The Otakusphere: Vote Anime, a little cultural jet-lag and a big happy love fest

Vote Anime! Vote now! Anime Academy is looking for your vote as the only anime candidate running in this election season. The choice is yours. Do you want four more years of moe hate? Are the "mecha-porn" haters getting to be too much. Well Anime Academy is a true bridge builder. Just read his post, it told me it's true.

And for other people looking for your help, Anime Genesis looks like it's in trouble. Personally I kind of have mixed feelings, but I thought I'd throw this out there, so more people know about it. Because people read the Otakusphere because they want to know. Right… Yeah.

And just in case you need a little educated drama in your life check out this post from wildarmsheero and this post from animanachronism (I always have a hard time writing that) about the relative greatness of TTGL. Of course this is another reason why you should vote Anime Academy.

Seriously though, I don't link Drastic My Anime Blog enough, so I'm going to point out that it just turned a year old today. And Hidoshi's back (yay!) with a really great post about how anime blogging can become a way of life, but more in a kick myself in the face kind of way, rather than as an apologetic kind of way. And I never link Michael over at Anime|Otaku enough either, just because this guy can make anything relate to anime, or rather anime relate to anything. This time he's got a post on subtlety and the movie Lust, Caution.

And while I'm on this big love fest, I should point out Omo's latest post on collecting as an obsession. To be fair, I'm not much of a collector of merchandise. I like reading Happy Soda for his pictures of figurines, but to me the idea of getting the super-ultra-edition with the limited edition figurine, well, just not my thing. I guess I'm a pragmatic obsessive.

And last but not least, End of the World has got a post about Ghibli's version of Tales of Earthsea. What hit me about that is that it just feels odd to have an anime company adapt something that is from the United States. I had a similar feeling when I saw there was going to be a Witchblade anime. It's like seeing something reinterpreted through another culture that started off in yours.

And just as a friendly reminder for those Americans out there. Remember to register! Remember to vote! Because us, otaku need a candidate that will pull us together as a nation.