I mentioned a long while back that we were looking for a new gaming writer, and though I was still looking through applications as recently as this summer, we finally decided on a new contributor to add to the ranks of Ani-Gamers: Hayley Myer, a.k.a. "Mehket."

She is a longtime video gamer and anime fan who began her gaming life on the Sega Genesis with titles like Crystal Ponies and the original Sonic The Hedgehog. Now Mehket focuses most of her gaming time on Japanese RPGs, a topic that she will be covering extensively here at Ani-Gamers. We're excited to have her join the team, and I hope you'll all enjoy the new perspective she brings to the table.

Wow, that was really quite an experience! Ani-Gamers' first-ever Theme Month was much more than just a series of articles about one of our all-time favorite manga and anime artists. It was a reminder that, when we all get together, online anime fandom can collaborate to produce some really awesome, cross-blog content.

Yes, Osamu Tezuka Month started at Ani-Gamers, but it would not have been anywhere near as successful without the help of the many bloggers and readers who took up the task of promoting the work of Osamu Tezuka throughout the month. I'd like to express my thanks to everyone who promoted and participated in the Theme Month, including — but certainly not limited to — Ed Chavez (Vertical, Inc. Marketing Director), Tim Maughan (Tim Maughan Books), Ninjatron (Astro Boy World), Daniella Orihuela-Gruber (All About Manga), the staff of Insert-Disc, and Scott Green (AICN Anime), who all helped expand the reach of the Theme Month through providing review/contest copies of books, blogging about Tezuka, or tweeting with the #TezukaMonth hashtag.

Naturally, I cannot forget to thank the most important people of all: the writers and podcast hosts here at Ani-Gamers who truly drove Tezuka Month to success by producing even more content than I could publish in an adequate amount of time. A special thanks goes out to Ani-Gamers staffers Ink, Elliot, and Uncle Yo, and guest contributors Hisui & Narutaki (Reverse Thieves), Phillip (Eeeper's Choice), Frederik L. Schodt (personal site), and Ed Sizemore (Manga Worth Reading).

Now it's your turn to contribute! What did you like about Tezuka Month, and what didn't you like? What kind of Theme Month would you like to see on the site in the future? I think I speak for the entire Ani-Gamers staff when I say that we'd love to do another one of these sometime soon, so let us know what you want to read about!

Check out all of the themed posts that we published in March at our Theme Months page.

It's finally happened. For a long while, I have considered abolishing star ratings from our review system here at Ani-Gamers, but I was never sure of how I would want reviews to be set up without stars. Would we have any final, conclusive "rating" or other comparative measure between reviews? Well, the decision has been made.

Beginning with this week's reviews of Phoenix and The Art of Osamu Tezuka, Ani-Gamers will no longer feature star ratings in ANY of its reviews (for anime, manga, games or anything else). Instead of numbers, we will now include a final comment [in brackets] after each review, expressing the reviewer's overall opinion. These comments will be one of five terms: "Highly Recommended," "Recommended, "Passable," "Bad," or "Terrible." My hope is that this will allow reviewers to siphon more attention toward their actual review content (not the score) while simultaneously providing readers a standardized measure by which to consider their next anime, manga, or game purchase.

As with any change that directly affects our readers, I invite anyone with comments, questions, or suggestions regarding reviews to please make your voice heard through the comments thread on this post, our contact form, or e-mail.

We know you've all been waiting with bated breath for Osamu Tezuka Month, and now that we've reached the first week of March, it's time to begin the month of themed posts. We will be starting off with two reviews: one of the first volume of the Phoenix manga (written by Uncle Yo) and one of Helen McCarthy's new art/reference book The Art of Osamu Tezuka (written by me).

In an upcoming giveaway, two lucky Ani-Gamers readers will be receiving a fabulous prize from Vertical, Inc., and depending on how it pans out, there might also be some prizes from other publishers in there. I'm lining up some guest articles from INTERNET SUPERSTARS and planning on at least one Tezuka-themed podcast. Trust me, guys, this is going to be a fun time.

