Redesign

First Ctrl+Alt+Del's site changed. A much nicer, slightly darker green to reflect the recent series of comics.

VG Cats changed for halloween. It went through stages.
1 - A chalk outline of the logo
2 - A grave
3 - An animated version showing the logo coming out of its grave
4 - An undead logo, risen from the beyond (or something like that)
Scott's updated the random quotes that appear at the top of the screen too.

Now Penny Arcade has changed to match the design of this year's Child's Play site. Much cleaner now.

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Seems like the chain-smoking, nature loving director has some competition. Hayao Miyazuki isn't happy at the director of Studio Ghibli's next film. Goro Miyazuki. Yes, its his son. Personally I find the fact that there are 2 Miyazuki's scary enough.

The Newtype spinoff that was announced recently has been given a name. NewWords is out on November 25th.

The Neo Awards were handed out last month. Here are the winners.
Anime
Best Movie
Howl's Moving Castle (Optimum/Studio Ghibli)
Miyazuki's last for a few years is one I haven't seen yet. I'm told its superb. I believe that.

Best Character
Vash The Stampede (Trigun - MVM)
I don't get it.

Best Series
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (Manga Entertainment/Production I.G.)
Hands up who's surprised. No-one? OK then.

Best Soundtrack
Cowboy Bebop (Yoko Kanno/Victor)
Stand Alone Complex was nominated. The jazz wins out though.

Best Distributor
MVM (Fullmetal Alchemist, Samurai Champloo, Love Hina, Burst Angel)
Absolutely decimates the opposition in my opinion. Half my anime collection is MVM stuff.

Manga
Best Creator
CLAMP
And did anyone doubt this? Chobits, Card Captor Sakura, Wish, Tsubasa, Angelic Layer etc.

Best Character
Chi (Chobits)
And the CLAMP ladies do a double!

Best Series
Fushigi Yugi (Yu Watase/Gollancz)
I haven't read this yet but it beat out Fruits Basket so it should be pretty damn good.

Best Collection/Anthology
Ghost in the Shell: 2nd Edition (Masamune Shirow/Dark Horse)
The reissued version of this all time classic was very much welcome. UK team Sweatdrop Studios came second though with their Sugardrops collection.

Best Publisher
Tokyopop
These guys are incredible. They have almost single-handedly put manga on the high street.

Asian Cinema
Best Theatrical Film
House of Flying Daggers (Zhang Yimou/Pathe)
This is incredible. Go watch it.

Best Actor
Jet Li (Hero)
Enough said.

Best Actress
Ziyi Zhang (House of Flying Daggers)
See above.

Best DVD
Old Boy (Park Chan-wook/Tartan Films)
Dark, disturbing yet so much better than most of Tartan's output.

Best Soundtrack
House of Flying Daggers (Shigeru Umebayashi)
And there's the hat trick.

Best Distributor
Tartan Films
They may go for shock value more than often but their contribution to asian film in this country has been immense.

Other
Best Retailer
Play.com
I can vouch for this. Superb for classic anime too.

Best Book
Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics (Paul Gravett and Lawrence King)
Consider this incredibly big book your gateway into manga. Even if you already are.

Best Videogame
Astro Boy: The Omega Factor (GBA/THQ)
?!

Best J-Music Artist
Puffy AmiYumi
Accesible, fun, cheery, cute.

That's that.