Do you know of a site that's about to go down? Does it have information that should be preserved on the web? Let us know, and we'll save what we can!

You can also help us out by keeping your eyes open for any anime-related events or articles. Clubs and convention-goers -- don't forget our events calendar page! If your organisation has something up and coming, let us know!

• Jan 5

  Jan-Feb Contest is now up. Winners of the X-mas contest will be posted as they are verified.





• Dec 23

  The Christmas Contest is now closed. Winners will be contacted by Jan 2 but hopefully we'll be able to get them done sooner. Wishing you all a very happy holiday season (Merry Christmas / Happy Hannukah ...) and we'll see you in the New Year!





• Dec 10

  Winners have now been selected for this year's Art Contest. (Winners are being notified and names will be posted once replies are received). This year's contest was tight and so, a random draw was also held from amongst the top entries of the contest. The prize from the draw will be a copy of Kiki's Delivery Service R1 DVD. Special thanks to those who entered this year's contest!

  First hints are now up for the 2003 Christmas Contest. We didn't want to make things too easy too early! (Evil I know). For those who haven't managed to unscramble all the titles, take a look and give it another go! (Entry #s are slowly being processed now and those who sent complete entries should receive confirmation numbers over the next few days. Those who have entered prior to the 10th and have not received a confirmation # by Saturday evening should drop us a line.)





• Dec 8

  Please note, the winner for the Fan Art Contest has not been selected yet. It's proving to be a rather tight judging this time around and so we will be delaying the notification hopefully no later than the 10th. Also on the 10th, we will be posting the first set of hints for the Christmas Contest, so all those who have incomplete entries, you'll have a chance to get some help with those mixed up titles!

  Also, congratulations go to John Millhelm, Liz Barillas and Samantha Hurst, our contest winners for the May / June and Sept / Oct contests. Congratulations guys!

  Next update on the 10th.





• Nov 31

  The last of the 2003 Fan Art Contest entries have now been posted. Thanks very much to all who entered! The Christmas Contest is now up. It appears that forms on the site are down (and have been for some time?) While the Contest's form has been re-established, the remaining forms will take a little longer to re-build.

  Otherwise, while still not fully set-up, the mirror site is now fully searchable! For those who are interested in searching for specific terms on the Cafe, check it out here

  And on a completely non-anime note, for those who are interested in seeing photos of Japan, several of my photos can be found in my online gallery.





• Nov 18

  Several more entries have been uploaded for the Fan Art Contest so take a look! ^_^





• Nov 14

  (Nov 11 actual upload date to the mirror site)

  As many people will have noticed, we've been suffering serious technical problems over the past few days. Apparently our host suffered a physical line break resulting in all the servers to be unavailable. As we were without e-mail services, we've decided to extend the 2003 Fan Art contest until Nov. 23 23:59:59 as many people will have been trying to submit / complete their entries.

  The update from the 11th consisted of several new entries to the 2003 Fan Art contest.

  Otherwise, we're now (relatively) back in the land of the living after getting back from holidays. We should be having a number of small updates over the next few weeks.





• Oct 14

  Two new entries have been added to the Fan Art Contest entry page. Please note that I am away for the next 3 weeks so the next contest entry update will be shortly thereafter. Also with regards to the Contest; please make sure your e-mail address is correct on your entry!! If winners cannot be contacted by e-mail, the prize is forfeit and a new winner must be drawn.

  Also updated this time, we have several new reviews to the Parent's Guide to Anime including for: Armored Trooper Votoms, Basara, Dai-Guard, Hellsing, Jin Roh, Tenchi Muyo and Weiss Kreuz. Please note, there are still many more reviews to come for the Parent's Guide so please bear with us.

  Lastly, several questions have been added to the Trivia section for Card Captor Sakura, Love Hina, Chobits, Neon Genesis Evangelion and FLCL. Thanks to all who submitted!





• Oct 01

  Update to the Cafe Contest page. Two entries for the fan art contest have now been uploaded.





• Sept 15

  First off congratulations to: tmfan, Blood Soaked Ronin, Keitaro Urashima and Sock Marks winners in the Cafe Forum Free Art Contest. Thanks to all who participated!

  The Anime Cafe 2003 Art Contest is now open with details on the Contest Page. This contest will run from Sept 15-Nov 14. Please note, for 3 weeks during this time (Oct 15 - Nov 4), there will be no updates as I will be away. E-mailed entries will be collected but not be posted to the site during this time.

