12:00 - Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt 6
12:25 - Mushishi 7
12:50 – Hellsing Ultimate 1
1:35 – BREAK
1:45 – Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade
3:30 - Break
3:40 - GAME SHOW
4:10 - Spice and Wolf 7 + 8
5:00 – DINNER
6:00 - Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt 7
6:25 - Karas: The Prophesy
7:55 - BREAK
8:05 – Cowboy Bebop 24-27
9:45 - BREAK
9:55 - Humanity has Declined 12
10:20 -  Black Butler 2
10:45 - Fumoffu! 10
11:10 - Gurren Lagann 26-27

Come on by whenever you want, for as long as you’d like! Don’t miss our Game Show at 3:40! Show up early to try to qualify as a contestant!

Firstly, every hour, Ring  of Steel will be putting on performances! Don’t miss this club’s awesome swordplay performances!

We will also have a cosplay costume contest! Come see your friends dressed up as characters or in cool clothes.

Video game tournaments! We will be holding video game tournaments featuring Super Smash Brothers Brawl, 4 player Mario Cart, and Halo 3 ODST! Need I say more?

Magic the Gathering: come enjoy one of the oldest card games with our free drafting sessions. You don’t need your cards to start playing! Just drop on by!

Anime Showings: Come join us in watching our favorite anime ranging from the lols of Humanity Has Declined, a slice of life anime, to Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, the mecha anime where your robot is powered by MANLINESS.

Finally, join us for Gameshow! We will have questions, and more importantly prizes! (Can’t give away too much about that now can I?)

Don’t forget to come on over to CornellCon, and check the event out on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/events/574836822550648/

Luckily, it’s a simple fix!  This week, we will be showing Garzey’s Wing during the first half of showing.  And then next week, we should have Harmageddon ready to go!  Also note that Mars of Destruction was not released in the US, so we won’t be able to show it at all (more Harmageddon to enjoy!).  However, since it’s widely considered to be one of the worst anime ever created, we highly encourage you to find a way to watch it on your own.

Anyways, get ready to enjoy this month of Unintentional Comedy!  We’ve got some of the most terrible things to ever grace the screen, so be excited!

We start up this Saturday (January 26th, if you’re not subscribed to our updates! (Note to self: check if we send out blog updates)) with some of our full-length series – Cowboy Bebop and Humanity has Declined.  Cowboy Bebop is a good old adventure set in space, which has been on occasion described as “super good”.  And Humanity has Declined is all about mankind in their waning years, alongside a civilization of magical but childish fairies.  And after the break, we’ve got the absolutely massive Akira, a movie you shouldn’t miss.

Our one continuing series, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is picking up in week two right where it left off (plus several years).  If you haven’t seen the first half of Gurren Lagann yet, A) you should be okay, since this series isn’t too plot-intensive, and B) go watch it immediately.

Our third week is our Magical Girls Night, where we try to give you a little sampling of the Magical Girl genre.  If you were with us for Madoka last semester, this should be nothing like that.  We will be showing an episode of Pretty Cure, the longest-running magical girl series ever – it doesn’t get much more authentic than that.

March 2nd starts us on Unintentional Comedy Month, devoted to the funniest things that were meant to be taken seriously.  We’ve got Mars of Destruction, the single-episode OVA famous for the phrase, “I’d rather re-watch Mars of Destruction than…”  We’ll be showing some of Harmageddon (it doesn’t matter how much or from where in the movie), a two-plus-hour long “masterpiece” that’s got something to do with psychic warriors and a robot in an asteroid and a bunch of other things that also make no sense.  And then, we finally show Garzey’s Wing, a movie known for someone trying to get it into showing and marathon every semester for the past several years.

After our Spring Break comes to a close, we return to showing on March 30th with Penguin Night, whose focus should be apparent.  We’ll start off with Mawaru Penguindrum, the most amazing series ever that is penguin-themed.  We’ll make a brief visit with the penguin of Evangelion, then after the break stop by Cardcaptors and Yu-Gi-Oh for a few more penguin-filled segments.

In our last week of showing, April 27th, we’ve got a Mystery Slot Sampler to fill up the first half.  We’ll be showing 3 episodes of up to 3 shows from the new Spring season of anime.  Will it be good?  Will we find out what’s being shown ahead of time?  It’s a mystery!

And of course, our schedule is filled in with all kinds of other excellent comedies, dramas, action series, and a very confused squid.  Check out the image above for the full picture of what’s in store for you.  We’ll see you all around, and have a great Spring semester!

