OK, so I’ve made some comments about the Madman site in the past but lately I have been getting more and more upset by outages in the service. Right now that has really reached boiling point as I’ve been trying to get to the site for the last 7 hours. Read on for more ranting on the subject, along with some (hopefully) constructive criticism.
This was the first games expo I’ve attended but I must say that it was largely what I would have expected: various game companies pushing their latest games and consoles (Sony and Nintendo doing the lion’s share), various tertiary education institutions pushing their games-related courses (sadly Melbourne Uni hasn’t caught on) and various vendors trying to sell you stuff. Still, overall it was quite enjoyable and great to be able to check out the latest games without having to, say, buy a PS3. Following are some of my highlights from the event and my general review.
If you’ve never heard of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya then what you firstly need to know is that it’s one of the most popular anime/novel series to hit the scene in a good while, to the extent of sparking a level pseudo-religious zeal, dubbed Haruhism, that comes as a sort of homage to one of the central premises of the show: that the eponymous heroine is, for all intents and purposes, God. The show itself is a superb blend of action, comedy and drama which includes plenty of deliberate fan service and a cast of strange characters, all seen from the point of view of the most incredibly normal and average person in world. Fans of anime in general will probably find something to like here.
I noticed that Madman Entertainment recently made a few improvements to their website. These things were fairly minor – changing the log in confirmation button from “proceed to checkout” and allowing for cross-session log ins so you don’t have to log in every time you visit the site – but go a long way towards improving the overall feel of the site. Since I’ve used the site for quite a while I thought I would go through some things that I think they should try to tackle in the near future.
Madman has semi-officially announced the impending release of the Australian release of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. For those who don’t know, Melancholy has a number of things that are different from your typical anime. Two of these were the rather strange introduction to the series (an amateur video made by the show’s characters) and the fact that the series was broadcast “out of order”, which meant that just trying to keep up with the show was a mind trip in itself. I actually really liked this aspect of the show but, unfortunately, it seems most people do not agree with me. All DVD releases (Japan and USA) have re-ordered the series to be in chronological order, rather than the wacky broadcast order.
Madman Entertainment are currently having a stocktake sale on their website. All of the DVDs I looked at are going for $10. The sale isn’t on their entire catalogue (mostly on their non-anime titles) but if there’s anything that you want I suggest you head on over there and check it out.