Here is the SakuraCon 2009 report page. I'll try to keep it updated as the weekend goes by.

I also recommend that you all grab the latest mix tape from nerdcore prodigy Ultralystron (aka Karl Olson), which contains his now famous GIRUGAMESH mix.

Many of you may be excited to learn that Gavin Blair, co-creator of ReBoot, will be attending Anime Evolution this year as a guest. If you've been on the fence in regards to attending the con, hopefully this juicy bit of information will win you over. (And hopefully I'll be able to get an interview with him!) I've already managed to convince several friends to attend the con solely for this reason. Which is good, because with the con moving to the new Vancouver Convention Centre this year, AE is going to have to attract as big an untapped audience as possible.

Speaking of cons, with SakuraCon 2009 taking place this weekend, I will once again be providing a report. I'm changing the format a little this year, and will likely be focusing different sections on random events and musings rather than summarizing entire days in a limited number of pages. To test the waters with Drupal's page creation and image uploading functions, I have recompiled the Anime Evolution 2008 report into a new, easily accessible section. This means you'll no longer have to dig through the news archives to find my unpolished musings anymore! You'll read everything worth saying about the con simply by clicking here.

Bandai Entertainment has been gracious enough to place the first few episodes of Gundam 00 on their YouTube channel. Unfortunately, at least one North American country has not been included in this generous offering which has no doubt left a few Japanese executives ripping their hair out regardless. Care to guess which one? I'll give you a hint: it's not the United States.

We'll probably have to wait a couple of weeks, as was the case with Code Geass. But regardless, we still must ask ourselves... why?

In what is probably much more important news than anything going on on television right now, more than half of Code Geass is now streaming for free on YouTube, courtesy of Bandai Entertainment. This has actually been the case for a month, but it only this past week that they have finally ceased coating these streams in their anti-Canadian repellent powder. Given that Bandai Entertainment has ownership of all Canadian streaming rights for the series and can't possibly face bandwidth limitations by placing them on YouTube of all sites, it remains a mystery as to why Canadian access has taken this long. We can only assume that they were waiting for the Queen's blessing.

In any case, you are now free to view the streams HERE.

What I find more discouraging, however, is that these high quality, uncensored dub and subtitled full episodes being provided online for free from Bandai Entertainment aren't even on the first page of search results when one searches for "Code Geass" on YouTube. Many of them don't even have 200 views! Oh well, spread the word!

While Pretty Cure debut episodes will still run at 7:30am on Fridays, the repeat times have changed. It will now repeat on Fridays at 3:29pm (note that it will likely start a few minutes early in that timeslot), and 7:00am on Saturday. I'm honestly not sure if that's better or worse, but hopefully the Friday after school slot will allow it to get some decent exposure. Taking the Saturday at 1pm timeslot is Blue Dragon, returning to YTV on Saturday, March 7.

Also, beginning next Saturday, Bionix premieres will be pushed back by one hour. Naruto will now air at 10pm. And yes, it will be followed by Bleach at 10:30pm, for those of you worried it was being removed from the schedule.

The CRTC's highly anticipated hearings for new media regulation (in other words, the possibility of Canadian Content laws being applied to internet content delivery) took place this past week. Unsurprisingly, the hearing itself proved to be a two day Pandora's Box of just about every media-based cultural group in the country (including CCA, ACTRA, and SOCAN) demanding regulation on streaming online content, pushing Canadian Content to the forefront of the "Canadian Internet", and taxing ISPs on a multitude of justifications for extra subsidy.

If nothing else, this has amounted to some extremely bad timing for our friends at Bell and Rogers. In response to the recent hearings, Rogers had denounced any responsibility for implementing regulatory measures or levies on the internet on the grounds that they operate a "dumb pipe" through which content may not be managed. I would hope that this claim set off some alarm bells for anyone currently familiar the throttling practices of our favourite ISP companies.

Incidentally, the deadline for comments on the CRTC's hearing for network management for internet providers (ie: the Net Neutrality one) was extended until the end of today.

by: AnimeAsh

YTV has finally put up a Pretty Cure page on its website, and it list Pretty Cure premiering Friday March 6,2009 at 7:30am. It even has an episode summary for the first episode. I kinda knew YTV would premiere it there, considering D.King now had two timeslots, and I am hoping it has a repeat timeslot Saturday mornings/afternoons.
Here's the linkhttp://www.ytv.com/programming/shows/pretty_cure/

EDIT: According to forumer Mohji, the show will also repeat on Saturdays at 1pm. We may still need verification on this, though. - Jesse

DOUBLE EDIT: Not only will Pretty Cure have a repeat timeslot on Saturdays at 1pm EST/PST, it will also be playing on Sundays at 8am EST/PST!

It has only recently been brought to my attention that I haven't actually updated this website all year! Not sure how I let that happen, but with that in mind I feel it's only appropriate that my first update for the year be something important: the deadline for comments on the current public consultation of traffic shaping policies in Canada is only a little over a week away!

This is one of the most important issues that the CRTC has opened up in quite a few years, especially given the recent upswing in internet providers throttling net connections, often rendering any kind of peer-to-peer technology useless. If they were to over turn their previous hands-off approach of regulating the internet, it would be a huge step towards a neutral internet in Canada without bandwidth favourtism shown towards the highest corporate bidders.

To leave a comment, click here and select pt2008-19 (at the very bottom of the page). Deadline for comments is February 16, 2009.

EDIT: Actually, just submit your comments here. It's much easier. Also disregard any technical oversights I made in my hastily typed message.

In observation of the holidays, I felt it was only appropriate to offer something to my questionably loyal following. Here it is, a quick little story from yours truly:

YOU'RE A PIRATE, SANTA CLAUS!

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season. Enjoy the copies of Martin Lawrence in Black Knight that your confused and out-of-touch grandparents will almost certainly be buying for you by accident.

You heard that right, everyone! Teletoon will be starting the second season of what can arguably be called last year's best new animated series, The Spectacular Spider-Man, on Sunday, January 11 at 10:30am. As has been par for the course with Marvel toons lately, this will be months before the season is set to debut on the series' new US broadcaster, Disney XD (formerly Jetix).

Although the show has been conceived as a five season arc with further possibilities for continuation after, the chances of the series receiving a third season have become downright dismal, despite the show's popularity. With the series being auctioned off to a station that has barely half the reach of KidsWB in the States, it seems entirely possible that Sony had simply given up on the show after the unexpected death of its former venue. As things stand right now, it's going to take an unexpected new development for a third season to even become feasible, and it will almost certainly require funding from both Disney XD and Teletoon. Unfortunately, the fact that the season premiere wasn't important enough to make Teletoon's January Programming Highlights doesn't exactly suggest that the series is a ratings powerhouse. Could this change for season two? Let's hope so.