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As the industry slowly but surely shifted from just home video releases to doing streaming of various shows and then building stronger and stronger simulcasts offerings, fans were getting what they asked for for years. Shows as they happen in Japan. Well, nearly, since most are delayed a whopping hour and sometimes a few days to a week depending on licensing agreements meant to protect the home market. Each season has seen a growth in the number of series being offered and a bit more competition along the way. While there is a dominant service, there are others as well that are carving out their ventures while utilizing other means such as Hulu and Netflix to get their shows out there.

But the simulcasts… there are many. When we started covering simulcasts, there were but a handful and we only did one at first with Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Since then we picked up a few every season and then as the home video market shifted more and more to sets, we added more simulcasts. And more simulcasts. The previous season was decent with some ongoings and a bunch of new simulcasts so we expected about the same for the spring 2012 anime season. Boy, were we wrong. Between a few reviewers here now, we’re covering twenty-nine new simulcasts this season. Just when I thought I reached my threshold a couple of seasons ago, this one nearly goes and doubles what we were covering just a year ago.

Knowing some long time readers from the DVD side of the world who have hundreds of backlogged shows to watch sitting on shelves, the question has to come with the simulcasts. How much is too much? Not in terms of being acquired, but how much is too much for you to watch? Do you limit yourself to a certain number of shows? And then find yourself adding one or two more here that look interesting? Or are you able to manage it fairly steadily and keep it under control? How many shows are you watching from this season?

Sound off in our comments section below (via Twitter, Facebook and other services) or drop in to our forum for the subject and let us know. No registration is required for that particular section, though you can certainly register and you can connect via Facebook as well to post.

Questioning Fandom appears every Monday, Wednesday and Friday with different topics where we want to know where the fans stand on them. Check the forum for past topics and join in the conversation. You can also suggest topics in there as well!

While 3D has technically been around forever, having owned those fun little pairs of blue and red glasses for many years as a child, it really came into its own theatrically in a big way in the last few years. I was resistant at first, trying it with just Monsters Vs. Aliens and liking it but seeing it as little more than a gimmick at that time, though one ideally suited to kids CG movies. The obvious game changer though was when Avatar hit and became one of just a handful of movies in the last ten or so years that I saw more than once in the theater – and would go to see again. What Cameron did was something that really utilized the medium well, especially in color manipulation. As much as I like my setup and others that I’ve seen, the 2D presentations just don’t work for the movie which makes it an ideal film to go and revisit on the big screen.

But since then, Hollywood took a good thing and ran with it by doing a lot of post conversions. Taking 2D filmed movies and adding some 3D effects to it, raising the price (which they were subsidizing for the theaters to begin with when it came to the glasses) and just went all out. A lot of movies that didn’t need 3D were given the post-conversion treatment and it didn’t take long before people started to feel burned. And hauling out some older movies for re-releases in 3D just made people even warier. And I’ll even admit that the only one that would tempt me would be Titanic if only because of Cameron as I can’t be sure that he wouldn’t pull off something amazing here. That said, I did a fair number of 3D movies with my kids in the first half of 2011 and just kept feeling like I was being taken advantage of. My big point came when I decided that the release of Transformers 3 would be the telling point. If they couldn’t do a great job of selling that in 3D, I was done with it. And as much as I enjoyed the spectacle of the movie, I found the 3D to be pretty pointless when you got down to it. I haven’t been back to a 3D movie since then. And have enjoyed lower ticket prices ever since, which at a $4 premium, adds up when you take a family of four to the movies.

What’s been happening more and more though, as I still go to the movies fairly frequently, is that when the new movies are hitting in 3D and smaller 2D runs, the 2D run is getting shunted into more unwelcome places and times. When we went to see Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (yeah, yeah, leave my comic book fan ass alone), no 2D showings were matinees during the first week. If you wanted a matinee, you were stuck in 3D and the premium pricing. This weekend sees the big release of John Carter, which my kids and I have been keen on since the first trailer hit last year. There’s obviously a big 3D push, but we’re not in for that. Yet if we want a 2D showing, the earliest is at 7:20 at night in my area. So they’re going to get something of a premium out of me anyway, though at least it’ll be less ($45 for 3D for 3 people, $27 for 2D for 3 people). But it’s frustrating as I do want to take my kids to see it, but a 7:20 showing of a two and a half hour movie is pushing it.

