The Anime Cafe - Your complete source for anime reviews

[ go to homepage ]
[ what's new - editorials, calendar, to-do list, news articles, mailbag and archives ]
[ editorials ]
[ events calendar ]
[ new releases ]
[ to do list ]
[ newspaper articles ]
[ mailbag ]
[ the archives ]
[ animé café contest information ]
[ episode-by-episode anime reviews, how we review ]
[ a parent's guide to anime, title list, titles by category ]
[ the anime encyclopædia ]
[ café trivia - anime trivia ]
[ anime humour, the laws of anime, light articles, etc ]
[ serious articles, essays, anime guides, etc. ]
[ message forum for the discussion of anime, manga, reviews, etc. ]
[ faq about the café and contributors, awards given to the café, etc. ]
[ feedback forms, error reports, or e-mail the café ]
[ links to other resources on the internet ]
[ site map ]



Help


[ the café mailbag ]

The Café Mailbag


The Café averages about 400 pieces of e-mail a month... Admittedly, many of those are entries into the Café contest, but we still get many people who simply drop us a line. Several of the letters are rather interesting, so we thought we'd share them with you. In most cases, the identities of the writers are kept confidential.


June 2000

What a great site! ::claps:: I showed this site to my parents, since they were always saying, "Oh, that stuff is for kids," and other trash like that! Now that they see this site, they actually watch Tenchi Muyo in Love or Sailor Moon S movies with me, since they enjoy them as well, now that they know the real deal. Thanks a bunch! ;) Keep this site up! It's great!

N.

Hard to add anything to this comment! Just thanks for the positive comments, and it's great to hear that your parents are watching programs with you. ^_^


May 2000

Hi! I'm a Fan from Spain. I want to know if Akemi Takada will be going to Barcelona to de "Salon del Manga" in September. Do you know anything relationated with this ?

Unfortunately, I have no knowledge of the Spanish conventions. Is there anyone out there who might be able to help out here?


Greetings .. wonder if you have ideas on how i can contact fans of Serial Experiments Lain who live in the San Francisco Bay Area.

the posby

Anyone from the Bay Area know of any fan clubs dedicated to SEL?


March 2000

I found out about abcb a few days ago from a post on the Miyazaki mailing list referring to the review of Nausicaa/WotW. Boy was I impressed with your site! Not to mention stunned at the URL; I think I checked it out just to see if it was the same Abakabu that I know. Thanks for your commitment to good clean code; I appreciate it a lot. Beautiful layout, very professional. All sites should be done as elegantly as abcb. Now if we can only abolish Shockwave and all those gaudy picture shows...

D.V.

Thanks for your positive comments! We're finding that as more people get high-speed internet connections, more sites are turning to a "full-entertainment" oriented approach, but they're terribly slow for those of us with a measly 56K connection. Not to mention that a lot of these sites won't work on browsers that don't have Shockwave or similar plug-ins. Our mandate is, and will be for the forseeable future, to deliver as much information to as many visitors as possible. For us, that still means simple formatting, and no plug-ins.


Well, I liked pretty much everything (except I was upset to see quite a few of my favorite anime missing from the encyclopedia...) and I put up a link to it on my site, but I couldn't find a linking button. I just think it'd be great if you had a linking button or two...

M.K.

If you're looking for a link button, take a look at the bottom of our main links page. It's at:

http://www.abcb.com/links/

P.S. The Encyclopaedia is an on-going project. More entries are added all the time.


I'll be back. I found this site today, in my search for MP3's and MOD's, but I stayed because of its simplicity.

You guys (and gals) use NOTEPAD?! Congrats!! I use it too, and have finally found an official site that uses it!

A.M.

Still use Notepad, and will continue to do so until there's a good website maintenance package. We may have to write our own, if what we've seen so far is any indication...


February 2000

I have read the Anime Cafe's reviews for almost a year, now, and generally enjoy them, although my college schedule (and student income) rarely allow me the opportunity to enjoy new animation. I also enjoy all the humour of Cafe Latte, and often re-read the Laws of Anime and the many ways to tell if you have been in Japan too long. One or two indicate that I have been in Japan too long, which is amazing, as I have never been.

To the real point of this letter -- corporate affiliation. I for one have no problems with this, provided the Anime Cafe continues to reveiw all Anime that it can, regardless of which companies release it, and that all the reviews are objective. If reviews and other information became limited to the company with which you were affiliated, or if the reviews of their anime and those of their competitors became slanted for pecuniary reasons, then, of course, there would be a problem. If you do it right, however, corporate affiliation should allow for greater exposure of all anime at this site, and would be a good thing.

But I reckon we can trust y'all to remain fair and objective, so, best of luck, either way!

D.S.

We have recently turned down two affiliate offers, but we are considering a strategic alliance with a major US entertainment corporation -- one that would not encroach on our individuality, and would give us additional exposure. Details haven't been worked out yet, but it sounds promising.


Query about SE:Lain

So, I gathered that you liked the series... ^_^

I highly recommend that you try freeze framing (now that you have the DVDs) some of the stuff on the "navi" screens. Heh heh heh.

I first encountered the series at KatsuCon 5 at about 2AM. I was wired on Jolt cola, double espresso and had a bellyfull of Denny's greasy eggs and ham.

J.C.

I did notice two as I was watching [text removed, to be used as trivia questions]

Watching Lain while under the influence of _anything_ is really not recommended behaviour!


Do you know the situation surrounding THEM anime review site? They haven't upgrade their site for 2 months.

T.

