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[Ethan]

Announcements and Staff Picks

A few quick updates:

We are introducing staff picks as a regular fixture on the site, four at a time. The first round is included at the bottom of this post and here's a collage of the picks if you'd prefer a visual layout. Fortunately we all have incredible taste, so enjoy!

Unfortunately, we'll be delaying our 100k torrents celebration as unexpected pruning dropped us back down below the mark. At least there's another chance to get the 100000th upload again

External images are now automatically sent through an AB host. This is to reduce potential tracking of users browsing the site, ensure we have full HTTPS coverage (mixed content warnings should not appear now), and mitigate potential phishing attacks. If you notice any non-HTTPS or external images being loaded, feel free to report them to the staff. This also prevents rotating avatars from working correctly, unfortunately we do not have any plans to implement them specifically.

We're happy to report that progress has been made on our airing anime system. The first beta run should be ready to go for this spring or summer season.

Important: As announced last year we are reducing the maximum number of concurrent Hit and Runs allowed. Our current limit of 15 will be reduced to 10 on April 2, 2015. Please ensure you've reduced your Hit and Runs to 10 or fewer by that date, or your download privileges will be revoked. If you have a good reason for not being able to reduce do so, please send us a Staff PM or join #support to discuss this.

Love,
AB Staff




The Inaugural AnimeBytes Staff Picks


In order of submission:

kotoko's Picks

Minekawa Takako - Fun9 (album)

Genre: shibuya.kei, electronic, experimental
Torrent: torrents2.php?id=11802

The essential Minekawa. Chill vibes, eclectic synths, and a full dose of yummy Shibuya-kei goodness. Fun fact: she is the former wife of Cornelius, who produced a few songs on Fun9. And another fun fact: since "9" is pronounced "kyu" in Japanese, the title is read correctly as "funkyu" or "funku."


Paradise Kiss (TV series)

Genre: josei, romance, fashion, college
Torrent: torrents.php?id=1330

A neat concept with very fitting animation and great music. The main characters sometimes end up making you hate them, but overall ParaKiss is a worthwhile watch for anyone who likes the genre and topic.


Potatoe's Picks

Tabata baasuto!! (album)

Genre: drum.and.bass, edm, electronic
Torrent: torrents2.php?id=30379

While this one is pretty random with nearly each track going a completely different direction, I really liked most of them, especially track 8 (ニコ'sキッチン AT SUPER MIDNIGHT AND THE DOOR BREAK) with its weird vocals and heavy rythm.


Otoyomegatari (manga)

Genre: historical, romance, seinen, slice.of.life
Torrent: torrents.php?id=16362

This was a very charming manga, telling the story of several couples around the silk road in the nineteenth century. It felt like a really beautifully made romance slice of life most of the time, but had some more action-y chapters that always kept me hooked. What I enjoyed most about it was the very detailed depiction of the tribes lives and customs which always made it very interesting to follow.


aldy's Picks

The Seatbelts - Space Bio Charge (compilation album)

Genre: jazz, rock, bebop, pop, rhythm.and.blues
Torrent: torrents2.php?id=13918

Space Bio Charge is a greatest hits compilation of Youko Kanno's music with her band The Seatbelts. Covering two decades worth of compositions, this 3-hour best-of includes 48 tracks of memorable music from such well-known anime as Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell: SAC, Darker than Black, Escaflowne and plenty more, as well as the bestest OP of the ever. If you know and like Youko Kanno, this is a great album to add to your collection and if you don't, this is as good a place as any to start.


Mardock Scramble (movie)

Genre: sci-fi, action, thriller, cyberpunk
Torrent: torrents.php?id=8163

Mardock Scramble is set in a cyberpunk future where a young prostitute is brought back from the brink of death and transformed into a cyborg with superhuman capabilities so that she can exact her revenge on her would-be killer by, errr, testifying against him in court. It's complicated. This trilogy of movies touches on some pretty dark themes and has a serious tone throughout, but in between the dialogue-heavy scenes that make up the majority of its three-hour total runtime, there are some gorgeously animated action sequences that are well worth watching. The second and third movies also spend a fair amount of time in a casino with some very well-executed gambling scenes that were actually the highlight for me. Beyond our interesting but damaged heroine, Rune Balot, are some very colourful characters too, such as an artificially intelligent golden mouse sidekick named Oeufcoque and an incestual homosexual dolphin cyborg. What's not to like? P.S. Movies > shows.


IPop's Picks

BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad (TV Series)

Genre: Music, Comedy, Drama, Slice of Life
Torrent: torrents.php?id=115

Great series, subbed or dubbed (probably one of the best dubs ever done.) Good music, and a decent mix of comedy/drama.


Kemuri - ALIVE ～The Last Show "our PMA 1995～2007" (Live Show)

Genre: ska, punk
Torrent: torrents2.php?id=23295

This was the last show Kemuri did before reforming in 2012. Kemuri is by far my most favorite group from Japan. The music for the most part is pretty upbeat and very fast.