Every year during the summer period, The Japanese School organizes a summer festival, just like those in Japan, which is open to the public. Perfect opportunity to immerse yourself in Jap culture.

Date : Saturday, 25 August 2007
Time : 6pm
Venue : The Japanese School (Changi Campus)
11 Upper Changi Road North

If i’m not wrong, there’s probably a shuttle bus from Tanah Merah MRT. It’s also accessible by Bus no. 2. Memories at the back of my mind say something about tickets. However, I do not have the full details, anybody can clarify for me? Anyway, it’s always damn crowded, so be sure to go there way early.

Feel free to dress up like a jap! Not compulsory of course. They do rent out Yukatas at the school, as well as service for helping you put it on. (it’s way tougher than it looks)

Anyway, seeing how it’s on the same day as Chara Fest, looks like I’ll go down after visiting Chara Fest? (damn, this would make for a very tiring day) Now I just need people to go with. haha.

(and you never know when you might just meet girls who are looking for summer romance =X )

KKnM (Merchandise Counter inside Anime House) will be closed from 15th August - 21st August 2007 to prepare for this year’s Chara Fest. Business will resume as usual on the 22nd of August.

You can check out the list here after they update it on the 23rd August.

See you there?? Haha. Damn. It’s going to be damn crowded. Sigh. I’m just going to get poorer

(I really love the characters used for the poster. Gave me a chuckle)

A character with the online nick “xysing” has been found saying some interesting things in online forums.

“Nope~ Me too busy sueing people~ (o.o)y”
“Hahahahah! I double-6-ed so many downloaders~ serve them right! (o.o)y”
~posted by xysing in SCORD forum

And thanks to Hardwarezone EDMW’s CSI team, (thread here) It would appear that xysing is Stephen Sing Xin Yang. Which Stephen? That Stephen who is one of the directors to ODEX and the Secretary to Anti-Video Piracy Association of Singapore. Credit to Ferolare, who did up a wonderful entry compiling all the “evidence”.

If this is the attitude of Odex directors, then there’s really nothing that can defend what Odex is doing isn’t it?

Of course, recently, the Newpaper did another article on Odex, filled with many quotes from Mr Peter Go.

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Real life comic has a comic strip today about shopping for figurines. I was quite amused.

Big boobs and Fanservicey are always good reasons to buy a Haruhi figurine.

In other news, e2046 is coming up with an originally sculpted Gothic Haruhi.

There’s something about the pose that makes me feel like it’s just not something haruhi would do. In fact, besides the face, it doesn’t feel like haruhi to me. What do you think? aha. Nice general figurine though

*update* Here’s a copy of a letter sent by odex. (Found by TJ HAN) It’s quite interesting the number of episodes that he was concurrently downloading. Some thoughts by Darkmirage on this issue. Not sure how right he is, but he does make some good points.

*update 2* Zaobao reports that a total of 17 letters were sent out.

Look what I got in my mailbox today, an email from the NUS PROVOST.

Recently the University was approached by a representative of a local authorised distributor of foreign television programmes, including anime, and of the Anti-Video Piracy Association, Singapore and was informed that various illegal online downloads of anime had been made from IP addresses belonging to NUS during the months of March and April this year.

I guess this pretty much confirms whether those warnings about clamping down on illegal downloads of anime are real.

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The last time I blogged about this illegal downloads topic, I actually got news that while it’s true, they were not really starting to execute it yet. But it seems like all that is about to change.

You can see a list of liscensed anime here.

After asking various people that I think would know better, I can’t confirm whether this is actually happening, although my instincts tell me that the government is serious this time. Don’t ask me things like whether Bittorrent / youtube / crunchroll is illegal. I have no idea, and if you’re worried, you shouldn’t try any of them but should buy the licensed VCDs instead. Besides I think it’s hard to quantify whether the actual creators of anime gain or lose out by the use of fansubs.

Don’t bother debating what effects this has on the anime community in Singapore. Whether good or bad, it has been debated to death over and over again. I guess the government believes that it’s vital to uphold Singapore’s reputation as a place that protect intellectual property.

Obviously I have no idea whether this is fact or fiction, but you’re better off stopping downloads.

Anyway, personally for this blog, I haven’t decided what to do with it. I’m considering whether to continue blogging about unlicensed anime titles, (compared to the list mentioned above), and letting my jap friends fill in some blanks as well.

Yup. No idea where I would go from here. But the most sad part to me is that this would definitely mean the death of the current local anime blogging community. (It will probably still exist, just in a modified form)

*update* Odex is updating their website to include translator’s blog, paid anime downloads. That should be interesting.

*another update* Actually, I’m pretty upset with the comments I see in the singapore blogsphere in general with regards to anime downloads. It shows how much we’ve come to think of anime as “free stuff”. I’m quite excited with what Odex and companies are planning to do, why won’t people just give them a chance. Time to do things within a legal framework. Half the time, the reasonings I see behind arguments are just plain excuses.

*update 3* Check out latest entry regarding more updated information, especially some news article that appeared on straitstimes and newpaper.  Information available includes how much is the fine ($3k-5k) and which isp are affected. (Singnet and Starhub definitely are. Pacnet has recieved a court order to ask them to match users to the I.P. addresses.)