Orders shipped 2010/10/01

All back issues orders received between 2010/08/02 and 2010/09/30 were shipped today. They should be received within a week (for Canada & USA) or two (for overseas).

Orders shipped 2010/08/03

All back issues orders received between 2010/06/07 and 2010/08/01 were shipped today.

Otakuthon 2010

As usual Protoculture will be at Otakuthon.

The convention will be held August 13-15 at the Palais des Congrès de Montréal (201, Viger Avenue West, near Métro Place d'Armes). Check the Otakuthon website for details.

We will have a table in the Exhibition Hall (opened Friday from 5:30 pm - 9:00 pm, Saturday from 10:30 am - 7:00 pm and Sunday from 10:30 am - 5:00 pm) and will have LOTS of anime & manga goodies to sell at very good price.

Come meet and discuss with us!

Fantasia 2010

Tuesday, Fantasia announced the highlights of its programming and posted all the details on its website.

The 14th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival, one of the largest events dedicated to genre cinema, will be held from July 8th to July 28th, at Concordia University's Hall Theatre and a few other venues in Montreal. This year, with more government subsidies, the festival has widened and diversified even more its impressive programming. It offers nearly 300 movies, including over 120 feature-length films and several hundreds shorts, as well as a variety of documentaries, panel discussions, stage plays, outdoor screenings and many guests will be there to introduce and discuss their work.

The festival will open with Disney's The Sorcerer's Apprentice and close with Eli Craig's horror film satire Tucker & Dale's vs. Evil. Other notable events of the festival are the screenings of Fritz Lang's restored Metropolis (with 25 min. of previously lost footage), Jean Cocteau's Le Sang d'un Poête, and Ken Russell's The Devils (who has a retrospective at the Cinémathèque Québécoise and will also receive an award for his unique contribution to cinema). Animators Don Bluth and Gary Goldman will also receive a dual lifetime achievement award. Among the movies from the West that intrigues me, I must also mention Centurion, “a breathtaking rollercoaster” set in roman time, directed by Neil Marshall (The Descent).

Of course, the most interesting part of the festival for us is its Asian programming. It offers 55 Asian movies (including 24 from Japan, 14 from Korea, 9 from Hong Kong, 3 from Thailand, 2 from China as well as from Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia).

The Japanese movies include eight anime features (twice as much as last year): Evangelion 2.0: You Can(Not) Advance, First Squad: The Moment of Truth (a Japan/Russia co-production), Gintama: The Movie, King of Thorn, Mai Mai Miracle, Oblivion Island: Haruka and the Magic Mirror, Space Battleship Yamato: Resurrection, and Summer Wars (best animated feature at the 2010 Japanese Academy Awards). Other notable animations are The Land Before Time (USA, Don Bluth), Technotise: Edit & I (Serbia) and What is not Romance? (Korea).

The live-action Japanese movies includes (click on the link for details): Air Doll (Dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda), Alien Vs Ninja, Battle in Outer Space (a 1960 classic dir. by Ishiro Honda), Boys on the Run, Brass Knuckle Boys, Crows Zero 2 (Dir. Takashi Miike), Fish Story, Golden Slumber, Higanjima, Kuroneko (a 1968 classic), Mutant Girls Squad, Raise the Castle!, Rinco's Restaurant, Sawako Decides, Symbol, and Van Von Hunter (a USA/Japan co-production written & directed by Tokyopop's Stu Levy and Steven Calcote).

The Japanese and anime-related guests include: Yoshinori Chiba (Dir. of Alien Vs Ninja), Stu Levy (founder of Tokyopop and co-dir. of Van Von Hunter), Yuri Lowenthal (popular voice-actor (Bleach, Code Geass, Naruto) and actor in Van Von Hunter), Yoshihiro Nishimura (co-dir. of Mutant Girls Squad), Tara Platt (voice-actress (Buso Renkin, Naruto) and panelist), and Mai Tominaga (dir. of Rinco's Restaurant).

Finally, two of the panels might be of interest for the animation fans: “The Current and Future State of Traditional Animation Cinema: Death, Comeback and Resurrection” (Sunday July 18th 1:00 pm, at the EV-01.615 amphitheatre (1515 Ste-Catherine W), with Don Bluth, Gary Goldman, Gerard Potterton and Luc Chamberland) and “Voice Over, Voice Actor” (Sunday July 18th 3:00 pm, at the EV-01.615 amphitheatre (1515 Ste-Catherine W), with Yuri Lowenthal & Tara Platt).

Enjoy the festival!

Production & shipping update

All back issues orders received between 2010/03/05 and 2010/06/16 were shipped Wednesday (for Canadian orders) and today (for U.S. and International orders). They should be received within a week (for Canada & USA) or two (for overseas). We're sorry for this exceptionally long delay and will do our best to ship your future orders as quickly as possible.

We would like to remind you that, as stated in our ordering & shipping policy, we generally do not answer order inquiries. All answers to your questions should be found in our detailed “ordering & shipping policy” or the “order inquiries” and “order status” entries of the blog. Also, we do our best to ship orders every month or so—sometimes we can do it every two weeks but it can also takes up to two months (or even more, like it was the case lately). Unfortunately we have quite a small staff and we ship orders whenever we can drive to the closest USPS outlet. Finally, please do not file a dispute with PayPal “resolution center” because it would only cause more delay to your order (since in such cases PayPal is freezing payments and—the money having been withdrawn from our account—we would never ship an order for which we don't have the payment...). Please, just be patient.

Lots of people are wondering what's happening with the magazine and that's understandable. Well, it is still going on, but at a much slower pace. As it was previously announced, the magazine has cut its staff, reduced its frequency and temporarily suspended publication in order to implement production and distribution changes. Unfortunately, this hiatus has been much longer than anticipated because we misjuged the production capability of a reduced staff and encountered several production problems. We are quite sorry for this situation and be assured that our small staff of part-timers and volunteers is doing the best they can. Most of us are professionals (with “day jobs” in the anime or publishing-related industries) and we are working as hard as we can on the magazine, as a service to fellow anime fans, because of our love for anime and manga.

We might have stopped taking new subscriptions, but—don't worry—the magazine will still be available on an issue-by-issue basis, current subscriptions will still be honored and the next issue will come out eventually. Yes, we are way behind schedule and we had to change some of the content, but it is coming out. As Zac recently said in the forum about issue 98's release: “We're closer now than we've ever been. However we have a whopping staff of 2 people working on it and that's part-time. Slow boat, but it'll be done sooner rather than later.” And, just to be sure, we won't announce a street date until the issue is done and being printed. Again, please just be patient. You won't be disappointed...

Stay tuned, we still have many projects to come...

Orders shipped 2010/03/05

All orders (including the last of the new subscriptions) received between 2009/12/11 and 2010/03/04 were shipped yesterday (for Canadian orders) and today (for U.S. and International orders).

We're quite sorry for this delay.

Subscriptions no longer available

Due to the magazine's now irregular schedule, we have decided to stop selling subscriptions. Please note that we will continue to honor existing subscriptions and that you can still order the magazine issue by issue.

To order the magazine please visit our online catalog.

For more information you can read our updated ordering & shipping policy.

Delay processing orders

Sorry, there was a delay in processing orders because we were closed during the Holidays and we're quite busy as well as short on staff. We are doing our best to catch up and all new orders placed since December should ship soon.