While I seriously doubt that there will be many (if any at all) interested in this post, for the sake of uhmm… comprehensiveness (you never know, you might want a French subtitled episode one day), here we go:

1) Anime-Ultime

• Speed: Above Average (most likely much faster if you’re in France)
• Content: Large selection of complete (e.g. Rave, Guyver, Happy Lesson, Ichigo 100%, etc.) and ongoing series (e.g. Ergo Proxy, Ayakashi, Gakuen Alice, etc.)
• Update Frequency: Unknown
• Note: Hassle-free site, i.e. no forum posting or registration required.

Anime direct download sites come and go. Some might last for years, though most last for mere months. This shouldn’t be a surprise given the nature of their business model (i.e. donations, ads, etc.).

So, let’s see what has happened within the last few weeks. In no particular order:

1. JaguarPowered (reviewed earlier) is temporarily down, presumably due to bandwidth concerns due to DMCA enforcement by its host.
2. Teamskn.net (a.k.a. Nyao.be) has switched to a forum post-for-download system.
3. Avluis.com (reviewed earlier) is dead. Reason is unknown.
4. Shareparadise.net has been suspended, presumably due to DMCA enforcement or resource overuse (e.g. bandwidth or CPU usage). Up again, at http://www.shareparadise.org/community.

So, did I miss anything?

Edit: Jaguar - admin of JaguarPowered - just commented that he has temporarily closed down JaguarPowered due to DMCA enforcement by his host.

Another Edit: Shareparadise.net is up again, but at a different domain for now, i.e. http://www.shareparadise.org/community.

And again, Rainy brings us an anime direct download site, which brings our tally of fansubbing group-owned DDL sites to four (Lunar Archive was the third).

1) Doremi-Fansubs HTTP Downloads

• Speed: Quite Fast
• Content: Episodes from some Doremi-fansubbed anime series, e.g. Kashimashi, Ojamajo Doremi (Season 1 and 2), Mai-Otome, etc.)
• Update Frequency: Unknown
• Note: Hassle-free site, i.e. no forum posting or registration required.

I haven’t watched Ojamajo Doremi, so I’ll definitely be taking this opportunity of saturate my HDDs with two whole seasons of it.

Urghh. I knew it I shouldn’t have started on Ctrl+Alt+Del and Mac Hall… Have to finish both web comics… especially Ctrl+Alt+Del…

If posts don’t appear tomorrow, well…

One of the most well-received episodic-type anime series of last season (ARIA The ANIMATION) continues with a second season: ARIA The NATURAL. And so far, there is no indication that the second season will deviate from the calming theme of the original series.

Even our new (temporary?) character, Ai, has already been assimilated into the natural scheme of things:

But it does seem like ARIA is taking a turn for the more supernatural:

Yeap, a giant King of Cats - Cait Sith. However, this could be a good thing if it is a signal for some future change of pace in the series. After all, even a winning formula can be improved.

You’re probably not going to see another year with so many yaoi, yuri and gender-bending anime series popping out of the fansubbing engines. You might ask: How many series are we talking about? Well, you’ll have to stick till the very end of this post to find out.

In no particular order, we have:
(more…)

I’ve seen some crazy hybrid (multi-genre) anime series (I think…), but Dai Mahou Touge must be one of the craziest. On a first look basis, you might think it’s a typical “princess to undergo trial on Earth” shoujo anime (Sugar Sugar Rune anybody?).

Yes, our princess summons vegetables to her aid. But watch a little longer and you’ll see the weirdness begin… Our cute little princess has a pretty (extremely?) violent side.

That, of course, isn’t helped by the fact that we have some rather violent-looking characters in the first place.

And while you might expect magical rods to have some really “cutish” activation commands, our princess’ rod is an exception (see screenshot below).

But so far, it’s a pretty amusing and fun series, though only time can tell how long the director can keep things going.

P.S.: This series is definitely not suitable for children.

I can’t believe I actually thought that my previous list of “anime direct downloads sites for recent fansubs” (cumbersome phrase isn’t it?) was anywhere near complete. After all, given the number of new sites we’ve discovered since then (e.g. teamskn.net and LMTC-Anime), I’ll probably have to make a new list by the end of the week.

Anyway, adding to this “dilemma” is JaguarPowered, a RSS-enabled anime direct downloads site:

1) JaguarPowered

• Speed: Above Average (not very sure)
• Content: Recent episodes from ongoing series (e.g. Tokko, School Rumble 2nd Semester, Utawarerumono, KIBA, etc.)
• Update Frequency: Frequent
• Note: Free registration required (email confirmation not required). RSS feed for new downloads available.

P.S.: Admittedly, RSS feeds aren’t particularly special. But considering that each anime DDL site has its own updating schedule and anime content, providing RSS feeds does help.