Month: November 2007

Channels 195 and 199 on BSkyB

Anime Central UK – the daily schedule is online again. See http://www.animecentral.com/

Anime Network – they still think that keeping the schedule a mystery will encourage viewing, unlike the BBC, Sky, ITV, C4, C5 etc who publish their schedules. Yeah right. By the way, I saw ep.6 of Kurau Phantom Memory showing on Thursday night. Kurau also shows in the Saturday “shoujo” night at 21.30 pm, but at a later episode number, so it looks like Thursday is a “shoujo” repeat night?

I rather like Kurau Phantom Memory, which seems to have more emotional depth than the average anime. It’s weird stuff, apparently about energy beings who have broken through from another universe, but the character designs are very good, also the English dub voice acting isn’t bad.

Anime on Sky 195 & 199 – No program info

The websites for the UK broadcasts of Anime Central and Anime Network don’t carry any up to date program info any more. Doesn’t look good. As if the broadcasters can’t be bothered to upload it, and the registered audience aren’t sufficiently interested to bug them about it. I suspect that these channels, which carry little advertising, may not be around for much longer. Which would be a shame.

Yattaman

Yattaman Yattaman & friend

From the obscurity of Polish satellite TV I recorded several episodes of Yattaman, which was part of the long-running Time Bokan anime of the 1970’s. In TB, Junko and Tanpei are the grandchildren of a mad inventor who produced a time machine, before vanishing from history. Also on his trail are the scandalously dressed villain Madame Margot and her two sidekicks. Successive sequels are a variation on this theme.

The high point of Yattaman is the weekly climax with a “Wacky Robot Duel of the Week” which is totally different each week, and in one example I recorded, the bad guys’ tank disgorges as sub-munitions a squad of tiny leotard-clad girls who give Yattaman a bit of a kicking, till his tank launches a squad of mechanical chickens which repel the dancers by pecking all of their clothes off. Enough to make the viewer fall out of his chair laughing.

As farcial anime goes, this sort of thing has been emulated more recently, but for sheer wacky inventiveness in each episode, it has never been surpassed.

Windows Home Server

A month or two ago, Microsoft launched another operating system, with very little publicity, in contrast to the high-profile launch of the unexciting Windows Vista. Its name? Windows Home Server. And what does it do? Basically, it’s a server for multi-computer home setups, and just one of the things it can do is to back up all your data automatically.

It’s available already  to OEMs, and you can buy a complete appliance with WHS installed. Soon,  part-built  chassis will be available to various designs.

Computer buffs, the kind of people who like spending a week building a PC and installing software, point out that you can do the same job cheaper with a Linux distro, e.g. with an Ubuntu server. But the Microsoft solution looks to be less bother for the average Joe.