For the longest time my MP3 Player was an iPod which, in all appreciation for how it changed the portable media market, is vastly inferior to some of the lesser known Portable Media Players to come out in recent years. The most significant, in my opinion, being the Cowon A3–the perfect portable media player for an anime lover such as myself. Why you ask? Format support–this thing can play just about -anything-. It can play H264 (unforunately it doesn’t yet support Main Profile) and XviD and most importantly; supports all sorts of container formats like OGM and MKV (Matroska Video). What does that all mean? Well, I’ll let you put two and two together; more than half of fansubbed anime is released in H264 format in an MKV container. Until now those have been unplayable on any form of portable media! That’s just the beginning of the A3’s awesomeness!

Popularity: 24% [?]

While surfing about on the Akiba Online forums I stumbled across a really fun band known as Special Others. From the YouTube video of Good Morning I can see that they very much enjoy their music. They write very jazz-inspired and very danceable music. If you are into fun, rhythic music check out the video for Good Morning I have included in this post!

Popularity: 27% [?]

Reading around on the internet lately, I have seen a great deal of talk about piracy and how it “negatively effects” the economy and the companies involved. I am strongly of the opinion that such a statement is complete and absolute bogus. If anything, piracy has helped the economy and companies. I myself have downloaded plenty of things that I didn’t own. Why, might you ask, have I pirated things? Well; how else am I going to find out if it’s actually any good?

Popularity: 25% [?]

Gitaroo Man is a very odd game but is, quite possibly, the best rhythm game of all time. It is so very Japanese it hurts. I’m sure the development team we’re all tripping on acid when they made this game…it certainly feels like you are when you are playing it. The game starts off with you playing as a regular kid named U-1 having troubles with school work, girls and bullies that has just arrived home after a long and arduous day at school. Suddenly your dog, Puma, speaks to you saying that you are the heir to the legendary Gitaroo-Man legacy and that you need to learn how to use the power of Gitaroo to save the universe. You are the only remaining Gitaroo-Man, so you must journey through space battling Gravillions to take back the other Gitaroos they have taken.

Popularity: 7% [?]

I doubt many of you have heard of Eyeshine, but some may have heard of Johnny Yong Bosch–possibly from my previous post about Eternal Sonata. Johnny is the English voice actor for Vash The Stampede from Trigun, Claus Valka from Last Exile, Gram River from Mars Daybreak, Renton Thurston from Eureka Seven and Ichigo Kurosaki from Bleach. Yeah, he’s pretty big in the anime voice acting industry. Most people don’t know him for the other part of his life though; his band Eyeshine. They sound a bit like Jimmy Eat World combined with a dash of Yellowcard and the more mellow Green Day songs from their earlier days.

Popularity: 7% [?]