News Roundup - Manga on Crunchyroll, Eccentric Family Licensed in North America and Thoughts on Naruto Shippuuden

Huge industry news. Crunchyroll has announced that they will be doing legal manga simulcasts of titles such as Attack on Titan, Fairy Tail and other properties. It’s a collaboration with Kodansha – and who knows what other publishers they might negotiate agreements with in future.

Although this was a surprise announcement, it’s not a surprise that Crunchyroll finally did this. Crunchyroll has the most successful model for legal anime streaming in the U.S. and so they were the natural choice to start up a legal manga subscription service with a big-name publisher like Kodansha.

I’ll be signing up for the new manga subscription, though I may wait to see what deals they’ll offer to existing anime subscribers like me. Crunchyroll often offers special deals around the holidays for annual all-access subscriptions that include anime and the J-drama and K-drama live action series as well. If they offer the manga subscription as part of a special deal like this, I’ll take it. Otherwise, hopefully there’ll be a good deal offered for just the anime and manga subscriptions combined together.

The only manga I want to read out of their initial offerings is Attack on Titan, but I’m sure more titles will be added on an ongoing basis as new agreements are reached with more publishers. This is what I was hoping for in terms of being able to read manga legally, inexpensively and conveniently. Fantastic news and another way to support the industry. I love it.

In more industry news – Eccentric Family (Uchoten Kazoku) has been licensed by NIS America for a North American DVD release. I’ll pre-order this at Right Stuf as soon as it’s available for pre-order. It’s a wonderful series, one of the best I’ve seen in years and one that I know I’ll rewatch often.

Finally, a few thoughts on the latest episodes of Naruto Shippuuden (spoiler warning for episode 333 and beyond).

Sasuke Uchiha has reappeared and teamed up with his deceased-but-reanimated brother Itachi to fight Kabuto, Orochimaru’s assistant and inheritor of his powers (due to grafting Orochimaru’s arm onto his body – yuck).

Sasuke had been absent from the series for about a year. He seems different now and I think it’s no accident that the first time we see him after a long time away, he immediately runs into Itachi and starts questioning his brother about the past.

As Itachi himself states in episode 335, his actions were largely responsible for the way Sasuke turned out. And now, Itachi has the opportunity to explain himself to Sasuke, thereby enabling his younger brother to better understand what happened in the past between Konoha, Itachi and the Uchiha clan.

In other words – Masashi Kishimoto is starting to make Sasuke more sympathetic. I think this is the beginning of Sasuke’s rehabilitation. After years of being exasperated with Sasuke and his focus on vengeance and all that, Kishimoto is now going to make us like Sasuke again.

Or this is what I’m speculating anyway, as I haven’t read ahead in the manga and don’t know what’s coming next. But the thing is – I always anticipated the story would end with the mother of all battles between Naruto and Sasuke. That’s what the story seemed to be setting up or leading towards: the ultimate showdown between Naruto who has healed his tragic past and Sasuke who is still trapped in his tragic past. If Sasuke is healed by Itachi’s revelations, where does the story go from there? Would there be any reason for Sasuke to destroy Konoha and for Naruto to stop/save him?

I guess the answer is – stay tuned and keep watching Naruto Shippuuden (lol).

And a last note – I still haven’t started watching any of the new fall shows – only Valvrave the Liberator S2 and Kuroko’s Basketball S2. I’ll finally try out the new shows this week. I’m going to do things differently this time. Instead of watching each of my initial choices all the way through and only dropping a series if it really isn’t working for me, I’m going to try out each series and only continue watching it if I like it. So I’ll report on which ones made the cut after this week. I guess this is the advantage of waiting until week 3 or 4 to start watching the new season's shows. ;-)

Happy J-Pop Songs - Walk by OldCodex

I can't stop listening to this song!

You Tube will inevitably take this down and soon, so listen while you can. It's "Walk" by OldCodex, Kuroko's Basketball S2 ending theme. =D

Seiyuu Appreciation Day - Tomokazu Sugita, Yuuichi Nakamura and Aya Hirano

A month has passed already since the inaugural Seiyuu Appreciation Day (the 21st of each month - my made-up special day to gush over seiyuu)? Well, I’m ready with another seiyuu gush post – so here it is. :)

First, let’s talk about Tomokazu Sugita.

