the closing animation in the TV series). The next morning just before dawn, Yellow gets up while the others sleep, says his goodbyes and leaves without waking them. However it is revealed to the audience that the others were awake all the time and they sadly watch him leave. We later see Yellow’s home and his partner (I’m not going to spoil who it is) waiting for him. But Yellow still has concerts to perform. We see him at his campsite near a river as he composes a new song. His partner can be heard saying “I Love You” as the video ends.

“Horizon” performed by Jin Haneoka and While Rock Band

The concluding video is mostly various shots of characters edited from the TV series with an early emphasis on Stig’s relationship with Marlene. As per other videos there’s lot of battle sequences and shots of the other characters. Finally the credits begin over a shot of a photo frame containing a group shot of the cast on stage playing instruments. Right at the end a motorcycle can be heard stopping and someone running to a door and opening it, implying that Yellow has returned home to his partner. This song is a remake of “Areno e” by Mine Matsuki and While Rock Band which appeared on “Genesis Climber Mospeada Vol. III Live at Pit Inn”, an actual live recording and was released in June 1984.

I’m not a big fan of this series, but this set of songs and their accompany videos aren’t too bad. It’s a nice way to end the series without producing a new OVA or film for it. Despite my dislike of the very heavy and very electronic sounding drum machine, most of the songs aren’t too bad at all. “Devil's Eye” and “Fire!” are probably my favourites. The animation isn’t too bad either, but barely gets above what was seen in the TV series. Oddly all of the song titles are English, including the re-recorded songs which originally had Japanese titles. Not sure why that decision was taken for this project.

Unlike most anime music video compilations, this one is pretty easy to get. There is a Blu-ray box set of the series currently in print from NBCUniversal in Japan which contains this compilation as an extra. However the price tag for that set is ¥19,440 and of course contains no English subtitles. A&E Entertainment’s “Robotech: The Complete Set” contains the compilation as an extra, but is out of print. It is easy to find on the second hand market for as low as US$40, but typically goes for US$80 to over US$200 depending on the seller and condition. It is of course subtitled, but the subs are a little shonky with random quotation marks around some subs and oddities such as Stig subtitled as Stick. The single disc UK version of “Robotech: Love Live Alive” probably provides the best value (if your player can play region 2 and PAL discs). It is out of print as well, but on the second hand market goes for £3 to £10. The subtitle issues on the US version are identical to the UK one.

Overall, this is quite a decent set of music videos which add a lot of story to the end of the “Mospeada” series. But if you haven’t seen the TV series previously, you probably won’t be able to follow what is going on. With that said this compilation is probably for fans of the show only.

The Obscurities in the Western Connection Catalogue: “Slow Step”

Release Date: 24 March 1995 – 26 May 1995
Format: PAL VHS, Japanese Dialogue with English Subtitles
Runtime: 5 episodes x 45 mins
Catalogue Numbers: WEST033, WEST036, WEST040
Japanese Title: Slow Step
Japanese Production Date: 1991

This is the sixth part in a series of nine articles on the somewhat obscure 1990’s UK based video distributor Western Connection and the anime titles they released in English, titles that no one else bothered to re-released anywhere else. For a run down on what I thought made the company so special, see here.  As I said in the last part of this series, 1995 was a very productive year for the company with a whole slew of releases. With Manga Entertainment being the dominant force in the UK market, anime on home video at the time was filled to the brim with violent OVAs and action films. This title was a romantic comedy. First up, let’s talk about the show itself;

Minatsu Nakazato is a teenage girl in high school who's a bit of a tomboy with a no-nonsense kind of attitude. Her childhood friend Shu Akiba is making subtle hints that they should become girlfriend and boyfriend and the coach on her softball team, Satoru Yamazakura, is a lecherous creature always making lewd comments at the girls or perving at them. As she heads off to school one day Minatsu meets a young man her age in the elevator of her apartment building. He starts reciting a trite pick up line about seeing her everyday on the train and that is the only joy he gets in his life. However he seems to fumble his lines, curses himself and leaves before he can ask Minatsu out. Minatsu is later disgusted to find out he tries the same lines on nearly every girl he meets. However if the girl is overjoyed and immediately says yes to a date, the young man seems to have not factored this response into his plans, clams up, tells her that he’ll have to think about it, backs off and walks away. Minatsu can’t figure him out at all.