So, without further ado, I hereby declare the beginning of Osamu Tezuka Month! To keep track of the theme month and the articles posted in it, check out our Theme Months page, which contains links to all of the articles that we have posted in the month:

If your need for Tezuka just can't be sated, feel free to go back and read some of our older reviews of his works. Our previous coverage of him has, admittedly, been limited (compared to how much we love his series), which is precisely why we have dedicated a month to the artist.

• Review: MW
• Review: Black Jack, vol.1 (Manga)
• Podcast: Black Jack (Manga)

Astro Boy. Black Jack. Kimba the White Lion. The Phoenix.

Through decades of anime and manga history, one creator has stood out as the defining artist of an entire medium. His style laid the groundwork for much of what we call anime and manga today, and his series are seeing a startling marketing push here in the West of late thanks to pioneering companies like Vertical, Inc., Viz Media, and Digital Manga Publishing. That man is Osamu Tezuka, the "god of manga."

To coincide with Vertical, Inc.'s upcoming republication of a number of their Tezuka manga (MW, Ode to Kirihito), Ani-Gamers will be dedicating the month of March to the appreciation of the artist's unique triumphs (and the illumination of some of his flaws as well). Through reviews, podcast episodes, essays, and giveaways, we will be looking at a wide variety of titles created or inspired by Tezuka, from the Black Jack manga to the Phoenix anime to the Astro Boy Gameboy Advance game all the way to Naoki Urasawa's Pluto. The exact titles that we'll cover aren't 100% set in stone, but rest assured that you'll find some famous series as well as a number of more obscure titles.

I would also like to get some participation from our audience. If you want us to cover a particular Tezuka series, or if you're a fellow anime/manga writer who would like to do a guest review for the theme month, please get in contact with us.

That's about it. I hope you enjoy our first-ever Ani-Gamers Theme Month!

Changes are afoot here at Ani-Gamers as we welcome two new members to our illustrious staff. The first is Sean Kim, a college student who spends his free time geeking out on PC/Xbox 360 games and watching anime. Sean will be a Copy Editor, though he plans to occasionally submit content of his own as well. Our second new addition is Elliot Page, one of the drinking, gaming, and animal-wrestling hosts of Luke and Elliot's Bearfighting Extravaganza podcast. He will be contributing manga reviews.

On a more somber note, one of our new writers, Josh Christophers (a.k.a. Phreak) will no longer be contributing to Ani-Gamers. We wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors!

We hope you're looking forward to the new content that Sean and Elliot will be bringing to the site!

With the addition of two new staff members to the Ani-Gamers team, I do believe it's time for us to change up how we post articles. We've worked on a very haphazard, post-when-it's-ready schedule until now, so in order to make things easier to read for our audience, we are going to try to institute a regular, weekly schedule. For now, we will be posting two big articles a week (possibly thematically related), not including weekly columns like Brotherhood Diaries. That way every week, readers can come back and find articles for them on preset days.

The plan right now is to put up articles on Tuesdays and Fridays, and have a section on the sidebar dedicated to the week's post schedule. If our post output slows down (or speeds up) at any point, we will probably change the schedule around to compensate, but we will do our best to remain in a regular pattern.

I have yet another very major announcement: Ani-Gamers will no longer publish reviews of fansubs or scanlations of recent and/or licensed content. For a long time, we have posted occasional reviews of these anime and manga series, a fact that has bothered me due to the illegality of both modes of distribution. With the anime and manga industries struggling to maintain solvency in this dangerous economic climate, it is the task of responsible news outlets like Ani-Gamers to prevent the degradation of the industries that we cover. Please note that this new restriction does not eliminate our writers' ability to write about fansubbed or scanlated series – it simply puts restrictions on it. The link below will provide more information.

Also included in the link below is information about our other change: Ani-Gamers will now be including disclaimers in all of our reviews, stating the version of the title that was reviewed. This was done in part to comply with a new FTC regulation requiring disclaimers on all product reviews on blogs, and in part as a way to increase the utility of our reviews for readers who are considering buying a product.

For more information on our fansub policy and disclaimers, read our new "Policies/Disclaimers" page.

Today we've got a very special New Staff Welcome, in that it is welcoming not one, but two new members of the illustrious Ani-Gamers writing staff. Chris "Kuro" Colalella is a writer with a passion for all things geeky who brings experience on an online anime/gaming radio show to his reviews. Who knows, maybe you'll hear him on the Ani-Gamers Podcast sometime soon...

