My thoughts on the Death Note licensing

It’s been licensed by Viz, who seems to be picking up all of the Shonen Jump anime. Details/official press release here.

http://www.animeondvd.com/news/pr.php?pr_view=915

I think it’s great. Sure, you have to pay for it, but I don’t see it being very expensive (how much do TV shows cost on iTunes?).

It’s significant because they will be starting to do this while Death Note is still airing in Japan. This means you get it a lot sooner, it’s subtitled and you don’t have to worry about potentially crappy dubs. They will still be releasing DVDs in the future, with a dub on it and whatever other special features.

Several places have been making anime available online, most notably Bandai and Cartoon Network/Adult Swim, but they are always streaming versions (i.e., nondownloadable) of the English dub, and the show has often already been available on DVD for some time. I welcome this ‘innovation’.

Trix is here.

I’m just a guy living in the middle of nowhere (Bermuda), who loves video games and anime. I’m also into technology related stuff, but games and anime are more of my expertise.

It was in late 2001 when I really started getting deep into video games and anime: I had some income so I bought a Gamecube, and I started downloading unlicensed fansubs of some anime. I’ve actually missed most things gaming-and-anime-related that happened before 2001.

Gaming-wise, I like to say that the NES came out the same year I did. My dad got one a few months after I was born, for himself, and that was the only console I had up until 2001, when I bought myself a Gamecube. I have had all of the gameboys, but no SNES, Genesis, PS1… you get the deal. So this means I had never played any Final Fantasy, never played Zelda, or most other big old-school games.

On the anime front, I had *seen* anime before, but didn’t know what exactly it was. There was a religious program called ‘Superbook’, that was probably my first anime. My parents didn’t let me get into Transformers, because at the time there was a big stink about Evolution and religion, and Transformers were the devil. Later on in life, I saw Dragon Ball Z on Cartoon Network, and that is what sparked my true interest in anime. It wasn’t until 2001 that my world was blasted open by the internet, and digital fansubs became a part of my life.

Still, before 2001 all I had was what was on Cartoon Network. To put into perspective how much stuff I missed, I only watched Evangelion for the first time in November of 2006.

My game/anime fandom is stronger than ever now. I actually went to Japan, by myself, in September 2006. I participated in the Tokyo Game Show (there were more people in those 3 warehouses than there were in my entire country), watched some raw anime on local TV, and took in a few of the historical sites in and around Tokyo. A few highlights were: visiting Toshogu Shrine, meeting Hideo Kojima, and beating some Japanese people in Virtua Fighter 5.
So there’s a brief history of my history. Please pardon any future comments on stuff that I may think is the newest, most innovative best-thing-ever, but has actually been around for a long time. Because I probably missed it. Your comments will definitely be appreciated, and will aid in my own education in these fields as well.