So the choice then becomes, to 3D or not to 3D?

Drop in to our forum for the subject and let us know. No registration is required for that particular section, though you can certainly register and you can connect via Facebook as well to post.

Questioning Fandom appears every Monday, Wednesday and Friday with different topics where we want to know where the fans stand on them. Check the forum for past topics and join in the conversation. You can also suggest topics in there as well!

For obvious reasons, there’s a lot of talk going on about the tragedy in Aurora, Colorado with the Dark Knight Rises showing that involved a shooter, multiple dead and a whole lot more injured. As someone who goes to the theater quite often, I can certainly empathize, fear and understand what a lot have gone through and have nothing by sympathies and hopes for quick recoveries for those that survived and closure for all involved as more is understood about it. In watching the news about it this morning and following numerous sites and articles about it and plenty of discussions, there was one piece that made me cringe the most, particularly at first, as it was revealed that a three to four month old baby was involved in getting wounded and was initially listed as having died. I’m beyond happy to know that the child survived and was reunited and I believe released already as well.

But it also made me furious. Very furious.

It’s been an area of scorn for many over the years and depending on where you go the theater, you’ll either never have it happen or it seems to happen regularly. Parents that really want to see a movie that have young kids, or babies, and they bring them. I’ve already heard the caveat that “oh, my child sleeps soundly at that time so it’s fine,” but I just can’t bring myself to accept it. Even if your child sleeps fine, it’s not right. Not for the child with all the loud noise that comes from it that can be harmful to tender ears, but it’s not right for other patrons who will generally look upon you poorly. And I suspect most friends would look upon you that way as well.

And I don’t say that as a childless parent. I have two kids and I’m very careful about what movies I take them to, age appropriate and time appropriate. When seeing Prometheus and seeing a couple come in with a young child that can walk, carry his own blanket and pillow, and have them set up camp, that’s just wrong. If you can’t get a babysitter, don’t go. Putting the child in that position is just flat out wrong.

What I’d like to see happen is some real enforcement of age minimums for theaters when it comes to both the rating itself and the time. There will always be people who say their kids are ready early, and that’s probably true for many depending on how you educate and teach your kids about theaters, but there has to be some changes that go into all of this. With my eldest daughter, I started taking her to PG-13 movies at age eight, but we only did matinees where there were few people and she was able to adjust to it all. And even then it was carefully choosing the right movies for her age and understanding. At age nine, I’ve only just started taking my youngest daughter to PG-13 movies because she wasn’t ready for them yet.

But a three month old baby? A two year old child with blankets, pillows and stuffed animals? Get out. And it’s time for theaters to start putting these rules into effect and enforcing them.

Sound off in our comments section below (via Twitter, Facebook and other services) or drop in to our forum for the subject and let us know. No registration is required for that particular section, though you can certainly register and you can connect via Facebook as well to post.

Questioning Fandom appears every Monday, Wednesday and Friday with different topics where we want to know where the fans stand on them. Check the forum for past topics and join in the conversation. You can also suggest topics in there as well!

I ended up suffering a bit of public shaming today when it was revealed that, even after owning Lawrence of Arabia on DVD since its initial released almost a decade ago, I still haven’t watched it. It’s still wrapped. That went into a discussion about my watch/unwatched ratio, which is horribly skewed by the sheer volume I process regularly, but it covered other areas as well. Those who follow me on GetGlue know I watch a heck of a lot more than anime, but the anime does dominate and often pushes other things down the list a bit. My book reading pile is horrible, largely because I’m in the midst of a four volume ebook collection of the Game of Thrones books. But that’s impacted my comic book graphic novel reading, which now has some seventy-five volumes I’ve bought in the last three years sitting on the shelf.