Josh "Phreak" Christoffers, on the other hand, is an unlikely combination of hip-hop and otakudom, resulting in an angry, angry man with a love for anime and video games who will be bringing us both news and reviews.

What are you waiting for? Let's give our new bloggers a warm welcome!

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Welcome to this slightly belated edition of This Month in Ani-Gamers. If you missed out on the action last month, here's the rundown: Ink and I duked it out over Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad in a review and Otakudemia article about the anime. Want to find out which one of us liked it and which one didn't? Well, you'll have to read the articles to find out! Finally, I attended the New York Anime Festival (with no lack of transportation difficulty) and wrote up quite a lot of coverage. The con report is on its way out the door, so while you wait for that, you might as well catch up on the news from the con.

This next month has quite a few surprises in store for Ani-Gamers. New staff members are in the near-final stages of discussion, and we might also be adding a new column to our lineup. No promises yet, but keep your eyes peeled for some interesting developments here at Ani-Gamers.

Having already said more than I probably should have on that topic, I think it's time that I wrapped up this episode of This Month in Ani-Gamers and directed you past the break, where you can find fat-free, heart-healthy links to all of September's posts.

Well, since all the cool kids are doing it, we figured we'd finally get down to making a Facebook fan page. Since you guys are clearly all super-cool, Internet-savvy social networkers, now would be a great time for you to log into Facebook and head over to our Facebook fan page, then click that little "Become a Fan" button. C'mon, you know you want to!

Once you're a fan, you can do cool stuff like post on the discussion boards, upload photos and videos, and leave us messages on our wall. It should be a pretty cool place to hang out with Ani-Gamers bloggers, podcasters, readers, and listeners, so definitely try to stop by every once in a while.

Click here to be our fan!

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Well, I did promise that we had a lot more Otakon coverage on the way. (After all, August did see the publication of our written con report, podcast con report, full press conference audio, and Travis Willingham interview, among our various panel reports!) But luckily, as of today I can officially say that there will be no more talk about Otakon here at Ani-Gamers... at least until next year's con. Besides that, this month also saw the North American release of the newest surefire-hit Studio Ghibli anime, Ponyo. Make sure you read Uncle Yo's review of the film, written up in double-time after having seen the movie.

Of course, I'd also like to apologize for any recent or future lapses in our volume of articles, since I've been dealing with moving in for college, and the adjustment has made it temporarily more difficult to update. Don't worry though – pretty soon I should be back into the groove of things!

And with that, how about you head on down past the break and check out this month's posts?

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To begin, I'd like to apologize for the past week's drought of posts. I was away from home for two weeks, and while I had scheduled posts for the first week, it turned out that I had very few chances to access the web and schedule more posts for the following week during my stay. Worry not – many, many more posts are in the pipeline.

Anyway, this month was all about Otakon for us here at Ani-Gamers. Three of our staff writers (Uncle Yo, Ink and I) attended the convention in mid-July, the former as a performer and panelist, and the latter two as press. As such, we got a glut of content from the convention that we've been posting as fast as possible without going too far outside our typical publishing timeline. Expect many more Otakon posts in the next week or so, though I will certainly be speeding up the pace so we can quickly get back to regularly scheduled programming.

That's most of what is planned for this coming month of August. Ani-Gamers Podcast #018 is on its way out the door, there's an Otakon con report coming up, I'll be finishing up my Cowboy Bebop Impressions, and Ink will be continuing the Brotherhood Diaries. Check out July's posts after the break, and thanks, as always, for reading!

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Can you feel the summer air? Here in the state of New Jersey, things are finally looking "summer-y" after a few weeks of torrential rain and bad conditions. But don't fear, beloved readers! The beautiful sunshine will not keep this intrepid editor from his keyboard! (After all, everybody knows that otaku are like vampires in that we burn in sunlight. But we're also not sparkling pretty-boys, so I guess we're not vampires in the modern, post-Twilight sense.)

