1 There's also a remake of Kanon.

2 Which, at least through one episode, is quite impressive.  Much, much detail... and a distinct feeling that the cast and crew really like the characters and story.

3 The Negi remake seems to have increased the diversity in character designs, at least. At first glance some of them are sufficiently different from the manga that I don't recognize them, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. -j

4

Sometimes there's a good reason for a remake. In the case of Kanon, the new version is going to be twice as long. I have read that the first version seems rushed, because there really wasn't enough time to tell the whole story from the manga, and to give each of the girls her due.

The currently-ongoing "Ah! My Goddess" remake is certainly justified. And my understanding was that the original version of "Hanaukyo Maid Team" was pretty crummy, but I liked the remake.

So this isn't exactly unprecedented. But it's a bit strange for it to happen so rapidly.

5 The general consensus on the first Negima anime was that it mangled the original manga (of which I read six volumes before realizing that it wasn't my thing at all) in addition to having horrible animation for the first nine or so episodes. The latter was so bad that the creator made his disappointment publicly known, resulting in said episodes being fixed for the DVD release (the second was actually reanimated in its entirety). SDB's first impressions were spot-on in noting the paucity of fanservice in the TV series, especially compared to the manga. As probably the most-reviled big-name adaptation in the last two years, Negima! was due for a remake... though from what I hear the new series is even less faithful to the original work, using the original characters and setting to tell a new story.

Kanon is somewhat different... the 2002 version by Toei Animation, while by most accounts rushed and having mediocre character designs, isn't nearly as hated as the Negima! anime. In fact, it's got a pretty sizable fanbase despite its failure to live up to the original work, which is considered a classic of its medium (not a manga, but an adults-only visual novel game). I can say with certainty that there would be no Kanon remake today were it not for the 2005 TV anime adaptation of AIR, another visual novel from Key, the makers of Kanon. AIR TV was very well-received among fans of the game and otaku in general, and some executive figured they'd go crazy for an adaptation of Kanon by the same studio that animated AIR (Kyoto Animation). So far, they have.

Kyoto Animation's stock is pretty high these days, what with them having done AIR, Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid, and that show you may have heard of with the girl who believes in aliens, time travelers, and espers, so a lot of fans (myself included) have high hopes for the remake. Judging from episode one, we won't be disappointed.

6 An error occurred: Fruitcake error: Can't create a new thread (errno 12); if you are not out of available memory, you can consult the manual for a possible OS-dependent bug

7 Yeah, I just saw that too.  Not quite sure what was going on, but I've restarted MySQL and it's all happy now.

I think MySQL ran out of connections.  Why that happened isn't clear.

8

Quick work, Pixy!  You just let me post the Wonderduck Award for Greatest AMV of ALL TIME by performing your magic...

9

Pixy,

What in the great pits of hell is going on with the fansubbed .avi file for Sasami Club (I assume we're both talkiong about the file linked from Animesuki)? I haven't found a combination of player and codec yet that can get the video working.

10 A few people posted about that at AnimeSuki and elsewhere.  I use the Community Codec Pack
and Core Media Player and don't have any problems.

11

While I haven't d/l'd Sasami, I've had great luck with VLC Media Player.  I haven't made the thing cough-and-die yet, no matter what format I've thrown at it, and it's a standalone player to boot (no codec packs!).

CCCP is supposed to be really good, if you can figure out how to install it (I've got the instructions... I think they're even in English, but I'm not positive).

12 I kind of like Core Media Player, but it does randomly drop dead on occasion.  (Actually, it usually tells you it's dropped dead, but keeps right on playing.  The controls even work.  It's the most lifelike zombie I've ever seen.)

CCCP has the usual install wizard.  Just double-click and follow the bouncing ball.  But if VLC is working for you, I wouldn't bother.

13

I'm somewhat familiar with VLC player. My dad upgraded his old Dell laptop from 98 to XP, and apparently the exact combination of that model, and that upgrade, causes Windows Media to drop dead when you try to watch a DVD movie (which was a large part of why he got the laptop in the first place). VLC player was the only thing rumored to fix the bug.

I've experimented with Zoom player as well, but even it's been choking on things lately.

It's rediculous having to chase run down codecs constantly because some schmuck decides to encode his video in a format that's 15 minutes old.

14

CCCP has the usual install wizard.

WHERE?  The only thing I've seen is Insurgent and the CCCP codec pack!  I'd love to have the .mkv/h264/whateveritscalledthisweek on my system... then I could have a halfway decent chance to burn these newer shows to DVD.

15

Well I used the Core/Commie combo and it seems to work now.

Duck, just go the Pixy's link and download the executable. I got a strange daisy chain error about inaccessible memory when it tried to run, but I just shut it off in the task manager and the procees went smoothly from there.