Part 1

(Part 2 and 3 after the jump!)

Part 2

Part 3

Hope to see everyone next year!

Technorati Tags: anime expo, anime expo 2010, ジェシー, jeshii, Nico Class, NicoDou, NicoNama, NicoNicoDouga, NicoNicoDouga 101, NicoNicoNamahousou, 公式生放送, 海外ズ

After the panel, I would love to hang out and if possible, do a video with anyone who is interested. Then we can head out to Little Tokyo for a good old fashioned オフ会 (ofukai, “Offline Meet Up”).

UPDATE: Holy crap! This panel is going to be broadcast LIVE on NicoNicoDouga! Or should I say, NicoNicoNamaHousou… in any case, because of that, we will now have a mini Costume Contest and a やってみた (“I tried”) contest for prizes! If you are interested in entering or just watching, leave a message below!

See you there!

Technorati Tags: anime expo, anime expo 2010, やってみた, class, contest, jeshii, karaoke, NicoDou, NicoNicoDouga, panel, prizes, yatte mita

I’ve been obsessed with NicoNama Cruise the last few days just cause of the wonderful randomness you get out of it. You don’t always have to understand Japanese, but it helps. And if there is a broadcast you like, you can visit that one with the button at the end that says 「この放送を見に行く」.

Sure, it isn’t quite as personal as chatroulette, but I will tell you now, there is a lot less male genitalia. Also, a cute Japanese girl comes up every once in a while. So give it a try!

Technorati Tags: ニコ生, ニコ生クルーズ, chat, Japanese girls, live chat, NicoDou, NicoNama, NicoNama Cruise, NicoNicoDouga, NicoNicoNama, NicoNicoNamahousou, webcam

ダブルラリアット (Dabururariatto) is a NicoDou classic. YouTube user rockleetist made an English version and put it up on NicoDou recently. It rocketed up the charts and is the first time I’ve seen so many comments in English on NicoDou.

In any case, if any of my readers are worried about trying to break into NicoNicoDouga, this is a fantastic way to do it.

Technorati Tags: ダブルラリアット, Double Lariat, english, gaijin, gaikokujin, Megurine Luka, music, NicoDou, NicoNicoDouga, rockleetist, vocaloid, youtube

My number one favorite change? The ability to embed videos on any blog. Yes, Yamatologic will now have the NicoVideos embedded right here; no account needed. The draw backs are that the ads are annoying, and you can’t comment, so you know you want to experience the joy of the site first hand.

There is now a menu that you can bring up that give you access to things like もう一度再生 (“Play Again”), この人の他の動画 (“other videos by this person”) or ブログに貼付 (“post to blog”). These are handy dandy. The other ones are less useful to me personally, so I’m going to skip them for now.

The マイページ (“My Page”) has some neat new features. The most notable is the ニコレポ (“NicoReport”). It is essentially a NicoDou twitter feed. However, in keeping with the anonymity of the site, you don’t get to say anything in it, it just registers when you マイリスト (“my list”) a video or one of your videos goes up in the rankings; just little stats really. You can then register other people in your watchlist so that their accomplishments and actions are listed in your report. That plus community postings makes for an active report list!

Speaking of マイリスト, they now have an extra とりあえずマイリスト (Toriaezu Mairisuto) that is just an extra my list that never gets full, just kicks out old videos if there are too many, first in, first out style. I love it since that it essentially what I used one of my lists for anyway! It’s like a temporary queue, so then you can save the ones you really like later in your normal my lists.

The last major change is the ranking page. It’s no longer one long list of the top 100, now it is a crazy grid of the top 20 videos for various categories. It’s information overload, but I think I like it.

So those are the major changes I can think of. If you have questions, bring them to the NicoNicoDouga Help page, and let’s get some walkthroughs of what you want to do made!

Technorati Tags: 9, マイリスト, ⑨, Internet video, memes, My List, new version, NicoDou, NicoNicoDouga, videos, youtube

NicoDou is over! (not really, but still awesome)

Technorati Tags: ニコニコ動画, ニコ厨, foo-san, Fooさん, NicoChu, NicoDou, NicoNicoDouga, nicovideo, recorder

After using it, I can safely say it is better than I expected. I guess the wait was worth it after all.