One morning Minatsu witnesses a hit and run from the bathroom window. She reports the distinctive car to the police and later that evening sees it parked on the street. She runs into a café to report the car but doesn't realise that the occupants, who are gang members, are listening to her every word in the café. They dash out of the cafe, but later follow her home and try to silence her on the rooftop of the apartment building she lives in. Luckily she is saved by the young man who chats up girls, Naoto Kadomatsu, a highly ranked high school boxer, who beats them senseless. A few days later Minatsu decides to go out but spots the gang members waiting outside believing they are still after her. Not wanting to give up she disguises herself with a wig and glasses. Unfortunately Naoto spots her and tries his clichéd lines on her, not realising its Minatsu. She rejects him, but he eventually falls in love with her and asks Minatsu (out of disguise) if she can organise a date with her. Minatsu decides to go on the date disguised in an attempt to end the matter, but makes things worse and ends up giving him a fake name to go with the disguise, Maria Sudo, as well as a convoluted backstory.

Complicating matters is Minatsu's belief that Kadomatsu is dying after misinterpreting his fainting spells and his comments about him having limited time. Meanwhile Yamazakura is trying to get juvenile delinquent Ayako Sawamura to join the softball team. She's smitten with the coach, but doesn't want to play softball, despite her obvious talents. Shu notices this and decides to make up a contract with Yamazakura and Ayako. If she joins the team, he has to go out on dates with her. Minatsu somehow ends up going on double dates with Naoto and Shu and always switches between herself and the Maria persona so that she doesn't get caught out. Unfortunately Coach Yamazakura's young niece, Chika, discovers her changing and decides to blackmail her. Chika is has been under the care of Yamazakura since her mother died. Since Yamazakura isn't very good with the housework or cleaning, she has to do it herself. She decides she wants a break and forces Minatsu to cook a meal. Bemused by the attention, Yamazakura drives her home afterwards, but Ayako accidentally sees them driving home together, which enrages her. In response she makes the softball team lose an important match and later quits.

Even worse is to come. Minatsu’s dual life is soon over when Chika accidentally lets slip that Maria and Minatsu are the same person, and the two boys Shu and Naoto, decide to make another contract and fight for her in the boxing ring. The loser will give up Minatsu. Unfortunately for the boys Minatsu doesn't like the idea of two men fighting over her. In fact it horrifies her. She decides to run away from it all, however Ayako forces her to confront the mess she has caused head on.

Based on the manga by Mitsuru Adachi (of “Short Program”, “Touch” and “H2” fame), like a lot of his other works, “Slow Step” is a mix of romance, comedy and sports. The OVA series was directed by Kunihiko Yuyama who previously directed “Minky Momo”, “Windaria” and “Leda: The Fantastic Adventure of Yohko” and would later go on to direct “Wedding Peach”, “Brave Story” and most of the “Pokemon” anime of the last two decades. The other name of note in the staff is character designer Norihiro Matsubara who cleaned up Adachi’s original designs for the animators. He has provided the character designs for the 1990’s anime versions of “Berserk” and “Ushio & Tora” as well as “Gunsmith Cats” and “Pokemon”.

Although “Slow Step” seems to have a rather convoluted plot, it's really easy to follow and is quite funny. Rather than going for a typical high school romance, Adachi flips the entire scenario around and comes up with something quite unique. I particularly like the way he gets Minatsu into deeper and deeper trouble with seemingly no way out of the situation. I also liked the additional elements of the lecherous teacher (played by Akira Kamiya who previously played Ryo Saeba in “City Hunter”, perfectly cast for this part) and the sukeban (juvenile delinquent or girl gang member) Ayako Sawamura, who add a lot of interest to what could have been a really standard love triangle set up. The ending and Minatsu’s final choice are really not what you’d expect from this type of show. On the initial viewing of the OVA, I felt everything was a little too rushed and too neat. But having seen the show again recently, I can now see the subtle hints of how Minatsu came to her decision. However I feel to a degree it’s a little too hard to swallow the concept that a high school girl would make that choice.