  The May-June poll contest has *finally* be collated. Poll results can be found here. As it's been a year since the original draw for Ruin Explorers VHS and no response from winners, we're toasting the original list of entrants and will be tossing the tape into the pot and select a second winner for this on top of the contest's usual prize winner (ie two draws this bi-month).

  Manga and anime releases calendars have both been updated. Of note: Fruits Basket manga vol 1 will start being released from TokyoPop Feb 10, 2004; Hikaru no Go manga ended with Vol 23's release Sept 4. There are a number of titles being released now in manga.

  The events calendar has been updated for the 3rd Annual Metreon Festival of Anime in San Francisco on Oct 11.

  A few new reviews have been added to the Parent's Guide to Anime for Fruits Basket, Memories, Vision of Escaflowne the Movie and Kite (uncut) and a follow-up review has been added for Excel Saga so take a look!





• August 01

  The Anime Cafe Forum is hosting a Free Art Contest in conjunction with Anansi Space Works. The contest runs from Aug 1-31 with full details listed in the Forum. Participants must join the Free Art User group and must have been members of the forum by July 24. The Cafe's "Summer" Contest will therefore be delayed until after the Free Art Contest has passed.





• July 01

  Just a brief note that contest details for the July / August Cafe Contest are now up. Full guidelines and information for the 2003 Fan Art contest will be posted July 15.





• June 23

  Firstly, apologies but the next true update for the site will not be possible until mid/latter July. Personal life has taken over all activity until that time. At that time, we will also announce details of the 2003 Summer Fan Art Contest. In the meantime, we have some release updates below...

  Cowboy Bebop: The Movie is slated for a June 24 release by Sony Pictures. And just before the release, there are a few more clips from the DVD extras being released as well.

  

  Sultry Faye
  Windows Media high speed dial-up	Real Player high speed dial-up
  Spike speaks
  Windows Media high speed dial-up	Real Player high speed dial-up
  Jet
  Windows Media high speed dial-up	Real Player high speed dial-up
  Spike
  Windows Media high speed dial-up	Real Player high speed dial-up

  More release information includes the announcement from Domo Records for their soundtrack release for "Ninja Scroll" which goes on sale August 26 with DVD release on 9/2 from Urban Vision Entertainment The web-site is http://www.ninja-scroll.com/

  
  
  

  73020-2 Ninja Scroll
  Ninja Scroll, a 13-episode TV series making its debut earlier this year in Japan, will be released this fall on DVD. The series is a continuation of the wildly popular and award-winning anime feature film (of the same name), written and directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri. Taking place in ancient Japan, Ninja Scroll is the story of a wandering Ninja warrior named Jubei. The music for this soundtrack is co-scored by Golden Globe & Grammy Award winning artist Kitaro and multi-instrumentalist and composer, Peter (Peas) McEvilley.
  
  You can listen to a bonus song which is not on the soundtrack album here.

  Lastly, we missed announcing the following announcement from Nemesis Records that Kristine Sa was performing at Fanime Con on June 20.

  Kristine Sa
  
  With a beautiful and sultry voice, Kristine Sa sings words penned herself. A talented vocalist and writer, Kristine shares her joy and pain with the ease of a child.
  
  Not content to simply write and perform her own songs, Kristine also plays the piano and often writes the music to her songs as well. As a result, Kristine's songs are a true and deep reflection of herself. The expression of a single artist from beginning to end.
  
  Dreams. A vision of reality that we wish to be true. These dreams allow Kristine Sa to share her gifts for words and song with others. Her vision of love, and the pain of reality are the two things that she intimately shares with listeners on her debut album "I Never Knew" - A collection of songs chronicling the end of a bad romantic relationship and the beginning of a new one. Incorporating poetry into her music [Track 5 "Beautiful", Track 6 "Nexusbeta/Parallel Fates"], Kristine adds a touch of invention to her upbeat pop songs and aching ballads. "I Never Knew" is the sound of both a breaking heart and of breaking convention.
  
  For more information about Kristine, please visit her Website at www.kristinesa.com.





• June 10

  Several new reviews have been added to the Parent's Guide to Anime including for AD Police - To Protect and Serve, Big O, Magic Users Club, Spirited Away and X (TV) along with updates to several Miyazaki titles. Many more APGA reviews (and trivia) still to come over the next while.