Sugita has played Kyon in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Hideki Motosuwa in Chobits, Takumi Mayama in Honey and Clover and surprisingly – going way back here – Subaru in X.

His breakout role was Kyon in Haruhi, which was then followed by the lead role in Gintama, Gintoki Sakata. Since then, he’s played leading or important roles in many anime series. Some of my favorites among his roles have been Reisi Munakata in K (above), and the sentient mecha Chamber in Gargantia.

Sugita has a deep voice, which perfectly suits him to roles like the regal authoritarian Munakata and the intelligent and logic-driven machine Chamber. I’ve said this before, but I think he was miscast as Gintoki in Gintama; his voice is too manly and grown-up for the role. But I’ve come to love him as Gintoki anyway.

Tomokazu Sugita shares something with Gintoki Sakata. In the Gintama Enchousen arc, Tae Shimura says of Gintoki that he has a “peculiar charisma.” Sugita also has a kind of peculiar charisma, for me anyway. In interviews and appearances on You Tube he often says witty things with a deadpan face, with the corner of his mouth quirking up just a bit. According to TV Tropes he’s an extremely intelligent otaku, a gamer and anime fan. He’s one of those entertainment figures that seems to have a lot going on behind the face (or since he’s a seiyuu, behind the voice) – someone one would be truly interested in meeting one day.

Yuuichi Nakamura is often paired in fans' minds with Tomokazu Sugita, as the two have been best friends for ten years and host a radio show together, Tokyo Encounter.

The picture above is of Kintoki, Gintoki Sakata’s arch-enemy in the Gintama Enchousen arc, who was played by Nakamura.

I first noticed Yuuichi Nakamura when he played Yoshiyuki Hatori in Sekai-Ichi Hatsukoi. At first, Tori was the only character in the show I didn’t like. Like Sugita, Nakamura has a deep voice and as Tori that voice was behind a character that was dominating and controlling. Tori’s idea of romancing Chiaki consisted mainly of acting jealous and possessive and then violently throwing him on the bed before having sex with him. Some people find this kind of behavior thrilling and romantic. I’m not one of them.

Later in the series Tori shows a more sensitive and understanding side, but since this was my introduction to Yuuichi Nakamura’s voice it was quite a while before I associated the sound of his voice with anime characters I enjoyed watching.

Nakamura has played Tomoya Okazaki in Clannad, Gray Fullbuster in Fairy Tail, Alto Saotome in Macross Frontier, Kyosuke Kousaka in Oreimo and other roles.

I began to warm up to Nakamura when he played Grizzly in Shirokuma Café. His huge roaring voice as Grizzly-kun was very funny. Of course Grizzly is the biggest tsundere in the show, all tough guy on the outside and complete marshmallow on the inside.

It took watching him as Kouichi Minamoto in Zettai Karen Children for me to finally enjoy hearing Yuuichi Nakamura as a voice actor. Minamoto is courageous, has integrity and is a bit of an innocent and Nakamura plays him very believably. I guess first impressions can last sometimes - including when it’s not a good thing - but I finally do appreciate Nakamura's acting now. =D

And lastly, Aya Hirano, whom I’ve come to admire and respect mainly for a single role in which she’s impressed the hell out of me.

Aya Hirano was Haruhi in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya:

And I’d forgotten this completely, but she was also Misa Amane in Death Note, quite possibly the most unlikable female character I’ve ever seen in anime.

But finally – I saw Hirano in this role…

Kaoru Akashi is the leader of The Children, three girls with paranormal powers or “espers.” At ten years old, little red-haired Kaoru is a smart-mouthed tomboy, precocious and rambunctious. She’s proud of her tremendous esper strength, especially when she can use it to rescue people or to right an injustice. As are the other two girls, Kaoru is in love with Minamoto and curious about what it will be like to be grown up and have a woman’s body someday.

Kaoru can be loud and obnoxious and even crude, as in when she takes delight in ogling adult females on an onsen trip. She snorts when she laughs, cries in vulnerable moments and gets very, very angry when her friends get hurt.