In modern fandom, the idea that you could have a school girl under contract to date a teacher is a bridge too far for many, even if the show is a comedy. And I have to admit there are several sequences in the show which have not aged too well; Yamazakura is seen touching school girl’s breasts and bottoms, and in another sequence he comes to Minatsu’s home and orders her around, demanding tea and ordering her to bring the washing in. The casual sexism and male chauvinism in this OVA is pretty blatant and a bit shocking. Even when taking into account that 1980’s Japan (when the original manga was originally published) was a terribly patriarchal and sexist place, the OVA really comes off as quite sexist and completely out of touch with modern sensibilities regarding women’s place in society.

Putting that aside for the moment, the fact this OVA series was actually released in English is quite amazing. Right in the middle of the 1990's in UK, at the very highest peak of the “Manga Videos” era, where hyper violent OVAs and movies such as “Guyver”, “Mad Bull 34” and “Fist of the North Star” were racing up the video chart, our beloved Western Connection decided to release this title. Subtitled as well, when dubbed tapes were the dominant force. In this climate how do you think a romantic sports comedy would have gone down with the video tape buying public? One word; awful. According to Jonathan Clements it was the worst selling anime title in the UK until the “Kimagure Orange Road” OVAs were released a year or two later. The saving grace was the fact that supposedly Western Connection didn't make many copies of “Slow Step”.

Because the series flopped quite badly, I suspect “Slow Step” played at least a part in Western Connection's downfall. With the public weaned on Manga Entertainment's near monopoly on anime in that market, which was mostly of the exploitative kind, this show’s mix of romance, softball and boxing turned a lot of UK anime fans off. Western Connection's usual poor handling of their product was also to blame. Apart from their ubiquitous mistimed subtitles, they also cut out the ending animation of episode 3 and the opening animation of episode 4 to make it look as if there was only one episode. The reason why? The British Board of Film Classification would charge them more if there were two episodes on the tape, a lesson learned from the first volume. The synopses on the slicks of the three VHS volumes were mostly taken from an Anime UK (later called Anime FX) magazine article by Julia Sertori, which they falsely credited to Helen McCarthy.

Possibly the most extraordinary thing about this release is that it's a Mitsuru Adachi anime. So very little of his work has ever made it commercially into English. Apart from this rather rare three VHS tape release, the only other works of his to be released in English are his manga "Short Program", released by Viz in 1999 and the anime series “Cross Game”, streamed for a limited time, also by Viz, back in 2010. As Adachi's work is beloved in Japan and has a small but quite dedicated following in the west, you really have to wonder why western anime and manga publishers have generally ignored his work. Perhaps the length and age of titles like “Touch” and “H2” are off-putting. But then again during the frenzy of licensing in the early to mid 2000's which sometimes saw the release of long, odd and plainly “unsellable” titles (like all of “City Hunter” and “Marmalade Boy” for instance), you have to wonder why so very few of his titles made the leap into English.

Despite practically not receiving any recognition at all during its initial release, “Slow Step” is quite a good comedy/romance/sports OVA series. It's mostly a romance/drama but there's tons of comedy in the show to break it up so it never comes anywhere near being melodramatic. The sports part of it stays in the background and only becomes the focal point of the show in a few sequences. The longer than normal length of the OVAs let a lot of story to be packed into a very short time frame comfortably, but some may feel the conclusion is a bit too rushed and not entirely realistic. The other problem is the show really hasn’t aged well at all. If the blatant sexism and male chauvinism aren’t enough to turn most modern day viewers off, the fact that two of the lead 17 year old female characters have relationships with older male teachers will probably do the trick.

But if you can get past all of that, the characters and a lot of the situations are generally charming and humorous and might just win you over. And Adachi's distinctive jug-eared character designs are so delightful. Jonathan Clements, at every opportunity he gets to talk about this title, states that the VHS tapes were practically impossible to find only a few months after Western Connection released them. However I managed to snap up all three volumes online fairly easily around a decade after they were first released. Now days it’s pretty much impossible to find copies of this show. It was never reissued on DVD in Japan either. However I did recently spot the first UK VHS volume on eBay going for £15, so with a bit of searching you may be lucky. Honestly the chance of “Slow Step” seeing a re-release in English is highly doubtful. While “Slow Step” is a rather funny comedy/romance OVA, I can really only recommend it to die hard Mitsuru Adachi fans.

Note: This post is based on previously published versions posted on the defunct “Lost World of Anime” website and blog in 2004 and 2009.