Anime. We've talked about it a little before, but never really went into detail. It's popular. Really popular. In fact, it's so popular that it's almost everywhere you look now. It's all over Cartoon Network. There are countless sites devoted to it on the internet such as Anime Nation and EzAnimez.com. There are several magazines, like Anime Insider. There are even conventions held specially for anime, such as the upcoming JaCon in Orlando (May, 2004). Hollywood has also taken notice. There are several planned live action movies being made soon based on animes. For example, Neon Genesis Evangelion (an anime which every person on Earth should watch) is supposed to start filming in New Zeland pretty soon (more on this later).

Everyone has a geeky anime friend. Sadly enough, for many, I have become that geeky anime friend. The lure of good stories and no overpaid actors has finally taken grip on me. It all started at ConStellation last year. I had heard of anime, but I thought, "why would anyone want to watch cartoons?" Then, to appease some friends I met at the con, I went into the anime room for the last hour or so of the con. At first it didn't make any sense. Then they put in Ranma 1/2. It still didn't make any sense. Then a few days later, I couldn't get the opening theme song out of my head and I finally realized why that the man could transform into a panda and his son could transform into a girl...because it's anime! Not everything has to make sense in animes, you just go with it. Actually, there is a very good reason for the afforementioned transformations.

Currently, we're watching Hunter X Hunter (a good anime about a boy who finds out his father is a "hunter" so he wants to become one too), One Piece (about Pirates with supernatural abilities thanks to eating magical fruit...no, not beans), The Getbackers (they uh...get stuff back), Big O (free on AdultSwim, Sundays @ 11pm EST) and Inuyasha (free on AdultSwim Monday through Thursday at 12am EST).

Some of our all-time favorites include .hack//Sign (hackers make strange things happen to people in real life while they're playing a MMORPG), Neon Genesis Evangelion (very deep and well-written anime), Ranma 1/2 (transgendered fun with many love triangles!) and Cowboy Bebop (a Space Cowboy hunts bountyheads). Cowboy Bebop and .hack//Sign can both be found on AdultSwim. But if you want to see either of the sequels to .hack//Sign (.hack//Liminality and .hack//Dusk aka .hack//Legend of the Twilight Bracelet) you'll have to buy or download them.

So what can you do to get started in anime? Well, at Dragon*Con, DVDs were about $30 each. That's why we didn't buy any. On eBay, you can find anime for just about any budget. Of course, there are "wholesale" places on the net. On Adult Swim, you can watch some anime for free, but they pick what you see. We weren't content with having to pay too much for entertainment, so we kept looking because in the words of the great Vanilla Ice, "anything less than the best is a felony." So, eventually we found some places where you can actually download anime for free! This may require BitTorrent (a free downloading device) or a streamloader account ($4.95/month), but there is a freebie version you can get for a month called, aptly enough, freeloader. Anyway, here goes:

After 2000 Anime