That’s right, Ghetto Happy Dining…and
of course it’s a really posh restaurant.

As a nation, Japan is absolutely fascinated with the English language. They give their products English names to make them sound foreign and exotic, they brand them using Roman letters to give them that distinctive trendy look, and they wear T-shirts with phrases that look as though they were produced by having a blindfolded person point to a series random words in a dictionary.

It wasn’t that long ago that learning a foreign language was looked upon with a great deal of suspicion. During Japan’s more isolationist days, anyone who spoke English too well was viewed as un-Japanese, something of a renegade. Now that the Japanese have really opened up to the west, however, they seem determined to make up for lost time by using and abusing the language in every way conceivably possible.

If you’ve ever traveled in Japan, you have no doubt seen the way English is plastered all over signs, advertisements, and T-shirts. The free-spirited brazenness with which it is used, unhindered by such petty things as “grammar”, makes linguists and English teachers around the world cringe in dismay, but it also provides plenty of entertainment for gaijin like myself.

Below is a sampling of a few of the things I ran into during my time in Japan that made me laugh. Read the rest of this entry »

Choki! Finally the first glimpses of Kaiji’s inner demon are revealed.

.

.

And the moment we’ve all been waiting for arrives. Kaiji’s fish takes the bait and he’s taken in…hook, line, and scissors.

It was most excellent to finally see Kaiji’s shrewd gambling cunning come into play and his accompanying RON face.

In this respect, Kaiji is completely unlike the cool and collected Akagi, who always maintained his composure, and who barely so much as cracked a smile when he crushed his opponents, let alone gloated over them. Read the rest of this entry »

30 different shows from the fall season, analyzed and ranked from the bottom up.

EDIT: With greater insight now that the season has progressed, we make the following amendments to the original ranking: Shugo Chara and ef ~ a tale of memories ~ both need to be way higher on the list, and Dragonaut and Neuro need to be way lower.

Two Shows with emo woes and mecha in the sky,
Seven pieces of crap that got released too soon,
Six moe series, each with one lucky guy,
One for the Lolicon in his dark room

In the Land of Internets where Shadows lie.
One Blogger to watch them all, One Blogger to find them,
One Blogger to rank them all and on the web deride them
In the Land of Internets where Shadows lie.

…

Disclaimer: Keep in mind that these rankings are purely a reflection of our own opinions and tastes, which are admittedly rather different from your average anime fan. Just because we don’t like a particular show doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy it. Your mileage may vary, etc etc.

Disclaimer 2: These reviews are based solely on the episodes which have aired up to this point (October 22). We take no responsibility for shows which unexpectedly become epic or go to crap after this point. Read the rest of this entry »

haha n00b i use t3h l33t sploitz nao all ur c4rd r bel0ng 2 me

;_;

lolol rofl pwned kkthxbye!!1 Read the rest of this entry »

Google has a search comparison tool called Google Trends, which allows you to look up and compare the popularity of certain high volume search queries over time.

After reading this article, I was inspired to see if I could find anything cool regarding anime related search terms. Rather than performing more generalized comparisons, however, I decided to look up specific shows to see if I could learn anything interesting about them. Read on for the results.

Read the rest of this entry »

In a season overflowing with sequels and generic “been there, done that” plots, Moyashimon’s unique premise and unusual, lighthearted style is a breath of fresh air.

Basically it’s Mushishi, but instead of mysterious and sometimes sinister creatures that live in your eyeballs, it’s full of cute and harmless bacteria who appear as chibi critters with big heads and giant smiles. I swear they look like something straight out of LocoRoco. Even the music in the little ending skit totally reminded me of the game.

Moyashimon’s OP, “Curriculum”, sung by Ifu Sarasa as her debut piece.

If watching this doesn’t make you smile, then there’s something terribly wrong with you.

As soon as I saw that little yellow oryzae guy with the dreadlocks come out and start boppin’ to the music, I knew this show was gonna be epic.

The ending skit, which took the spot that would
normally feature an episode preview.

Read the rest of this entry »

Clannad? Shana? Gundam? Meh, who needs them when you’ve got Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji!

Although this show seems to be the red-headed (and pointy nosed) step-child of the fall anime season, here at EW it’s the number one item on our Must-Watch list right now.

Read on and perhaps you too will be converted by Fukumoto Nobuyuki’s masterpiece…or at least nosestabbed into submission.

Also you’ll learn what the heck “zawa zawa” means. Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, even Epic Win is not immune to that greatest of cliches, that bane of bloggers everywhere - metablogging.

If you’re a regular, you’ve most likely noticed that our usual routine of posting every 1 - 2 days has slowed over the last week to, well…none. Guff got KO’d by a nasty flu, and I’ve been busy with work, so things here at EW have been pretty quiet. Honestly though, none of the new anime that have aired so far have gotten me really interested yet, so I haven’t exactly been burning with the desire to pen long-winded diatribes on the merits (or lack thereof) of a given show.

The above images are purely for illustrative purposes. Any resemblance to real bloggers, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Instead, I thought I’d take a moment share some thoughts about blogging in general. Despite my earlier disparaging remarks about metablogging, I do often find it interesting to learn more about what goes on behind the scenes at some of my favorite sites. Really, metablogging only becomes a problem when it starts taking the place of real blogging. Of course, by talking about metablogging, I’ve fallen to an even lower level… meta-meta-blogging.

Anyway, so here we are, two months and 25k pageviews into this whole blogging thing. We’ve learned a few things, but still have a long way to go to achieve “serious business” blog status. Thus, rather than the usual routine of the grizzled veteran blogger sharing wisdom gained from many years in the trenches, I thought it might be interesting to offer my perspective as the fresh-faced new blogger, still enthusiastic and naïve.

Here’s a nice random picture that’s only very loosely related
to what I’m talking about. I’m supposed to put these in
periodically to break up the wall of text, or something.

So a few thoughts: Read the rest of this entry »

It’s the climactic conclusion we’ve been famished for here at Epic Win, and might I say that few words other than “epic” can adequately describe the ending of Darker than Black. With the impending demise of all the contractors will it be Li or the Black Reaper that has the final say?

The final episode was excellent; I felt that the true essence of the story and the question that it asks was brought forth in poetic fashion. That question being, “Is there hope for peace, and do differences only bring about conflict and war, or is it those differences that make us unique, shape our experiences, and define our lives?” Read the rest of this entry »

Darker than Black draws near to the climactic conclusion, as the final battle at the gates of Hell is about to begin. Through the turmoil of conflict and the ghosts of the past that shape the present, Hei comes ever closer to the answer of his sister’s disappearance. Read the rest of this entry »