So, I know my backlog is horrible, though not when it comes to anime. How’s your backlog when it comes to anime, manga, books, comics or films? Share your pain with my pain!

Sound off in our comments section below or drop in to our forum for the subject and let us know. No registration is required for that particular section, though you can certainly register and you can connect via Facebook as well to post.

Questioning Fandom appears on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays with different topics where we want to know where the fans stand on them. Check the forum for past topics and join in the conversation. You can also suggest topics in there as well!

That time of year is here again and the holiday’s and all the weird schedules that occur because of it abound. Thanksgiving naturally has the central theme of giving thanks for people and things, and we’re definitely thankful not only for the obvious, our friends and family, but also for all the readers that we’ve met here in the last year and a half and further back over the anime coverage career.

So, with the holiday fully in swing for many people, what are you thankful for?

Sound off in our comments section below or drop in to our forum for the subject and let us know. No registration is required for that particular section, though you can certainly register and you can connect via Facebook as well to post.

Questioning Fandom appears on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays with different topics where we want to know where the fans stand on them. Check the forum for past topics and join in the conversation. You can also suggest topics in there as well!

Being as voracious of a consumer as I am of mass media entertainment, there are shows that come along that gets you think about the shows you watch in general. We started watching Yamada’s First Time today, the new release from FUNimation, and it centers on a female high school student who has decided that it’s time to get it on with a guy. And with the way she views the world, she doesn’t want a confident and experienced guy because she’s afraid he’ll laugh and make fun of her for various reasons. So she ends up settling on a nice guy in her class who looks to be a virgin as well and begins her warped and confused aggressive approach to bed him so she can get her experiences going.

By the time I finished the first episode, the question came to mind of wondering what other anime series feature a character of similar age, or older even, that was actively looking for sexual experiences. Not love, not husband material or even a boyfriend on which to hang her hat, but rather someone that was just actively looking for sex. Even in questioning the folks out on Twitter, the responses were few and really didn’t fall into the same category as this series. And that made me wonder.

The old adage, which doesn’t seem to be quite true anymore, is that when women’s hemlines rise, so does the economy. Well, the economy is bad as it has been for several years and if you go by the way your average young woman is online, the hemlines are short to non-existent. Of course, you can take what you see online with a grain of salt as there’s plenty of falsified “natural” nudity moments and the like, but what we’ve seen since the age of the Internet is that both men and women are more outgoing sexually in showing their bodies. Whether it’s just looking sexy, showing some skin, doing artful material or just outright posting images of themselves or recording audio of themselves in the throes of passion, it’s far more accessible on the amateur level than ever before. Yet these kinds of expressions still haven’t made it into the media chain of entertainment yet. You do see a bit more aggressive stuff out in movies and broadcast television in the US to some degree, but it’s often associated with the woman being labeled as slutty or trashy. Which is also why there’s a growing subculture movement of young women coming up that are attempting to change the definition of slut to a more empowered version.

The reasons for this lack of material is pretty varied to be sure as you can easily cite concerns over the portrayal of girls that are hypersexualized (reality or not) and the kind of backlash that could come from it by people who aren’t aware of how the culture is changing. You also have to ask the question of the viewers themselves. We often in anime see young men being sexually aggressive and it’s played either as comedy or the character is just the type that would never actually get lucky as they’re the joke supporting character. As male viewers, most of whom do have urges of course, we tend to laugh and enjoy this characters and to some degree live vicariously through them as they have a sort of confidence (though not style) we wish we could emulate in real life, to have that kind of confidence to try and say things and let the chips fall where they may. But when confronted with a female character, how do we react?

And the same must be asked of female viewers. Do the male versions of this offend? Do they make you laugh and aren’t taken seriously? And should there be more shows or characters with female characters that are looking to enjoy the pleasures of sex?

And that’s today’s question for fandom. Check out the forum here for reader responses and join in on the conversation!