Guests' Web Picks

      Anyone who's come across the Rossman's sites will know that he's incredibly diverting. They will also notice that he has no compunction in stating his opinions, highly controversial tho' they might be and in the most highly controversial style too. So all those of delicate constitutions, please don your hardhats and put on your sense of humour before continuing on.

      I mentioned to the Rossman that his will be the first Guests' Web Picks to be graced with a disclaimer, but surely, there is no need to go to such lengths. I mean, every reader of this column knows that what is in the article is solely the expression of its author's intellect and creativity (or lack thereof... ;D). Besides, Rossman assures me that Catsy will have the liver of anyone who's going to spout, "...That guy at the Anipike says [insert name/anime/manga] is [insert choice negative adjectives and/or swears]..."  ;)

  ......by the way, the Rossman seems to like whitespace.  -Nikkou.  :)

       It all began 6+ years ago with a flying green-haired chick in a bikini and a Vampire Hunter with an incredibly badly dubbed talking hand. The rest as they say is history.

Out of pure curiosity I had ordered these tapes from a local video store not even sure what to expect. I first watched Vampire Hunter D, and even back then still I cringed at the horrendous job done by the voice actors. It wasn't enough to discourage me though (in fact I thought the incredible amount of violence and the dark story line was very intriguing) and I popped in the second television volume of something called Urusei Yatsura next. I immediately fell in love with that Oni babe with the mostest, Lum.

I had always been interested in far Eastern cultures and history. Rumiko Takahashi's wacky masterpiece took all of that and added the funniest characters and situations one could possibly imagine (with story lines often going way beyond anybody's relatively sane imagination). It soon became my quest to find out everything I could about this art form (which at the time all those in "the know" knew as Japanimation).... And (a bunch snipped) that is how I came to be who and what I am today (i.e. A UGA student and member of the South's greatest anime club, UGAnime).

Just so you know, No, I do not consider myself an "otaku". That word is always an insult and never a compliment. I've added an "arrow" in my dictionary for the term and with the help of many people have come up with the following definition:

OTAKU -- Oh-tah-kuu: (noun) Extremely smelly person with no social life [outside of his/her own dull imagination] who self-labels him/herself as having amazing and omnipotent knowledge of Japanese animation [usually with no real, substantial information stored in their cranium beyond American dubbed Sailor Moon or the hideous Fushigi Yuugi (of which any knowledge of should be embarrassment enough to never step foot outside his/her residence)].

The following picks are some of the best web pages I have come across having to do with anime and/or video games. Great sites have less to do with flashy graphics and frame upon frame of complexity than they do of content. At least in my humble opinion :)

Sure, I have seen many pages that were a joy to navigate and look at as well as read, but the real challenge of a web page is to actually have some info that people want to read. I have come across far too many sites that sparkle on the outside, but are really just polished pieces of dung when you look beyond the shiny exterior.

My picks are of web sites that have substance beyond the title page. The body of these sites is very entertaining and sometimes unfairly understated simply because a few of the authors may not know how to program a Shockwave (tm) game or choose not to put anything ecchi on their pages. These pages are funny as hell or more interesting than choosing which Rurouni Kenshin character to go as to an anime con. Trust me^_~

First up is probably the site I frequent most on the vast net. "Tomobiki-cho" (http://www.tomobiki.com/) is the ultimate Urusei Yatsura information page. It is well put together, well thought out, very fun to read, extremely large and most importantly it is all about the greatest television show ever made! Mason deserves your patronage here, people.

Next up is "The Food Court" (http://users.vei.net/jng/fcp/main.htm). Get ready for some major downloads :) The wait is well worth it though. You will laugh your ass off when you finally get to see who really killed Kaji..... Uh, oops! I mean *SPOILER*

Now I have a real treat for you. Phwibbles dot com is proud to present you with"NESticide, B****" (http://www.phwibbles.com/nes/). First, you must check out the heated debate on abortion on "In The Nakey NES". It's so deep on so many levels. Then please e-mail Mr. Phwibbles and BEG him to repost "Jesus Plays Nintendo" and "Mack Daddy Druggle's Advice Column". I still have no idea why he took them down.

Here is a page dedicated to one of the greatest game series ever made. "The Blue Star" (http://amber.mcs.kent.edu/~ryouko /LUNAR/TheBlueStar.html) covers all of the information ever made available about the Lunar RPG series originally for the Sega CD, but soon to be released in the US on the Playstation with updated graphics and animation. Lots of cool music downloads too^_~

And now for the greatest site for the GREATEST video game series ever made,"Final Fantasy Fever" (http://www.squareworld.org/f3/) has info (from images, midis, scripts, help sheets and summaries) on every single FF game ever made! Even the crappy Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. Plus these guys never forget that what made this series so damn good was FFI through FFVI..... not that piss poor excuse for an RPG, FFVII (don't get me wrong, it was fun to play, but it was nowhere near as good as FFVI, and it wasn't really a role playing game... more like an interactive movie).

This next one is a dream come true for J-Pop fans like myself. "Anime Internet Radio" (http://www.animeradio.com/) is non-stop, 24-7, all anime all the time cool music! Hey, I'm probably listening to it right now :)

For all of you out there who ever wanted to know everything there could possibly be to know about all the timelines and plots and characters of the Gundam Universe (even the oft misunderstood G Gundam), there are two sites that when combined tell the story in its entirety.... and then some. "Gundam.Com" (http://www.gundam.com/) and "The Gundam Project" (http://gundam.anime.net/) are where it's at.

Now for necessary information. Need a fansubber? Need a series in its entirety that you'll likely never get if you think some American distributor will eventually bring it out? Hell, do you just want a pirated copy of Cowboy Bebop?.... then "The Anime Fan and Fansubber Resource Network" (http://www.fansubs.net/) is the place to go. Hey, they're cheap^_^

If you've ever needed to look at some incredible fan art and wallow in how pitiful your attempts at drawing Misato come out, then you need to see "Tony Tiny World" (http://www.bekkoame.or.jp/i/taka_tony/engindex.html). This guy is a pro.

Now, if you're ever like me and you NEED some anime merchandise ASAP (trust me, I know when the cravings can hit), then you should go to "The House of Anime" (http://www.houseofanime.com/). They've helped me out of many a cold sweat when I needed to get that certain Final Fantasy or Ghibli soundtrack. And no, they're not paying me to pimp them here (and their shipping is free^_~).

And finally (but far from least) is the only (so far) web site I have found that has ever featured the fun and excitement that happened at "ONIcon 1998: The Con of the Century" (http://fan.animeweb.com/onicon/). This was the most well put together and most star-studded anime con I've ever even heard of! You need to see what happened for yourself.

Well, that's just about all of the "GREAT Pages" I can think of at this moment. These definitely deserve a look-see or at least a quick peek (like any of you have anything better to be doing right now), and hopefully they'll inspire the "Creatively Challenged" of you out there to actually make a page that doesn't have anything to do with the 43,567,843,125 Sailor Moon or Ranma 1/2 pages already in existence.

Catsy's gnawing on my leg, so I better go and fix her some dinner. So check out these links, then go play some Silver Star Story or Final Fantasy VI. Life is short, especially with only 9,999 hit points.

Jaa!

-the one and oni Rossman