But what about discussion of things you actually care about, like this site? This month marked Uncle Yo, Ink, and I all attending AnimeNEXT, which would have been super-exciting if we ever got a chance to stand in the same room together. That convention report is coming soon, but while we're on the topic, I also posted my report on the Sakura Matsuri this past month. It was late, but I'm pretty proud of the result.

We've been a little light on the reviews lately in favor of publishing a greater variety of articles, such as our E3 coverage, which was written completely based on second-hand reports, but which is nonetheless filled with interesting insights. If you prefer one particular type of article (i.e. reviews, editorials, news), be sure to let me know and I'll make sure that we publish more of it. We are, after all, here to serve you, dear reader.

But the question remains: What is going on next month? Well, as luck would have it, the month of July contains within its bowels (ew!) one of the largest anime conventions in the country, Otakon. I will be attending for the first time, and will be joined by Uncle Yo and Ink, as well as a number of other anime bloggers. The Reverse Thieves and some other friends will be sharing a room with me, which is sure to result in a whole bunch of crazy things that will likely be captured by my discerning podcast microphone.

Anyway, check out this month's posts after the break.

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We are releasing this post about a month late, so there's no real need for an editorial message here. This post is really just here for posterity's sake.

Read all of May's posts after the break.

Yep, I guess I'm late yet again. On that note, working on this column every week has gotten me thinking: Do you guys really want to have an article every week going over the latest posts? Would you prefer to simply use the front page and the sidebar links as your guides to the newest content on Ani-Gamers, or do you want to have a post about it every week? Do you prefer for me to give commentary at the beginning of the "This Week" posts, or would you like a streamlined list of links? Maybe a monthly rather than weekly format?

To make things easy, I've set up a poll on the sidebar, so please let me know what format you'd rather see. If you want to further explain your opinion, feel free to use the comments section of this post, or email me at evanm@anigamers.com.

Check out the latest posts after the break.

Welcome to a new year here at Ani-Gamers. Last year was pretty fantastic for our site, as you can read in our "Best of Ani-Gamers" post. 2009 is gonna be yet another amazing year, so I hope that you'll all continue to read our blog going into the future.

Next week we'll finally be getting into our "Best of 2008" awards for anime, manga, and video games. The votes have all been tallied, and the staff is in the process of writing up our blurbs for each winner. Look for the three "Best of 08" articles to drop sometime next weekend. As for you guys, if you've got any favorite stuff of 2008 that you want to tell us about, send us an email!

Check out the latest posts after the break.

Over at the Anime Almanac, my good friend Scott VonSchilling has just put up a post going over the best articles on his site in the past year. We've had a good year too here at Ani-Gamers, so I thought that our readers might appreciate a retrospective look at the amazing things that little anime and gaming blog has done since last January.

2008 was undoubtedly a good year for Ani-Gamers. In the early spring, I applied a drastic makeover to the site's design, giving it a sleek new look for version 2.0. Around that time, staff applications started popping up from all over the country. Soon after, Ani-Gamers was hitting the con scene. Uncle Yo started performing all around the country, and I started meeting fellow bloggers and future friends like Scott VonSchilling, DJ Ranma S, Kuro Usagi, Hisui, and Narutaki. We have reached the end of 2008 with a podcast, hundreds of posts, and some great staff members. And I don't think that our momentum is gonna slow down anytime soon.

After the break, I've got links to the top 15 Ani-Gamers posts of this year, ranging from reviews to podcast episodes to feature articles and covering a wide range of topics. Enjoy, and Happy New Year!

I hope everybody had a Merry Christmas, full of fun, family, and anime/manga/game-related presents. Head to the comments for this post to let us know what gifts you got. As for what's going on here at the site, we've had a few developments this past week. For one, the Ani-Gamers Podcast finally hit double digits with the release of episode #010. Second, we traded some blogroll links with the folks over at the Reverse Thieves anime blog and the Joystiq Podcast Appreciation Group Podcast. (Yes, a podcast about a fanclub about a podcast)

Finally, keep an eye out for news about our "Best of 2008" awards. We're currently compiling staff votes and considering a format, so a blog post about it should be up by next week. Until then, head past the break for the awesome reviews and such that we published this week.

