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| [ | [Momotato Daioh] [Hayama's Oneti Page] [Omonomono] [Canned Dogs?] |
So, just what is JASCII.net about anyway?
JASCII is a collection of comments and screen captures from the latest anime to air in Japan, aspiring to provide information about the newest shows before many English sites become available. I try to review almost all true anime shows and in the best circumstances get my thoughts up around 24 hours after the anime has aired in Japan. This isn't a review site per se, because I only focus on the first episode of each series - I don't have time to watch every series to completion, but I can check out the first episode to give a little bit of information and help out, and that's what the goal of this site is.
Where can I find these series to watch?
Since JASCII covers the newest series airing in Japan, often the only place you can legally watch the series is on Japanese TV. However, with advent of the Internet and broadband connections, there are some other options available to you. The most prevalent of these is the ethically grey area known as "fansubs." Fansubs are illegal, no doubt about it, but they exist in a fragile state of tolerance by anime companies right now (presumably) because of the wider exposure that they give to anime that will later be licensed and released in other regions around the world. The catch to this is that the "code of ethics" that drives fansubs morally obligates you to SUPPORT the industry by buying those series that you are downloading when they are released in your area! Many fans today forget this and download every series that comes out without a care. It's a very sad situation, and I implore you to THINK before you decide that you really can morally justify breaking international copyright law. That said (and really, please THINK about what you are doing), the premiere source for unlicensed fansubs today is AnimeSuki.
Many series in the JASCII archive are now licensed and released in R1! If a series you like is available on DVD, please go to a store selling legitimate anime DVDs (not the illegal bootleg ones) like Right Stuf. For updated lists of what is licensed in Region 1, see AnimeonDVD's Grand High License List or AnimeSuki's list.
Other series may not be fansubbed or licensed at all. Unfortunately, I cannot help you find "raw" episodes of these anime. If you're interested in checking out these series, I recommend looking into ordering the Japanese DVDs at somewhere like CD Japan.
How did this all begin?
I started this site in April 2002 out of laziness. I had a lot of people asking me what I thought about all these new shows airing in Japan, since I liked to give almost every show that aired a chance, and it was becoming such a hassle to give a good answer every time that I thought people might enjoy seeing some screenshots and reading a little bit of a summary of how the show starts. I wrote up some basic HTML, took screenshots, and threw up a page with the anime that I had seen so far that April. I spread the link around on some IRC channels that I frequented at the time, and the response was so favorable that I decided to try and keep the site going for every new season.
In fact, the site was so popular that it easily broke the 1GB/month bandwidth limit at its original home, himeno.home.mindspring.com. Since then, it has been hosted at my University of New Mexico account and my friend Anthony's Worcester Polytechnic Institute account before finally coming to its (hopefully) permanent home here with its own domain name. I've had very few problems with the site's host, DreamHost, and would happily recommend anyone else looking for a webhost to look at their services as well.
Who's behind JASCII.net?
This site is almost entirely the work of me, Curtis Harmon, known better online as Jasconius. However, there are some important contributors that I'd like to acknowledge! The new anime comments and screenshots were mirrored at AnimeonDVD under the title "Shin Getter Anime" for a time, and Chris Beveridge was kind enough to let me use his code there as a basis to get this site rewritten in PHP. Hen-neko and Mrdini also helped a lot with the PHP, so thanks go out to them as well! Thanks again to Anthony for hosting this site for a good period of time before it found its way here. StarCreator has helped out with many aspects of the site, from pointing out errors to helping with the redesign of the site as a whole, and also helping with really boring data entry when I did the switchover to the new archive. NekoTsukimi also helped out with the data entry and is my partner in liking to watch really cute anime before it's fansubbed, so I don't have to ramble to no one about the latest stuff! Lastly, Aya-chan has helped out with various screenshots and reviews over the years, and helped me decide which series are so terrible that I should trash them in my comments. ^_^
Also, a big thanks to all the forum users who have contributed since I started those up. ^^
How about a biography or a profile or something?
I'm a 25-year-old college student who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I've been an anime fan since the fall of 1997, when my friend who happened to be taking Japanese at the time brought a video called "Tenchi Muyo In Love" to class. That was my first anime, and soon after, I fell in love with Vampire Princess Miyu, Sailor Moon, and other series that were available for rent from my local video store at the time. Soon after, I started being more interested in anime online, discovered fansubs, and gradually got more and more interested in anime fandom. Because of my interests in anime and languages, I took two years of Japanese at Clark University. After my first year, I got really into reading manga, which really helped my Japanese, and in December of 2000, I translated a few episodes of the series Denshin Mamotte Shugogetten, the SMIL scripts for which are probably floating around somewhere. I have sometimes translated for Hikari no Kiseki and Anime-Fansubs. I have also contracted out my skills as timer and editor in the anime industry, so if you look hard enough, you might find my name on some anime DVDs. I kind of took a break from the new anime world for a couple of years, but it's possible that I might be finishing up some old projects or starting some new ones in the future.
My favorite anime series include Vampire Princess Miyu, Princess Tutu, Twin Spica, Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou, Pretear, and Tiny Snow Fairy Sugar. I have way too many favorite manga series to make a reasonably complete list, but some of them include Hoshi no Hitomi no Silhouette by Hiiragi Aoi, Clover by CLAMP, Kanben Shite Cho! by Kimura Chika, all of Erica Sakurazawa's stuff, Pastel by Kobayashi Toshihiko, and Tomorrow by Mito Orihara.
If you're trying to provide information about the latest shows, why are there a lot of shows missing from your archive since the site started?
This site began out of laziness, and it is doubtless that it will ever escape that. I've been on various trips when new anime has aired, and sometimes I just never get around to watching everything or writing up comments. Since the site has its own domain now, I'm trying to make sure and update with all of the new series, even if they're late, but in the past I just kind of ignored them, since I figured untimely comments weren't really that helpful to anyone.
What happened to your anime diary?
It was a pain, so I wrote about one entry before I decided to stop. Now that the site is done in PHP, I'm thinking about restarting that page as a more general format anime/manga blog, with news, comments about new episodes, and other things like that, since I can make it all automated once I set up a couple of scripts. Update: The exact same thing happened again! Surprise, surprise. I don't think it's ever coming back. ^_^;
Your review of series X sucks! / What makes you think your opinions are worth anything? / How can you like series Y, it's horrible!
These are not reviews of the series, merely my initial impressions after watching the first one or two episodes. They're not guaranteed to be representative of the whole series, and I would frankly be much more surprised if you AGREED with my opinions than if you thought I was crazy. I do try to give reasons for all of my opinions so that people can get a better idea of what makes a series good or bad in my opinion, but if you still think that my thoughts are worthless, please feel free to take a look at the screenshots and ignore the text altogether. ^^
Why does this site look so crappy?
I'm a big fan of simple sites that provide useful content. I don't think a more complex or flashy design would add anything to JASCII, so I plan to keep it as it is.
How can I contact you?
A good way to get more info on the latest series here or to talk about anything here on the site is to post comments in the forums! I try to check the forums pretty often, and there are a good number of other knowledgeable people posting there, so I recommend it as a good way to get information. Alternatively, if you want to contact me directly, you can e-mail me at jascii@gmail (dot com of course). WARNING: I'm really terrible about answering e-mail, so don't be surprised if you don't get a response. The forums are the best way to get ahold of me, but feel free to resend the e-mail if you don't get a response. ^^;;;