I just received an e-mail message from Carlos Ross of T.H.E.M. Apparently, there is some problem with ASU giving access to FTP services to T.H.E.M. Carlos apologises, and is working to resolve this situation.

FURTHER UPDATE

Carlos has given us a further update. Apparently, Carlos has changed his career plans, and is now attending a different school, pursuing a Visual Communications/Animation degree. During that point in time, his account at ASU lapsed... BUT good news -- they expect to be back up and running by the end of the week, and they have four new reviews ready to go!


I love your site, it is really nice, and has helped me a lot to learn about anime. But I have a suggestion for your site. Add a history of anime section, the beginning of it all. I would like to learn about this stuff, like the "creator" of anime (don't know his name), the first real anime made (Astro-boy), his influences (Disney, 'Bambi'), and other stuff. Also, do you know any sites right now that have a good anime history section? I am (besides just wanting to know) doing a report about it for my thesis paper for school. Any sites will help.

C.G.

Take a look at the bottom our our 'Café Espresso' section, in the 'see also' section. We have a couple of links to sites which have anime time-lines or historical information.


On the quiz you said that there were 4 types of quarks, but I think there are six. Up, down, strange, charm, strange, bottom and top. Don't take my word for it, all this coming from a freshman in high school. Great site, keep it up =)

G.D.

You are in fact correct! Thanks for the info!


I am from Germany (so pardon me the flaws I make, my English is anything but perfect ;). I have been visiting your site since a couple of months and I feel it is the time to send you a mail to tell you my opinion. Surely it is not new for you to hear that your site is great, but given this particular circumstance I have to emphasize it once more time: the anime cafe is G R E A T. You have done a phantastic work. The design of your site is simple, yes, but effective. But what I appreciate at most about the anime cafe is and stays the contents, sometimes informative, sometimes amusing, but always entertaining. That brings me to my first question: Where do you get all the background information you process in your reviews? Is there a site on the Net where one can look it up or do you use some secondary literature? If yes, can you recommend some sites or titles to me? My second question concerns your review of the anime *Maison Ikkoku*. You have written that there are two movies (btw, what are their names? ) beside the TV-series, right? What I would like to know is whether these movies are OVA-productions or full length feature films? Are there any OVAs from MI?

I would be very thankful if you can answer my questions :-)

sayounara,

P.L.

Most of our information comes from doing our own research. Since we're a fan-run site, we don't have a lot on insider information. My sister lives in Japan (in the Kansai region, near Kyoto/Osaka), so we are able to get a lot of information first-hand. We also have many friends on the internet, who are able to supply us with leads. Finally, we also rely on people in the industry, who provide us with upcoming news of events and products which they may be releasing. Some companies, such as Pioneer, Viz, AD Films and AnimEigo work very closely with the anime fans on the internet, and often provide us with very timely news.

As for MI -- I believe there are two movies. One is the Maison Ikkoku Final Movie, which takes place after the series final episode. It's not feature-length, so it's like an OAV. The second movie is not animated, and used real actors. This was just called Maison Ikkoku, and may still be available on laser disc. There was also one OAV, which takes place at the beach, and did not really contribute anything to the series. I don't have the title for the one episode.


Are you the Anime Cafe that had a hand in the creation of the card game Ani-Mayhem?

J.L.

No, I believe that they were Animecafe, Inc. I have no idea how to contact them, you might want to try Pioneer Entertainment (http://www.pioneer-ent.com); they are distributing ani-mayhem cards in their products.


January 2000

Hello there. Just asking for an opinion here from you as well as the fellow reviewers of "The Anime Cafe"...hope you'll do not mind!

People outside the circle of watching anime usually have the opinion that anime is just sheer fun and crazy humour and all without much intellectual food for thought - are there any quality anime title(s) which you all consider intellectually probing, intriguing or disturbing, whether or not serious issues are explored with humour or satire...besides Evangelion and Miyazaki's works...

Yours sincerely,

J.W.

Anime is like an other film media -- there are some light, mindless material, and then there are incredibly thought-provoking programs as well.

If you're looking for some titles that stretch the mind a bit, you might want to try:

  • Serial Experiments: Lain
  • Patlabor 1 movie
  • Patlabor 2 movie
  • Ghost in the Shell

These might be considered 'hard-core' SF, and Ghost in the Shell and Lain are intended for mature audiences. I really think that the Patlabor movies are overlooked.


Just wanted to let you know I love your site. I'm new to anime. I recently bought a DVD player and a friend let me borrow Record of Lodoss Wars. I of course loved it and, despite the objections from my bank account, I've been building my own anime library. The Anime Cafe has been a great resource for finding good anime. You didn't get a five star rating though because of Legend of Lemnear. You haven't reviewed it yet but I figured since I liked Record of Lodoss Wars, another fantasy anime title will be good too. Oops :-) Once you have reviewed every anime title I'll give you a five. hehehe Anyways better not let myself start babbling. Keep up the good work.




Please note that due to technical difficulties, most letters from January and some from early February were lost. Our apologies to those persons who may have sent in letters, but have not received a reply.



Previous Issues




[ what's new ] [ editorials ] [ calendar ] [ releases ] [ to do ] [ in the news ] [ mailbag ] [ archives ]

[ home ] [ what's new ] [ café contest ] [ café reviews ] [ parent's guide ] [ encyclopædia ]
[ café trivia ] [ café latté ] [ café espresso ] [ about the café ] [ feedback ] [ links ] [ site map ]

© 1997-2000. All rights reserved. The Animé Café logo and the Crystal Kyoko award are original creations of the Animé Café. Please do not use any of the materials on this site without the expressed written permission of the Animé Café.

Page last modified 2000.05.25