That’s right, CJAS’s semester marathon is coming up on December 1st, right after your last classes come to a close.  Come spend a whole 12 hours (or as many of those as you’d like) with us to view our great schedule!

Now, this is important: WE ARE IN KAUFMANN AUDITORIUM UNTIL 3 PM. That’s the auditorium right next to Lewis, where we normally have showing.  So, we’ll watch everything including Black Jack in Kaufmann, then head over to Lewis during the break.

Don’t forget to come early and try to get into our GAME SHOW!  At 4:25 PM, three contestants’ anime knowledge will be put to the ULTIMATE TEST, a head-to-head competition for FABULOUS PRIZES!!! (disclaimer: prizes may or may not be fabulous)

Enough silliness!  Here’s the schedule for you!  Come for as long as you’d like, whenever you’d like.

NOON - Queen's Blade 1 + 3
12:50 - Here is Greenwood 1 + 2
1:40 - BREAK
1:55 - Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon R: The Movie: Promise of the Rose
3:00 - Black Jack 00 + 08
3:50 - BREAK
4:00 - Nichijou 1
4:25 - GAME SHOW
5:05 - Nichijou 13
5:30 - DINNER
6:30 - Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo 1 + 13
7:20 - Shin Sekai Yori (From the New World) 1 + 2
8:10 - BREAK
8:20 - Kids on the Slope 1 + 2
9:10 - The Soultaker 3
9:35 - Sword Art Online 10
10:00 - BREAK
10:15 - Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust

Instead of Shin Getter Robo vs. Neo Getter Robo, we will be showing the series that finished next in our voting, The Vision of Escaflowne.  As this was voted in as two episodes, this will also push out one episode of G Gundam.  Don’t worry, though, there’s still one more in the schedule!

After the substitution, our schedule will now be:

7:00 - Gekiganger 3 OVA
7:25 - G Gundam
7:50 - Star Driver episode 1
8:15 - BREAK
8:30 - The Vision of Escaflowne 1 + 2
9:20 - Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann 14 + 15

While licensing costs are usually too expensive for us to show any of these films, a special touring series of new Studio Ghibli prints is coming to the Cornell Cinema this fall!  CJAS will be co-sponsoring this series, so make sure you go and get your tickets!

More information on this special event after the jump.

This film series has been scheduled specifically so that there is a partial overlap with our showing schedule.  So if you look at the fall semester schedule, you will see that on November 3rd, showing ends early so that we can go to the Cornell Cinema and watch Castle in the Sky.  Then, next week on November 10th, we leave showing to view Spirited Away.  These are Cornell Cinema showings, so you do still need to buy tickets, but CJAS will be working to find ways to minimize ticket prices for members.

In addition to these two screenings, there are several other screenings of these two movies (in case you can’t make it during showing) and there are three other Studio Ghibli films playing at various times in the cinema.  These three films are Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Princess Mononoke, and My Neighbor Totoro.

Please visit Cornell Cinema’s website at http://cinema.cornell.edu/index.php or view the page on the Miyazaki Film Series for more information on these other screenings.

UPDATE: We will show two random episodes of Azumanga Daioh, followed by the conclusion of the first arc of Humanity has Declined.  Showing will start at 7 as usual.

Due to licensing issues, the scourge of every modern anime club, we will not be able to show our movie, Tokyo Godfathers this week.  But fear not!  Your tireless eBoard members are hard at work, frantically figuring out what to show in its place!  We have a number of options, from replacement movies to additional episodes of series we’ve already watched at showing.  When the voting is completed this Friday, this post will be updated with the selected replacement.

Keep in mind that if we show episodes from one of our series, we will NOT be starting early this week.  A message will be sent out with the weekly showing announcement detailing what we’ll be showing, and when we’ll be showing it.  So, just like every other week, but with a bit of a surprise thrown in!

That’s right – this week, we begin our nightlong celebration of the weird and incomprehensible!  Come join us from 7PM until 10PM to experience our picks for some of the most random things we could come up with!

See what’s in store for you after the jump!

7:00 PM – FLCL

As far as weird series go, FLCL (pronounced Fooly-Cooly)  is one of the classics.  It’s a classic coming-of-age story in which the protagonist spawns a fighting robot out of his forehead.  This was originally created simply to test out some new technologies that Gainax had acquired, which in part explains why it is so unhinged.  Nevertheless, it remains as a fan favorite and has an amazing soundtrack.  We will be watching the first two episodes with the english dub (as it is one of those rare cases in which the dub is better).  And we encourage you to watch the rest of the series on your own – but don’t expect it to make sense the first time!  Or the second!  Or the third!

