This internet oddity come straight off Digg.
Its real easy, just go to Jet Blue, then select a destination city. Hold the shift key and type “PBJ” on your keyboard. A little window will pop up.
Why? Who the heck knows. Webmaster must be an FG fan or something.

This is a couple weeks old, but Viz Media has been named the master licensor for Shonen Jump’s Bleach. This means the popular series will be making an American debut in the not so far flung future.

See the press release after the jump.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

1up previews the Family Guy game
Say, what are the odds this game is going to be… terrible?
The absolute best they can do is retread jokes from the show and not turn in an unplayable mess. Think I’m wrong? Try digging out some South Park and Simpsons games from a bargain bin. The Simpsons arcade game is argueably the only good game to be based on a comedy show, and it just aped the sidescrolling beat-em-up style of TMNT, Final Fight, Double Dragon et al. Do I even bother mentioning Friends?

Everyone’s favorite japanese animation house has released a trailer for their next movie.
The Legend Of Earthsea
Its a film based on the fantasy series by Ursula K. Le Guin. Theres not a lick of english in the trailer, but you can at least watch it. Probably be another year before we see it in the states.

The Cartoons of Robert Smigel finally get a best-of special on April 29 on Saturday Night Live. In addition to showcasing memorable “TV Funhouse” shorts from the past, the special will also include new segments featuring Ace & Gary the Ambiguously Gay Duo as voiced by Stephen Colbert and Steve Carrel.
This is long over due. Even when the lamest hosts and worst skits derail SNL, any show with a cartoon is worth watching. I’m recording this one.

Megaman – Upon A Star is not a game but a straight to video 3 episode Megaman series I bought on a whim at one of ADV’s 5$ anime sales… and what a weird thing I got!

First off I asssumed this was a somewhat new as “2005” is the only year indicated on the box. Once I started watching this video it was obvious to me that this was not made last year as the image quality that, while not bad, was obviously not made not made in a digital colouring DVD era world, not to mention the character designs and animation style looked a good 15 years old… and then came the real age indicator. The main character was playing a famicom (that’s a Japanese NES) and Megaman 5 of all games. Well as it turns out this series was made in the early 90s, and dubbed around the same time, but never released in either Japan or North America until last year.

Dubbed by the Ocean Group in Vancouver, the same guys that did the old Megaman cartoon I’m sure we all know and love, the dub is of solid quality, though I didn’t watch it in it’s entirety. Megaman has a different voice as he’s a child in this series, unlike in the old show… which as it would turn out is probably newer than this.

The story is entertaining in that it’s so ridiculous it’s funny.

In the first episode we Dr. Wily, a character in a video game, on a whim one day decides to leave his game and conquer the real world. This is not done through any technological mishap or anything. He just looked to the side one day at the real world he’s been looking at through the back side of a TV screen all his life and comes out. Megaman follows and they run around fighting each other. Young Yuuta, who’s home he lands in, has understanding parents who fully accept the fact that a game character has crossed into our world, but prioritise homework and school over having their son help Megaman save the world from evil robots. Dr. Wily, as his first act against our world, conquers an amusement park and creates an army of robots to play in it. Weird things happen like Megaman is confused by the fact that people in Japan drive on the left side of the road. He comes from a game. How does he even know what a car is? Are we to understand all these robots weren’t made in Japan or what?

All throughout this first episode our hero is, even in the Japanese version, refered to as “Megaman”, which sort of hurt my brain since the Japanese have always refered to him as “Rockman”‘. His girlfriend/sister is still refered to as “Roll” making the pun as ineffective as it was when I first heard it.

Along comes episode 2. Megaman is now called “Rockman” in the Japanese version. How no Japanese child is expected to notice this sudden change is a mistery to me. The characters are all the same but they seem to have half forgotten the events of the first episode. Megaman escapes the game under totally different circumstances. At new years time Yuuta and his sister Akane are fighting over the Famicom and Megaman, frustrated over losing to Wily with no one in the real world to control him, appears in the real world when the Famicom is knocked around. The children are amazed that Megaman can enter the real world, seemingly forgetting the events of the last episode. Everyone seems to remember Megaman’s last visit though as Yuuta’s parents shrug off the visit saying only “I didn’t expect Rockman to show up to offer New Year’s greetings” as if he was a flakey neighbour or something. Do these people actually remember his last visit or is it just so common that characters escape the game world that they don’t bat an eye at it? The rest of the episode then revolves around Wily using a time machine he stole from Light to use the asteroids that killed the dinosaurs to ruin the present… and then he quickly gets confused and uses his powers to steal food from children and such. Other weird things include the fact that Protoman’s name has changed to “Blues” since the last episode and Rush has since lost the ability to talk, conversing only in barks.

Once episode 3 rolls around we’re not even trying to come up with reasons for which Megaman and Wily are escaping the game world on a regular basis. The children simply scream at the TV to call them out of the game to come watch a parade. Can’t say I’ve ever tried that one before. Dr. Wily then furthers his plans to destroy the future by not using time travel and destroying the present. Megaman notices this through the wonders of time travels and jumps from month to month, arriving only at significant cultural events, trying to catch him at the time when he’s being bad and attacking the world with a Typhoon robot of all things.

So go out and buy this DVD if you want the world to stop making sense.

OK, so I jumped the gun before and thought the last 4 episodes of JLU were on the way a lot sooner.
ToonZone brings word that the the finales will air May 6 and May 13.
Thay also report the second season of Justice League will hit dvd June 30, and that JLU dvds will follow.

I heard Maurice LaMarche on Al Franken this week doing voices for a skit about a Werewolf Senator that bites Dick Cheney in the face. When it was all over, Franken introduced LaMarche by his most notable role: The Brain.
So its with great please that I see Pink & The Brain hit dvd along with the series it spun off with, Animaniacs. Both of these shows offered rare inspired lunacy from Warner animation that picked up right where the Looney Toons shorts of yesterday left off. Tiny Toons was OK, but derivative. New Looney Toons cartoons are passable at best. Animaniacs created a massive cartoon world with a cast of dozens and never let a split second pass without a gag.
As far backed up as I am with my DVD collecting, I’ll still have to add these to the list.