  Also up this week is a profile for Terry who helps moderate the Manga and Odds 'n Ends Boards on the Cafe Forum. A very heartfelt "thank you" goes to all of the mods and admin for all their help in the forum!

  Apparently that the Anime Cafe has been selected "Site of the Month" for June by the site: YATTA! everything anime complete with a site review. Usability wins out!

  

  And lastly, Cowboy Bebop: The Movie is slated for a June 24 release by Sony Pictures. For those people interested in this release, some clips from the DVD extras are now available.

  The clips include actor commentary from the original cast of the television series and also the cast of the feature. The clips also include a storyboard and commentary from the brilliant film-makers.

  They can be found for either Window's Media or Real Player and for either highspeed modem connections (high) or dialup modem users (low) at:

  Music in Bebop
  Windows Media high speed low	Real Player high low
  Carefree Ed
  Windows Media high low	Real Player high low
  Storyboard
  Windows Media high low	Real Player high low

  
  
  Other information and trailers are also available on Sony Pictures' site so take a look!





• May 31

  Two new reviews for Crest of the Stars (eps 4 and 5) are now up. Thanks to Justin Swartz for his ongoing reviews for this series!





• May 12

  More anime new releases have been added for June. Likewise, we've added several questions to the Trivia section that have been submitted from readers (for Card Captor Sakura, Ah! Megamisama!, You're Under Arrest!, Gunsmith Cats, Love Hina, and Utena). Many more submitted trivia question still wait to be added.





• May 3

  Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!! I thought last week was bad! At least we shouldn't get as much snow this week though. Anyhow today's updates... It took a day longer than expected but New Releases for anime titles as well as a couple of additions to the manga titles are now up. Also up is this bi-month's contest. We have a poll this month to see how popular DVD is among our readers.





• April 30

  Oh boy, have we been rare lately... In any case, for the time being, manga new releases and conventions have been updated. Anime releases are only partially complete and a number of holidays for Japan need to be added back in.

  The contest for March/April... Oh ye of little faith... For those who entered, there will be a giveaway, especially since a few very interesting titles found their ways onto the shelves in April... May/June will be a poll but will not be ready for at least one more day if not two. It's been awhile since the last poll was run, but we'll be looking at DVD ownership. Two years ago, DVD players were much less common. Today...?

  Worth mentioning, especially for any Canadians who have a bit of spare pocket change (? you probably need more than pocket change actually); Anime North is coming up over the Victoria Day long weekend. Thanks to SARS and the WHOs initial travel advisory against going to Toronto (now lifted), Air Canada has initiated some excellent flight fares for that weekend to Toronto's Pearson. Unfortunately, we here can't personally take advantage of the rates. In any case, details about the con can be found on Anime North's site while flights can be found on Air Canada's.





• March 17

  Hardware problems are proving a touch troublesome. A new motherboard and video card has gotten things up and running again, but things aren't running entirely smoothly. (We might not be in the clear quite yet). In any case, the update previously planned for early Feb is now up including then new release dates for anime and manga, a link to Jungle Collector's shop - a used shop we frequent based in Osaka Japan and with a US shop, as well as a bio for Mark Andrews aka Rigor Mortis, one of the Cafe Forum moderators. Assuming things remain stable, hopefully we'll be able to start working on an actual update shortly including the Contest...





• January 5

  Taps microphone... hello? I think we're back now...

  Many folks are undoubtledly aware we've been having a number of server problems over the holidays. As a result, we've been switched to a different server for the time being which means that the search engine function for the encyclopaedia is down again. We'll let you know when that gets back up again. Currently, the site seems to be in a mixed state of updates from various points throughout the year 2002. We'll be re-uploading everything over the next couple of days. Please be patient as we get things back on track.

  For now, we've updated the contest page for January-February, and have a list of confirmed winners for the Christmas Contest up. (Sept-Nov's winner has not been announced yet; sumimasen... ^_^;;).

  For the curious, the clips were from the following titles:

  1. Jubei-chan Secret of the Lovely Eyepatch
  2. Card Captor Sakura
  3. Fruits Basket
  4. Initial D
  5. Vision of Escaflowne
  
  Thanks to all who entered!





• December 20

  Folks are having problems with the contest, so here are some hints!