Hirano’s speaking voice is rather thin and nasal and not especially resonant. So for me, it is her sheer acting ability in the role of Kaoru in Zettai Karen Children that blows me away and not any inherent pleasure in listening to her voice. She’s the only female seiyuu who’s made me cry besides Rie Kugimiya in Fullmetal Alchemist. As Kaoru, she’s like a force of nature. She is pure emotion in the role.

I’ve read about the controversy surrounding Hirano and her band and her talent agency that happened a few years back. The only thing I’ll say is that men who are known to sleep with more than one person are called something quite different than what Hirano was called in public. The double standard lives on, in other words. I’ve never heard her music, but she is a born voice actor. She is just terrific as Kaoru Akashi and I hope she continues with her voice acting career for many years to come.

Basketball Marathon! Kuroko's Basketball

When Crunchyroll recently announced they would be streaming Kuroko no Basket S2 (Kuroko's Basketball S2) I was exasperated, thinking why would they do that when they didn't have the license for Kuroko no Basket S1?

I think you know what happened next. I went onto Crunchyroll's site and checked. Yes, they do have Kuroko no Basket S1 and have had it for a long time - I just never noticed. So a series I've wanted to see but didn't think was licensed and legal here has been right under my nose. And now its second season has started, so on top of all the other series I intended to watch this fall season I will be marathoning Kuroko no Basket S1 to catch up.

Kuroko no Basket, based on a manga series, is about Taiga Kagami, a Japanese high-school boy back from living in America. His tall height and great strength make him a natural for the school's basketball team. Another new boy to the school, blue-haired and blank-faced Tetsuya Kuroko, came from Teiko Middle School which had a legendary basketball team. Kuroko was the mysterious "shadow" sixth man on that team, so insignificant-seeming next to the team's five star players that he was almost invisible. But Kuroko was the genius who could pass the ball to his teammates without the other team's players even noticing. Kuroko's dream is to make Taiga the best player he can be and Seirin High School's team a true team and not just a collection of individual stars.

Kuroko no Basket is a typical sports anime where the character designs are attractive and fans slash the various characters together. Japan seems to be tolerant of fans' BL take on anime characters and of the doujinshi and other fan-created materials that come from that, but for some reason Kuroko no Basket has become the target of (if news items are correct) a single fan with a vendetta against Tadatoshi Fujimaki, Kuroko no Basket's mangaka, as well as the fans who produce BL-themed fan works based on the series.

Event after event has been cancelled, including doujinshi circles at the 2012 Comiket, Kuroko no Basket events at Jump Festa, a Kuroko no Basket-themed event at a doujinshi festival and so forth. Fujimaki received powdered and liquid substances in the mail and the festival organizers listed above were threatened if they went ahead with their Kuroko no Basket fan events.

The really crazy thing is that Kuroko no Basket is not even remotely yaoi or BL. Like with other manga and anime that feature attractive male characters, the fans are simply imagining the characters in BL scenarios and producing fan fiction and art to that effect. In other words, this could have happened to virtually any shonen anime.

Why Kuroko no Basket? People have speculated but nobody knows. It's been reported that the person making the threats went to the same university Fujimaki did and has some kind of personal thing against him. Whatever the reason, Kuroko no Basket continues to be extremely popular with Japanese fans (save one, apparently) and its renewal for a second season is proof that at least the anime itself won't be stopped by this issue.

All of this aside - I now have a ton of anime watching on my plate. :-) Off to watch more of Kuroko no Basket!

Valvrave the Liberator - Season 1

Not only has the fall anime season begun and I haven’t watched any of the new shows yet, but I recently spent time finishing up a spring series I’d left off watching in mid-stream. Yeah, I’m behind. ;-)

Valvrave the Liberator (Kakumeiki Valvrave) seems easily categorizable from its set-up. Basically, it’s a high school anime in space with mechas, so the story should be fairly predictable – right?

Haruto Tokishima is an ordinary high-school boy on Module 77, a satellite within JIOR territory. The small nation of JIOR maintains an uneasy peace by declaring itself a neutral zone between Dorssia and ARUS, the two great powers in the universe.

