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It’s that month again where I grow up a year older! How time flies. Now for the monthly podcast update: Japan’s Crackdown on Piracy Sites: What now? (September 07) Listen on Anchor Listen on Spotify The Crackdown on Piracy Sites has just started as KissAnime is taken down, leaving the highly-visited website no choice but to say goodbye for good. This puts anime fans who are currently watching by season on a rush to find alternatives. ...

Just a few days ago, I got a message from the Kurotsuki Online Convention (KuroCon) team that my application for a fan panel has been approved, and I’m coordinating with the team to deliver my presentation for KuroCon volume 2 coming this September 26-27. As part of the presentation, I am looking for anime fans in Southeast Asia to help me with my independent research. What I’m looking for are anime fans around the region of any age to answer a series of brief questions regarding the use of the YouTube platform in legal anime distribution. ...

By this time, I am already wondering how malls survive. Some stores are still closed, most have physical distancing measures implemented, but overall, there’s less people coming in - except if it’s a supermarket or a bank, which brings in the necessities. Then there’s online shopping, where the numbers mean crowds. The monthly sales of e-commerce giants Alibaba, Lazada and Shopee is our kind of Black Friday sale in the U.S. ...

We have come to this point that even Anime News Network wrote a story about Mano Aloe. This is my second Desk Diary, where I put my heart out and think loud enough to cover some topics which will then be considered taboo, letting these things go and then moving on. I thought I can get out drama by moving my attention away from local idols and seiyuu drama to Virtual YouTubers. I was wrong. ...

On this edition of Going Places where I attend online anime/cosplay events, I went to virtual Japan to enter the first Comic VKet. Japan’s pop culture events industry The year 2020 was supposed to be a big one for Japan. Olympics are scheduled to be held in Tokyo. Even pop culture events have set aside themselves for this big event. The thing is, a pandemic broke out. Everything Japan has prepared for this big moment has to be postponed. ...

University of Sto. Tomas’ Teletigers Esports Club is on a happy mood as they will represent the Philippines in the 2020 PVP Esports Campus Championships. This is after they emerged victorious in the AcadArena National Cup Mobile Legends Bang Bang Tournament held Sunday, August 24. Teletigers bested out Polytechnic University of the Philippines’ ISKO team with a rallying 3-0 in the best-of-5 finals. Watch the full tournament in action. As the winning team, Teletigers receive Php30,000 cash prize plus a Php10,000 campus grant from Esports AcadArena. ...

Team Eurika Ai, then Team XO, during a press conference held at Restaurant 9501 as part of World Cosplay Summit Philippines in 2014. [Deremoe Archive] After all that has been said and done, we can’t deny that ABS-CBN as an institution has been home to some experiences of mine. ...

Just after we launched the first podcast episode syndicated on both Anchor.fm and YouTube, let’s have a recap of all the episodes (posted and upcoming) for the months of July and August. In and Out of Cosplay (July 13) On this episode, we look back at our third Twitch live with cosplayers Ai Natsumi, Mais Semblante and Diane Marie Sabandeja as we talk about their lives on and off their cosplay careers. Gary Montejo co-hosts this discussion from his home base in Cebu. ...

Red Cloud Interactive, co-organizer of the Pinoy Otaku Festival series, will be organizing the Online Pop Culture Convention for a Better Normal on August 22, 2020, Saturday. This is a volunteer-fundraising activity for the benefit of Greenpeace Philippines’ Better Normal campaign and the Aksyon Kalikasan organization. Red Cloud and Naruto Cosplayers Philippines has been applying its corporate social responsibility by creating a fusion of cosplay events which champions social causes, and this online event adds to its roster. ...

I’m having a great time watching Virtual YouTubers do their way in entertaining us especially in the time where we’re expected to always stay home. VTubers have been my refuge - it’s like watching a raw episode of an anime live. I’ve been watching more VTubers than anime episodes nowadays. ...