I used to to love Anime. I don’t hate it now, but I don’t have as much zeal for it as I used to. Two things happened. First of all, anime is very expensive. Most DVDs have four episodes and cost $24 dollars. Usually it takes 6 DVDs to complete a season or $150 + tax. That’s a lot of money. Second, now that it’s mainstream it’s hard to tell the good anime from the bad anime. Back when I first started watching, it was just starting to become mainstream. There weren’t many titles available and whatever existed was pretty darned good. Studios couldn’t release crap over here or it wouldn’t sell. Basically there was awesome anime and hentai. Now there’s so much anime that best buy almost has an entire aisle dedicated to it in Ithaca. I remember when it was a few shelves and resided next to the porn. I hated being in that section. Now it’s usually by the sci fi movies.

But this is all just a long story to tell you that I subscribed to Animerica for three years. At the time I thought I’d always want to read about anime. But then I remembered why I had stopped subscribing to Electronic Gaming Monthly – both magazines talked about things in such a way as to make me want them, but I couldn’t have them since they were so expensive. Linux Format Magazine, by contrast, gives away all the software the magazine covers in an attached DVD. I think I still have two years or a year and one half on the Animerica magazine.

Animerica is owned by Viz, who gained the most fame for bringing Rumiko Takahashi’s work to the States, like Ranma 1/2. Viz gained the re-publishing rights to Shonen Jump, a wildly popular manga magazine in Japan. Shonen is boy’s manga – so it deals with stuff young to adolescent boys like. Viz also decided to just lauch Shojo Magazine. Shojo is girl’s manga. In Megatokyo it’s a running joke that Piro likes to read Shojo, which is all about “girly” things like love, does that boy like me, and “evil biatch” betrayal by the girl who stole your boyfriend.

Yes, this is all good and well, but what does it have to do with direct mailing? Well, in an effort to get more people interested in Shojo Magazine, they sent one to people subscribed to Animerica – apparently regardless of their sex. So now I have a copy of the first issue of Shojo Magazine. I wasn’t sure what to do with it, but now I think I’ll give it to my cousin. She is really into manga now and I’m sure she wouldn’t mind reading this magazine which even has tips on how to dress like the female characters in the manga.