For a show that ended with the beautifully bittersweet "Things Change" — http://www.youtube.com/watc… — I can't say this is the direction I was looking for in a follow-up.

My college did an original musical every year, right before the Big Game, and one of the things we discovered while writing it was that the audience loved this kind of thing that spoke specifically to their experiences. Not broad stereotypes so much as individual things that many people experienced, like trying to…

The 2011 anime series Madoka Magica - described by several reviewers as this generation's Evangelion - starts with a dream sequence in which the titular schoolgirl sees a heroic magical girl defeated by the enormous city-thrashing witch, Walpurgisnacht. The twist in the first episode is that the girl from the dream,…

Roughly speaking, scripted shows have budgets starting at $1 million per hour. A $2 mil kickstarter is not going to pay for a whole season of Party Down… although it might cover the losses (production costs, minus advertising and DVD/Blu-Ray/iTunes revenue).

For kids or not, I will always be thankful for R.L. Stine's predecessor persona, "Jovial" Bob Stine, for The Absurdly Silly Encyclopedia And Fly Swatter. It has the most readable set of rules for Stooponglommon that I've ever found, plus an important warning about taking a boat made out of cheese into deep waters.

I haven't seen much of Champloo, but when people vote up an anime that isn't Evangelion, I second it. Particularly in this case because Champloo can be streamed free from Funimation (a lot of older shows, including Eva and Cowboy Bebop, are technically out of print and aren't available streaming either, so they're not…

One fun way to do a communal experience… we'll see if it sticks… is that Funimation has been doing "Noitamina Nights" as a livestream on YouTube, Friday nights at 7P ET, where they run two recent simulcast episodes, and there are usually 100-200 people hanging out in the chat room to discuss in realtime. Current…

The prestige OVA-only style of FLCL seems to have declined, though the Wikipedia entry notes it lives on in this new thing where a TV series will have an extra OVA episode in its DVD release (and sometimes you'll only get if if you've pre-ordered the whole series, etc.). Downside is these epsiodes, by their nature,…

The new Toonami is shrewd in how they're refreshing their lineup every couple weeks to maintain excitement; very different from the Saturday night [adult swim] block that seemed neglected and misguided (and clearly had no idea what to do with Durarara!!). A few years back, anime fans thought that Soul Eater was…

You're right on "Five Years", though I think they're also clearly calling out to Pink Floyd's "In The Flesh?" with the guitar+organ mega-chords. I guess if you're going to be nuts enough to do a rock opera, might as well name-check the greats.

The scenario you describe is pretty much how anime works, in a couple of different ways.

The Kinks - Something Else by the Kinks ("David Watts", "Death of a Clown")
Wings - Band on the Run ("Band on the Run", "Jet")
The Cribs - Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever ("Our Bovine Public", "Girls Like Mystery")
My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade ("The End.", "Dead!")
…and yeah, pretty much anything by The New…

Have heard nothing but good things about Beck. Is it streaming anywhere?

Sorry to be a week late, but: "Luna's Boat Song", in the PS1 video game Lunar: Silver Star Story: http://www.youtube.com/watc… . It's a quintessential "I want" song that gets things rolling an hour or so into this old school RPG.

I think Congress needs to step in with legislation prohibiting ABC from airing non-family sitcoms, since dumb-man gags and hugs are the only form of comedy they seem to understand and value. First Better Off Ted, now Don't Trust the B——, and probably Happy Endings next. Grrr.

You know, all of channel 62's afternoon programming back in the 80's was weird and cheap: Doctor Who, Dark Shadows, The New Soupy Sales Show, MV3… they even had the worst cartoons like Felix the Cat, Hoppity Hooper and Spiral Zone. (edit:) Oh! And Macron One, the crappy anime robot show that they dubbed new wave songs…

Yes. Thanks for asking. He's now an unemployed drunk… with cable.

MTV for 80's kids without cable: MV3 after school, Friday Night Videos on the weekend.

What's the point of robbery when nothing is worth taking?

Just tell us how the songs were, VanDerWerff, God…