Haruto is in love with Shoko, a friendly girl who is popular among their schoolmates and who is the daughter of JIOR’s President.

When Dorssia attacks Module 77, Haruto, believing that Shoko has been killed by the invaders, gets into the cockpit of a huge mysterious mecha called the Valvrave. When the command voice asks if he will “give up his humanity” in exchange for the ability to pilot the Valvrave, Haruto agrees in order to avenge Shoko and is then injected with a potion that enables him to pilot the mecha.

Haruto saves the school in his Valvrave and later joyfully discovers that Shoko is still alive. His joy however is soon replaced by grief at the realization that his decision to abandon his humanity has rendered him unfit to be with her. More on that in a moment.

L-Elf, a Dorssian spy and mecha pilot, comes across Haruto during the attack. At the end of episode 1, in a true anime WTF moment, Haruto bites L-Elf and transfers his consciousness into L-Elf’s body, thus taking it over for a period of time. (If you’ve heard Valvrave being called the “vampires in space” series, this is where it comes from.) While in L-Elf’s body Haruto attacks the Dorssians, seriously wounding L-Elf’s comrade A-Drei. A-Drei loses his left eye and declares L-Elf a traitor to Dorssia.

It turns out that the potion not only enables a person to pilot a Valvrave mecha, but also gives them a kind of immortality. Haruto now recovers from injuries that would kill regular humans.

Eventually, Sakimori Academy on Module 77 declares itself an independent nation, New JIOR, and elects Shoko as its President.

Meanwhile, Saki Rukino, another student at the school and a former teen singing idol, takes control of another Valvrave on Module 77 and hits the “Yes” button to abandon her humanity in order to pilot the mecha and become famous once again.

Valvrave the Liberator at first comes across as a Code Geass imitator, but its roots reach farther back than that. The Sakimori Academy students initially revel in their new-found independence, but as Dorssia continues to attack and people die, the serious consequences of what they’ve done begin to sink in.

As more Valvrave mechas are discovered on Module 77, more students choose to become mecha pilots to defend New JIOR and take the same pledge as Haruto and Saki. Unfortunately, the real cost of taking the pledge only becomes apparent later on.

Valvrave has become famous for a scene toward the end of season 1 in which a sexual assault is committed on one pilot by another who has taken the pledge. The victim grieves not only the assault but what it means – that they truly are losing their humanity.

In this realization of what war costs people, Valvrave the Liberator resembles Gundam Seed more than Code Geass. Beneath its breezy tone, glossy animation look and typical high-school tropes, Valvrave manages to make its point with a mix of light scenes and serious and heavy scenes that somehow blend seamlessly together. I think what I’m trying to say is that Valvrave is much better and presents a deeper story than first appears on the surface.

The second season of Valvrave has just begun, and the entire first season is available in free streaming on Crunchyroll.

Sekai-Ichi Hatsukoi Movie - New Anime Short

An anime short called Valentine hen will accompany the new Sekai-Ichi Hatsukoi movie coming out next year based on the Zen Kirishima/Takafumi Yokozawa relationship. Here are the details:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2013-10-07/sekai-ichi-hatsukoi-anime-short-to-screen-alongside-new-film

Still no word on when in 2014 the movie is due out though. :/

Attack on Titan and Free! - Reviews

Warning – Complete spoilers for both series

Attack on Titan has concluded its first season and it lived up to the hype. Full of visceral thrills and chills and some of the most harrowing action scenes I’ve seen in anime, Attack on Titan was one of the series I looked forward to watching the most for each of its twenty-five episodes.

I finally warmed to Eren, as he became a genuine hero and more sympathetic than he was at the beginning. Being the only human (at least initially) who could transform into a Titan, Eren suffered through a lot of ill treatment and prejudice but still retained his character and sense of self.

My favorite character was Levi. It’s unlikely, but the little street thug-turned ace Titan fighter with the perpetually morose expression got under my skin – in a good way I mean. :D I think it was because he did his best with a huge unpredictable military bureaucracy over his head and maintained his own integrity, especially in his dealings with Eren. The beating he delivered to a bound Eren in the public military tribunal was hard to watch, but it met Levi’s objective. He had to show the higher-ups that someone could control Eren, and it not only preserved Eren’s transformation ability for future battles against the Titans but literally saved Eren from being executed.

