excitement and adventure

Excitement and adventure confronted us at every turn yesterday! Well, if you count "rain" as exciting adventure, then sure! Because it rained, which was good as my car really needed a car wash and I had actually seriously been thinking about getting a car wash, but then it rained. We did some toolin' around the sticks looking at junk that WE COULD NOT BUY BECAUSE DUDE DIDN'T PUT A PRICE TAG ON IT AND THEN LEFT TOWN FOR A MONTH. If we can't give you money for your junk THEN IT ISN'T FOR SALE, IS IT. Nossir. We did buy some cheap comics and one guy just gave us an LP -just said "take it" - so that's pretty cool.

I finished the latest ZERO FIGHTER and that's up, and we watched a bunch of old commercials and had pizza and wings. And got most everything squared away and out of sight, almost. Today I put up a new LET'S ANIME column all about fans! Because people love reading about fans.

saw this in the junk market

We saw one issue of "Anime Iku" in a stall full of video games at the flea market in Courtice. Having never heard of this otaku culture magazine before, we were curious, but not curious enough to spend $5 on it. After checking out their sole online presence - one blog post, more than a year ago - I am still unsure as to whether or not we just saved five bucks, or missed out on the chance of a lifetime.

"about us"
Anime IKU is an underground, online, anime magazine focusing on all aspects of Japanese animation including the stuff everyone knows about, but few people talk about. Our goal is not to be crass and cater to the lowest forms of attention-grabbing. We’re honest, smart, and sexy, just like the true fans of anime.

Yup, it's so underground that the sole evidence of its existence is one blog post with two replies, one of which is from "AnimeIKU".

blog post -
The magazine isn’t officially dead. Just put on hiatus.

To clear some misconceptions: Anime IKU was envisioned as an online destination from the very beginning, with a special printed component put out once in a while. It would be a more honest reflection of anime fandom compared to other media outlets who were either too conservative, or too extreme.

Everything went awry when we were unable to find qualified individuals to handle the website, and concentrated too much energy on the printed portion.

Three years later, the need for a true alternative is greater than ever as anime companies clamp down on their properties, and new fans are led astray by the sometimes, unfriendliness of existing fan bases.

Whether you are a hardcore otaku, or casual viewer, you’ll like what we have planned for the future. Stay tuned.

I agree. We need a true alternative because fans are being led astray! And some media outlets are too conservative, and others are too extreme! Also only time will tell and tomorrow is another day as the winds of change start blowin' the sands of time!

Trouble is that rather than give us this true alternative, "Anime IKU" prints one issue of one magazine and then vanishes because it's difficult to write about freakin' cartoons if you don't have enough qualified individuals to handle your website. And then fans get led astray, and we all know how painful that can be.

I know FOR A FACT that if Toole didn't have a crack team of qualified highly paid professionals, he would never have been able to keep Anime Jump going for a decade. And my writing about anime at Let's Anime for years? Without FutureWare Associates(tm) and their crack team of web-savvy technicians and their quick-dispatch team of DigiWebTroubleShooters (tm), forget it! This is really difficult, even for those of us who aren't honest, smart, or sexy!

There's nothing anime fandom needs more than a pompous, know-it-all "magazine" determined to show those mean smarty pants in that 'unfriendly" fan club what time it is -by talking about the stuff nobody else has the GUTS to talk about. Curious as to what that is exactly, what dark controversial topics have yet to be brought to light in the anime fandom world. I guess we'll just have to bide our time until the triumphal return of "AnimeIKU."

The ironic part is that by printing a failed magazine and writing a blog post filled with attitude and unkept promises, "AnimeIKU" is inadvertently presenting a very honest picture of anime fandom as it actually is - a kindergarden filled with egos, desperate to waste time and money to show everybody else who the TRUE FANS are, long on plans and short on willpower, where the only thing cheaper than used anime VHS tapes is talk.

Not like those OTHER fandoms, which are filled with godlike, physically-fit superhumans posessed of incredible wisdom and maturity.