The theme for this week was definitely the update to Ani-Gamers version 2.2. As the holiday season kicked into full gear, and my own personal work reached a crescendo, I suddenly found the time (and sheer force of will) to sit down for half a day and implement the latest update. Wow, that sentence sounds like a movie trailer, right? Anyway, on to business.

This week's non-update-related articles are simply two pieces by staff writers MitchyD and Uncle Yo. Mitchy wrote an extensive news post about the launch of Nintendo's North American branch of "Club Nintendo," and Karl published a spectacular review of Mamoru Oshii's newest thought-provoking, sleep-inducing film, The Sky Crawlers.

This will be the last entry in this column before everybody (in America at least) is off from school/work for that not-so-secular holiday break. So, I'd like to wish everyone a happy, healthy, and safe holiday season, whatever it is that you're celebrating this year.

But before you get to all of that present-wrapping business, make sure that you check out the latest posts after the break.

It's official: Ani-Gamers version 2.2 has been all wrapped up and put under the tree for you guys. But lucky you, this present doesn't have to wait until December 25th to be opened! That's because as of today I have completed initial work on the new layout. Everything should be working just like before, excepting the new menu and sidebar formats, which should be self-explanatory. We finally have a prominent feed button up in the upper right, and there's a cool spotlight under that to show off the latest big posts.

Remember, some parts of the site (especially a couple of the back pages) aren't complete yet, so they will still reflect the old layout. Over my upcoming break, I should be able to iron out any problems you guys might be having with the layout switch. Remember to email me if you find anything truly amiss that needs immediate fixing.

Enjoy version 2.2!

I promised that we'd be done before the end of the year, so I will be shutting down Ani-Gamers this weekend in order to put up the new site redesign. This will constitute Ani-Gamers v2.2, for those keeping count. (I don't really know why you would, but whatever!) There will be a new layout, but all of the content will generally stay the same.

At some point tomorrow the site will be shut down and will only be accessible to the staff, so please don't be alarmed that you can't access it. I will be working as quickly as possible to bring everything back online in as short a time as I can manage. This might result in a couple of bugs, but it should also mean minimum downtime for our users.

Thanks for your patience everybody! I'll have a new post up to welcome you to version 2.2 as soon as the update is done.

A good news week? Implausible! Nevertheless, it seems that this week had a pretty fair showing of news. The big story is of course the surprise launch of Playstation Home, which caught many (including Sony) quite unawares. Then there's some serious business, with Carl Horn and Jason Thompson's fantastic editorials over on ANN about the Christopher Handley manga obscenity trial.

The redesign is going swimmingly, so I think that we're on track to release by the end of the year. Don't worry, we won't pull a Sony and tell you that it launches tomorrow - there will be fair warning before we shut down the site and set up the new look.

Well, it looks like that's it for this week. Keep reading, and if you like us, tell your friends about us! We'll give you a present for doing it. We promise. That present may or may not be this week's posts, which are wrapped up in a neat bow directly after the break.

Oy, I'm rather sorry about the slowdown in articles, but I've had some big personal projects catching up with me in the past week or so. Still, the content will keep coming, so you can look forward to some good stuff in the coming weeks. Among the posts in the pipeline is Ani-Gamers Podcast #009, in which Mitchy and I review Mirror's Edge. Plus, a Far Cry 2 review will be up as soon as I'm done with the game. Oh, and here's a thought. If you want us to write about something, talk about it on the podcast, or whatever, shoot me an email at editor@anigamers.com (or use our contact form). Your comments are always welcome.

As for this week, I did a Far Cry 2 writeup and finally published Uncle Yo's Ryoko's Case Files review. Check out the goods after the break.

This week Ani-Gamers was home to the new Everygamer column and my lovingly-crafted Mirror's Edge review. In terms of site-related news, we've gotten rid of our old review score style for the Mirror's Edge review and all future reviews. Make sure you check that post out so you don't miss out on the change.

Of course, I hope everybody had a happy Thanksgiving weekend. I sure did, as I stayed at my aunt's country house, read Black Jack volume 1, and played a ton of The World Ends with You. What anime, manga, and games did you guys occupy your time with this weekend? Let us know in the comments, but not until you check out this week's posts, which you can find - as usual - after the break.