Now that I’m in a rare let’s-put-some-actual-content-on-our-website mood, not to mention wanting to fulfill my wish not to let another near-half-trip around the sun pass before our next update, I figured I’d let loose some articles I’ve been working on for a while:

ReDeath to ReDux is a list of the changes and additions made to the Evangelion ReDeath remaster.

That is Sad - FBBB, 6 Years Later is an essay I wrote about my reflections on the 2007 director’s cut of Fanboy Bebop.

The Nescaflowné Revision History is the sad, sad tale of how many tries it took before Nesca was finally declared finished (SPOILER: 10).

Also, information regarding the content of the ReDeath, FBBB and Nesca DVDs has been posted.

I’m trying to think of other things we could add to this site. I enjoyed writing the FBBB piece and may do similar writings for the other dubs (”Even Jubei?” Uh… maybe if I’m really, really, really bored…). I’ve considered posting the screenplays for our dubs, though technically only two of them were scripted in full which would make the other two more like transcripts. Unused pages from ReDeath and Nescaflowné might be of interest, though the sheer lameness of the deleted material might just keep them hidden away. We’ll see.

Maybe we could do a weekly mailbag kinda thing, though I guess someone would have be interested enough to write us first. Maybe we could interview ourselves about how awesome we are and then enable comments on our posts so you can tell us how much we suck. I’d like to see more color on the minimalist canvas that is our site. If you have some brilliant idea of what we could do to make this page hold your interest for more than 5 minutes, drop us a line, we’d love proof that someone, somewhere is actually reading this.

Closing out this post are some site updates connected to our big (not fake) April Fool’s announcement:

Cowboy Bebop: The Song Remains The Same has been added to the Works page.

The Sokodei FAQ has been updated.

5 months without an update. Good thing we’re not running a real business here. But we’re still here, clinging to whatever meager claim to relevance we might still possess.

On that note, let’s talk about the DVDs. Yes, they are done or as done as they will ever be. Over a month ago, after some final tweaks, I deleted all the source files. So even if I wanted to fix something now, I can’t…… easily. With the temptation to further refine our previous work yet again now removed, we can focus on something new. I don’t know if it’ll be good, but it’ll be new. That’s progress I can live with.

And now the obvious follow-up: what are our distro plans? As of now, we have none, other than to resume issuing copies for screenings at conventions. Our general thinking is that once these discs get out, there’s not much we can do to stop them floating around the interwebs, which also means we don’t have to do much work ourselves getting them out there. If we decide to get more involved than that, we’ll let you know. Promise.

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And now for something completely different. Studio Sokodei is working on its first fansub:

Cowboy Bebop: The Song Remains The Same

This fansub is based on the CBBB PlayStation 2 game, which was never released in the US.

No, Studio Sokodei is not becoming a fansub outfit. This is simply a labor of love from a CBBB fan who was bummed the game never came out over here.

I wrote an FAQ that addresses the questions I typically get when talking about this project. Check it out.

I’ll try to not let months pass before the next update.

There’s a war going on at Wikipedia.org. It’s a battle between the admins and the general public centered around the Notability policy. Wikipedia admins are on a crusade to purge all the articles that aren’t worthy of encyclopedic inclusion. The primary group of people feeling the brunt of this onslaught are the WebComic publishers who’s entries are being destroyed with vitriolic prejudice.

All of Studio Sokodei’s entries have been caught in the cross fire. To date, ReDeath is the only entry left standing, and it has already been marked for deletion (for reasons totally untrue) by the wikipedia admins.

As a matter of Notability:

• All entries on Studio Sokodei and its works were not created by any members of Studio Sokodei.
• Jubei Powers, ReDeath, Fanboy Bebop, and Nescaflowné were all written and produced before the creation of YouTube.
• Studio Sokodei’s works have been publicly and privately viewed at over 50 animé conventions (many several years running) around the world since 2000.
• Studio Sokodei’s works have been critiqued and reviewed by professional and hobbyist journalists alike in hundreds (if not thousands) of blogs and several high profile animé review and news sites.

In compliance with Wikipedia’s Notability guidelines, I have not and I will not create entries about Studio Sokodei or its works, as this would be flagrant self-publicity. However, I realize that our fans have created and edited in the past, and I ask that you do it again, and again, and again, until the Wikipedia admins lose this war.

Please also read up on the topic. Howard Tayler is calling on people to not donate money to the Wikimedia Foundation. I echo this sentiment. We need to strike back at this abuse of power.

Moving the sokodei site to the new host was considerably easier than moving Judy’s massive gallery install. And I’m happy to see that just about everything is working properly. With the move I’ve decided to ditch the old forums and look for new options. Aside from minor issues, the site is all done, and more or less completely separate from my personal site/blog. Phew!

Kelvin informed me that we have new hosting and that we now own the domain name sokodei.com (yay!). We should be moved over this week. I hope to have some long awaited news by then…