I have a lot to say, but for those of you with limited blog reading time, here are the main points:

1. Views NicoDou videos
2. Shows comments
3. Publishes comments
2. Available on US iTunes Store
3. Runs over Edge, 3G, and WiFi

Go get it! (iTunes Link)

Remember, you need a NicoDou account to use this app. If you don’t have one, go get one here!

Full review and lots of screen shots after the jump!

Where to start? This program really was worth the wait. From every angle, the app seems to have really had a lot of work put into it. In fact, they also conveniently updated their flash player at the same time the app was released (approved?). I’m guessing they were saving the flash update to go with the app since they share a new design look and some new functions. So rather than thinking of this as just another app, this seems to be a part of their push to move NicoDou to a wider audience.

For those of you who haven’t heard anything about it yet, but are familiar with NicoDou in general, the app is what you would expect; a way to watch NicoDou videos with comments. One thing people were very curious about was whether it would support adding comments.

Click コメントする

Enter your comment

Choose positon, size, and color.

Even on the actual site, people can see your comment!

As you can see, it does let you put in comments, and that’s really the worst thing about the app. It stops the video and opens up a new screen where you can publish the comments. So, what you lose in real time, you gain in function, since you can do all the colors and variations that are normally available as well.

The thing that really surprised me, well, the first thing that really surprised me was that it was freely available on the US iTunes store. I was so worried I would need a Japanese iTunes account to download it. This saved me a lot of worry! So, peoples of the world, can you download it?

Remember, you still need to enter you account info to sign in. This is accomplished by clicking the 設定 (settei, lower right hand corner).

Then click カウント設定

Enter your mail address and password, and hit 確認 in the upper right.

Last, the thing that really surprised me… It works over edge. See, in Japan, the iPhone wasn’t released until the 3G, so they don’t have the 1st gen iPhones to worry about. Even the user interface tells you if you are on 3G or WiFi. And, since I am on really crappy hacked T-Mobile edge, I would pretty sure there would be no way in hell I could watch videos over edge. I was wrong. It works, even over my stupid edge. The YouTube app doesn’t even work over my edge connection! This is the thing that makes me the happiest man on earth. I can now NicoNico wherever and whenever I like. It is a dream come true.

Using it over Edge, which shows as 3G

One last odd thing I noticed was that one of my videos I uploaded “wasn’t available to non-premium users.” I’m not quite sure what that is about, but I’m guessing they restrict unpopular videos for some reason… further research is needed!

Wow. Why aren’t you playing with it, right now?!

Technorati Tags: app, app review, Apple, ニコニコ動画, Dwango, edge, gadgets, iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone Apps, NicoDou, NicoNicoDouga, screenshots, ss, technology, wifi

The basics of the show I’m sure are widely known and not really worth mentioning. I watched it in broadcast order (“Kyon Order”) and thoroughly enjoyed the series. I think みくる (Mikuru) is a manifestation of 80-90′s cyberpunk future アニメ characters. ナガト (Nagato) is pretty much レイ (Rei) from Evangelion. I could totally relate to Kyon, but what red-blooded man wouldn’t? I laughed, I cried, and a good time was had by all.

Then I thought about it. It has really be 5 whole years since I saw any アニメ at all. Well, stray 宮崎 (Miyazaki) films aside. Oh, and starring in that one. But really, I used to watch tons of it in high school and college. Once I moved to Japan, I watched Initial D because I lived in 群馬 (Gunma). But soon enough, I stopped watching it all together. Why would I stop watching アニメ once getting to Japan?! Seems counter-intuitive.

But really, it makes perfect sense. My group of friends changed. I had friends in the states who enjoyed アニメ, and after watching something, I had people I could talk to about it. When I moved to Japan, my friends were more interested in sports and cars and music and alcohol… It wasn’t really your アニメ watching crowd. So even if I did watch something, no one could relate.

Now that I’m back in America, I have started reconnecting with old friends. But more than that, I’ve become a huge ニコニコ動画 (NicoNicoDouga) fan. It’s different than being an アニメ fan, since ニコニコ動画 already has people who you can talk to about the videos built in and in real time. And also, those people are the kind of people who watch アニメ.

So, I am back in the community. Next series I will be watching is らき☆すた (“Luck Star”).

Just have to keep my mouth shut about アニメ when talking to the wife! Wish me luck.

Technorati Tags: anime, おたく, アニメ, キョン, ニコニコ動画, ハルヒ, ヲタク, coming of age, community, gunma, life, NicoDou, NicoNicoDouga, otaku, reflections, wife, 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