• October 31, 1999

  Happy Hallowe'en!

  I just love this time of year... Winter is just around the corner, and we get little ghosts and goblins showing up at the doorstep, looking for all sorts of treats...

  The Detroit Free Press has mentioned the Café in their latest article by movie column writer Terry Lawson, titled What is Anime? He also features an interview with the talented Hayao Miyazaki called, Japanese Animation Poised for Breakout in U.S. Check them out!

  Updated A Parent's Guide to Anime reviews have been posted for the following:

  • Macross/Robotech
  • Only Yesterday
  • Porco Rosso

  I'd also like to extend an invitation to all you eagle-eyed websurfers out there. If you spot a news article about anime out there, let us know! We'll make sure that it gets a mention on our site.





• October 29, 1999

  

  Princess Mononoke officially opens today at selected theaters across the country! Check the MIRAMAX website for details.

  More updates... more Parent's Guide reviews. We have additions to the following:

  • Armitage III
  • Grave of the Fireflies
  • Heroic Legend of Arslan
  • Kiki's Delivery Service
  • Laputa, Castle in the Sky
  • My Neighbor Totoro
  • Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
  • Night on the Galactic Railroad




• October 26, 1999

  Most of the formatting updates to the review pages are done; the trivia and encyclopædia pages will take a little bit longer. The integration of the Parent's Guide and the Café continues, and the flow seems to be pretty good. Not quite sure how to set up the main access page for the Parent's Guide...

  We've also acquired a new URL -- animeguide.com. We're toying with the idea of re-naming the site 'animeguide.com' Comments? Suggestions?

  On the news front -- there have been two recent articles published by Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times. One is an interview with Hayao Miyazaki during his visit to the Toronto Film Festival, and the other is a brief article about anime in general entitled The Beauty of Anime. Both are definitely worth the read.

  There's also been a lot of chatter about the "new" Dragonball VZ line of processors from Motorola, for use in Palm personal PDA's. It should be noted that the Dragonball processor line has been around commercially since 1995, and the VZ is the third mass incarnation. (Was the name inspired by the series? Does anyone out there know?) For the full story, check out Motorola's website at http://www.motorola.com/dragonball/.

  References:

  • Director Miyazaki Draws American Attention
    - Article in the Chicago Sun-Times, October 24, 1999

  • The Beauty of Anime
    - Article in the Chicago Sun-Times, October 4, 1999.

  • Motorola's Dragonball Processor page

  The Cleveland Cinmatheque will start a fantastic 10-film retrospective of Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, and Yoshifumi Kondo on Thursday, October 28, at 8:15 with the screening of PRINCESS MONONOKE. For more information on this very exclusive screening click on www.cia.edu (then click on campus).





• October 24, 1999

  I'm starting to gain ground on my older e-mails... I see that I've alienated a few by not responding earlier. To those folks, I apologise, but please understand that I do have a life outside of the internet!

  One of the items hidden among the e-mails was a press release from MIRAMAX pictures for the upcoming dubbed release of Mononoke Hime. The notice is now posted in the review pages.

  A Parent's Guide to Anime reviews have been posted for the following:

  • Oh! My Goddess!
  • Arcadia of My Youth
  • Whispers of the Heart



• October 22, 1999

  We've started integrating the reviews from A Parent's Guide to Anime into the main Café site. While the reviews will be kept on separate pages, the two sites will be fully integrated, making this a much more 'one-stop' shopping experience.

  During this process, you can expect many pages to have some weird looking headers and title graphics, as things get updated. Sorry about the inconvenience, but we have over 25MB of data to upload, and very little modem speed to help it along.




• October 20, 1999

  We've started a minor freshening up of the site -- the previous version's graphical headers and menu bar was a little too garish, even for us. We're back to a slightly more subdued tone.

  We've also had to reset the hit counter. Lost all the historical data again. Doesn't anyone make a counter that can make like the Energizer Bunner, and keep going, and going, and...




• September 27, 1999

  We will get caught up with our back log of e-mails! Eventually. (only 221 more to go...)

  Another news item -- Card Captor Sakura has a North American distributor! Nelvana Limited has picked up distribution and merchandising rights for the 70 episode series. For the North American market, the series name has been shortened to Card Captor, and the main character (Sakura) is now "Niki." *sigh*

  Also managed to find a meishi for Hayashibara Megumi... I also have a card for Lina Inverse. Should we post this as well?




• September 26, 1999

  Where have we been? Well, there has been a bit of a hiatus from the site the past three months... Something about work, new house, landscaping and a bit of autocrossing has kept my bank account at an all-time low. On the plus side -- I now have the fastest C Super Stock Miata in Alberta...

  We have a new winner in our bi-monthly giveaway! Our congratulations to Linda Ngo of Los Angeles! Linda wins an awesome copy of the CLAMP School guidebook! (I hope you can read Japanese, Linda!)

  Rumour has it that the latest Miramax animated release, Studio Ghibli's Mononoke Hime is slated for limited theatrical release October 29 of this year... Watch for it!

The What's New archives:

• July / August 1999
• April / May / June 1999
• March 1999
• January / February 1999
• December 1998
• November 1998
• October 1998
• September 1998

We also maintain a list of titles that we have, but haven't actually had a chance to write the reviews.

• Go to the 'To Do' list