We have lost one of our best

Manga Translation Pioneer Toren Smith Passes Away

Toren was always helpful when I had a question or wanted feedback on something I was writing. He gave me a generous, and he insisted honest, blurb for my first book The Anime Companion.

His name on a translation was enough to make me buy it, he chose what he translated and the choices were excellent.

Toren was also instrumental in showing anime to many San Francisco Bay Area science fiction fans at BayCon.

Yasuhiro Takeda in his The Notenki Memoirs has an amusing tale regarding Toren staying at a Gainax staff residence. One day the other occupants of this all male enclave were started to see something that had never happened before, an attractive young woman leave Toren's room in the morning.

For a list of what he worked on see the entry on him in the Anime News Network Encyclopedia.

Satoshi Kon's last words

Makiko Itoh has translated Satoshi Kon's last words, a farewell statement by Kon.

I am most appreciative for this translation as Satoshi Kon became one of my favorite directors, something that is not easy to become, when I first saw Perfect Blue many years ago. The film completely gripped my attention and when I stood up after the credits had finished rolling I was shaking and could taste the adrenaline in my mouth. It took some hours to fully relax. Since that early film I have eagerly awaited his next productions.

A few years ago I was given the honor of introducing Millennium Actress, my favorite of Kon's films, at a special screening in San Francisco co-sponsored by the San Francisco Public Library and the Japanese Counsel General's office. After the screening many stayed for a presentation I did and discussion.

I hope I again have the opportunity to do something like this with one of Satoshi Kon films some day.

Satoshi Kon RIP

Satoshi Kon has passed away of pancreatic cancer.

One of my favorite directors is no longer with us. I highly recommend if you have not seen his movies that you do so.

I also high recommend the book Satoshi Kon The Illusionist by Andrew Osmond

Too many good ones leaving us so early.

Long day

I slept in this morning, about three and half hours more than usual. Good thing I have Mondays off.

From 11:30 until about 5:30 I was at the Cartoon Art Museum helping with shelving. Mainly climbing on a very tall ladder and removing display shelves from high up so we could incorporate them into the stock shelving. I talked my friend Steven Farnum into helping. Things are a bit messy in the store, they will be getting things back in order tomorrow morning. However the Older Teen and Adult Manga section has a better display and the anime section has more space.

While I was in Tokyo there was a significant upgrade to my web hosting provider's servers. I have had to upgrade my FTP program and change my setting for email since I got back. Things are now working fine. During the transition the most recent updates to my web pages went into the bit bucket so i had to re-upload them, easy enough to do. This means that the four entries I uploaded before heading to Tokyo are back online.

I highly recommend intuitiveISP is you are looking for a host for a web site. It is a small operation but they have been very helpful in ways the big guys just have not been.

Their web site is at:
http://www.intuitiveisp.com/