7:50 PM – Humanity has Declined

A last minute substitution into our schedule, Humanity has Declined is a show currently airing on Crunchyroll about a future world in which the human population has seriously fallen, but a race of fairies has grown immensely.  The main character is the human ambassador to those fairies, who gets into all sorts of strange situations.  It is a comedy at its core, but a particularly dark one at that.  This was our runner-up in the mystery series vote, so we decided that you should all get a chance to experience it’s particular brand of madness.

8:15 PM – BREAK

Need a breather after all of that?  Hardly surprising.  Feel free to wander about and chat with anyone else in the audience, buy some concessions, and just unwind a bit.  Because the insanity will start up again soon.

8:30 – SOULTAKER

This is the description that’s been used for this series among CJAS members: “Kyosuke Date’s life becomes a waking nightmare as he discover that his mother was murdered, he is a powerful mutant, and fragments of his sister’s soul have become humanlike creatures called ‘Flickers.’”  The only reason we’re giving you that description, mind you, is that we have NO IDEA how to describe this series otherwise!  It is simply insane, with an even more impossible-to-follow breakneck pace.  Look forward to the first two episodes of this crazy masterpiece.

9:20 – Elf Princess Rane

WARNING: Nudity. Lots of it.

Despite that warning, though, this 2-episode OVA remains a classic.  A young boy goes out searching for treasure in modern-day Japan when he runs into a fairy named Ren.  This is a series that is built upon little quirks – overused tropes and strange mannerisms form the backbone for this wacky comedy series.  We wouldn’t be showing it if we didn’t think it deserved a place in this night of nonsense.

All right, so J. K. Rowling is notorious (at least to me) for bringing up a lot of controversial topics and then proceeding to ignore them completely. (I’m looking at you House Elf Rights Activists!) One of her most interesting ideas was the goblin opinion on ownership. In the book, it is a small matter that acts primarily as a plot device regarding the sword of Gryffindor. Basically, the goblins want it back because they believe that ownership of any object belongs to its creator.

Now that seems like a pretty weird concept. After all, when I go and buy a coffee, I don’t expect the barista to ask for it back a day later. Or when I go and buy The Sorcerer’s Stone, I don’t expect J. K. Rowling to ask for it back when I die. Or do I? Let’s say I had an e-reader. These days, if I want to give a digital copy of a book to my kids, I have to buy them a separate copy for their own e-reader. The same is true for music, for software, for the instructions to a small crafting project, even to ideas. In the human tongue we call this licensing, and it’s been especially close to home here at the anime club with the recent acquisition of Funimation titles by the Swank Motion Picture group.

You see, when we go out and buy a DVD, even a physical disk, we can’t actually do whatever we want with it. For one thing, I’m sure most people are aware they aren’t supposed to make any reproduction of the disk (although they may be allowed a backup for personal use). But furthermore, you cannot even show a DVD wherever you want. If you want to show a DVD in what is legally referred to as a “public performance”, you need to get permission from the official owners of the work. And public performance is quite broad, not only including showings such as CJAS’s, but even just putting a movie on in the background at a local café.

And don’t get me wrong; there are good reasons for this. After all, we certainly wouldn’t want a movie theater to be able to buy a few copies of a movie and then show it without paying any sort of fee to the creators. Because then either the original reels would be incredibly expensive, or else theaters would be owned directly by film studios! And I can see why if a bar or restaurant drew in customers by playing movies, their creators would want some credit for their part in bringing in those customers. And then there’s the perfectly reasonable argument that if you watch anime for free at your local anime club, why would you then pay to watch it again? These arguments are not without their flaws, but for the sake of objectivity, I think I will leave it at that.

However, there is one more matter worth mentioning. Recently, the European courts ruled that a digitally distributed video game can be sold by its purchaser, so long as they then make it impossible to play the game themselves (such as by deleting the game from their computer). This may not seem like a big deal to those who don’t play video games, but this is the first time that a government entity has recognized the ownership, not just licensing, of digital media. (It should also be pointed out that this ruling takes effect regardless of the original EULA.) In any case, if the EU holds to this ruling, we may see some big changes in the way companies do digital distribution. And not all for the better. My personal prediction is that if this starts getting enforced, Steam sales (which regularly cut game prices by 50-75%) will be gone by next year, for fear that other digital distribution companies will buy large numbers of their discounted games to be re-sold at slightly higher prices.