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Ms. Answerman
Answer's 12

by Rebecca Bundy,

About a week ago I discovered that my email provider changed around their spam guard system, forcing me to pick between an uber-leet-spamguard (only people listed in my address book) or the welcome-to-spamville guard (protects against nothing). Since I get a lot of mail from people I've never had contact with before their question reaches my mailbox, I have to stick with the later option. What this means for me is that I have 200+ emails a day to sort through when only a few on average are real people with questions.
What does this mean for you? First off, I need everyone to make sure they have “Anime Question” somewhere in the subject. I cannot read every single spam I get in the hopes of finding a valid email, so I rely on reading the subjects of each email. This DOES NOT mean that I'm only going to read emails with “Anime Question” in the title, but it will guarantee that your email will not be deleted. Of course, titles with the words Pharmacy, Huge, or Pre-Approved (just to name a few) will be ignored, so please refrain from making your emails look like spam.
The second request pertains to anyone who sent me a question within the past two weeks. Please resend your email to me (with a changed subject if necessary) since there's a very good chance I accidentally deleted it with the rest of the spam. I'm not exactly sure when the spam change went into effect, so two weeks is an overestimation so that I don't miss any of your letters.
With that out of the way, let's get on to the questions!



Hello
I'm a fan of anime. I wish to ask you if you know that if I can download Inuyasha shows in singapore, if it is illegal for me to download it.
Thanks alot.

It is illegal to download any anime, regardless of where you live, unless that anime was put online by the distributors or producers (which hasn't happenned with Inu Yasha). Downloading and distributing unlicensed fansubs was generally left alone by companies since the fansubbers did not make a profit off of them, but if you've been keeping up with ANN's news lately you'll know that Media Factory, a Japanese anime distributor, is trying to put a stop to distributing their shows on the net (and if you haven't, you can read them here and here). If you're still interested in seeing Inuyasha, your best bet might be to buy it online and have it shipped out to you. If you're short on cash and have a bit of patience, wait until the box sets are released (the first one is out already).



I've heard a few things about an anime being created about the Genso Suikoden video game series. I've been collecting the manga for some time now, and i noticed specific scenes from the anime opening in Suikoden 3 coincide perfectly with scenes from the manga. This helped to further develop my suspicions. Usually I have seen that if a manga is released an anime is following shortly after in the production lines. Is there any truth to this, and will it come to America if they do make it. Please send me a response via email or post one on the ANN website. Thanks for your time.

There was a Suikoden OAV released by ADV a few years ago called Suikoden – Demon Century, though you'll probably have to order it online since it is an older title (and have a VHS player handy since I've only found it for sale on VHS). If you're looking for something based off of the manga, however, you aren't going to find it because it doesn't exist. The title is extremely popular though so I wouldn't be surprised to see a TV series within the next few years.


I recently (as many people apparently have) got turned on to the new series 'Fullmetal Alchemist.' I also have seen a couple episodes of a series called 'Full Metal Panic!' (which, story-wise, i know has nothing to do with 'FMA'). Is there any underlying connection between the two shows (director,company, etc), or is the name similarity just acoincidence?
-Ed kun no Michigan

Here's a short list that includes the directors, animation studios, and US licensers for both shows.

FMA: Director – Seiji Mizushima (Shaman King)
Animation – BONES
US Licenser – FUNimation

FMP: Director – Koichi Chigira (Last Exile)
Animation – Gonzo
US Licenser – ADV

As you can see, there are no similarities in the list above nor in the list of major contributors where production is concerned. I did find one similarity among the cast of major voice actors though. Michiko Neya was the voice actor for Melissa Mao in Full Metal Panic! and Riza Hawkeye in Fullmetal Alchemist. Aside from her contribution to both, there are no major similarities between these two shows.


I recently marathoned most of my anime over Thanksgiving break and after realizing that as much as I love the shows I buy, they ALL depress me, I've been considering buying Card Captor Sakura. However, I have a fondness for artboxes and CCS is such a pretty show that I'm sure any CCS related art box would be unbelievably kawaii, I'm wondering if there are any plans for CCS box sets or at least empty art boxes.

The steam behind CCS has nearly died out in the US, so it's unlikely that a boxset (or official empty box set) will be released in the future. If you've got the money and the interest in ANY CCS artbox, you can buy the manga in neat little boxsets that keep the volumes safe. You might also try looking online for unofficial empty box sets, but I can't promise you that such a thing will be worth spending money on.


Dear Ms. Answerman,
What's up with those yellow butterflies that tend to appear in anime when a character has gone insane? I've seen the yellow butterfly motif quite a few times in a variety of series, but the best examples I can think of are the butterflies that appear around the mental patient in Boogiepop Phantom and the drug-induced butterflies in the Cowboy Bebop movie. Do these butterflies have some kind of significance in Japanese culture or what?
Thanks!
Erin

Japan has a little over 250 species of butterflies (as a comparison to size versus population, North America has 750 species), so you'll see these fluttering creatures a lot more in Japan than you would in other industrialized countries. Nothing that I've found or read about would make a yellow butterfly stand out over another color, but most stories involving butterflies normally focus on how peaceful and serene it is to watch them. On a more global scale, there is a version of Ecstasy called “Yellow butterflies”, which earned its name due to its color and shape. I'm more prone to believe that the yellow butterflies in anime come from watching the real thing and not from doing them.


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