I was afraid that Levi would get killed because he’s the kind of supporting character whose death would make a huge impact. He still might die at some point, but I’m glad he’s been left alive for now.

Apparently Levi and Eren are a yaoi pairing in some fangirls’ eyes. I haven’t read any of the fan fiction and probably won’t – I mean, the idea of certain pairings comes close to making you laugh and I’m afraid for me Levi/Eren (or Eren/Levi) would definitely be one of them. XD

I was confused at first when it was revealed that Annie was the Female Titan, initially because we didn’t know that any human other than Eren could transform and after that because – well, why Annie?

One of the valid criticisms of Attack on Titan thus far is that there are a lot of characters and not a lot of character development. About the only thing we were shown about Annie is that her father trained her to fight in hand-to-hand combat – and it’s also implied that he sexually abused her. Childhood sexual abuse leaves its victims with rage, often long into adulthood, and Annie is still just a teenager.

This is what Annie shares with Eren - rage. The flashback to the attack on Mikasa’s family reveals that Eren was a killer even at eight years old. Seeing his mother get eaten by a Titan fueled the fire even more.

There’s still so much we don’t know about the Titans, but there appears to be a symbiotic relationship between them and the humans of the walled world. When the Female Titan first showed up, I assumed it was Eren’s mother since she kept trying to eat him and take him with her. I still don’t get why Annie in her Female Titan mode tried to consume Eren.

In sum, Attack on Titan leaves you wanting more in every respect: more episodes, more information on the Titans and their relation to humans, what happens when people get eaten, etc. Most of all, it leaves you wanting more of those ferocious battle scenes with their unmatched intensity. I have gotten literal chills and felt my heart beat speed up watching Attack on Titan. Those scenes are simply amazing.

On the other end of the intensity scale… well…

If Attack on Titan left me wanting more, Free! left me with the feeling that I’d kind of seen enough. XD

Not that Free! was bad. It was fine. It’s just that I’ve seen girl characters in anime with more initiative and self-determination be more dynamic than these guys, who appeared to be sleepwalking through their own show.

In the final third of the series there was a plot, at last, sort of. Rin beats Haru in the freestyle semis and then stands there lording it over him like a jerk at poolside.

What happened in the next episode gave me some hope for the series. We expect Rin to go on and advance to the finals after this, but instead he becomes withdrawn and introspective. Haru on the other hand, rather than being devastated, actually comes out of his torpor, joining in with Makoto, Nagisa and Rei and being more social.

Years ago, Haru beat Rin in a swimming competition and Rin took it hard, leaving Haru feeling guilty. The relationship between the two boys froze in time at that point and it isn’t until Rin beats Haru at the semis that the two come to reflect on their feelings for each other. Both boys are shaken up by Rin’s win, and the series does a very good job of showing how this affects them both. What each has been missing the whole time has been the other’s friendship, but it takes Rin saying to Haru that he’ll never swim with him again to shock the two of them awake.

The whole time I was watching Free! the series had an off quality to me that I couldn’t put my finger on. I think I know what it is now. The characters in Free! look like guys but they’re not – they’re girls in guys’ bodies.

Here’s what I mean. Think of the characters in your average sports anime and what they’re like. They’re aggressive, enthusiastic, highly individualistic, take risks and fail, take risks again and win, and so on. Does this sound like the boys in Free! to you? No, of course not. These are boys as Kyoto Animation thinks girls want to see boys – as neutered and harmless as a boy band.

Think back over Free! and now imagine Haru, Rin, Makoto, Nagisa and Rei as girls instead of boys. Haru and Rin are the two girls who broke up their friendship over a long-ago incident. They now go to different schools and still miss each other, though each can’t admit it.

Makoto is Haru’s best friend and Rei is the neurotic but lovable new girl in their circle. Nagisa is the cheery girl who can’t stand it when someone is feeling down.

Rin – the feisty one – keeps challenging Haru and finally beats her in a swimming race. However, instead of moving forward Rin is upset over this, as is Haru-chan. Can the two girls ever be friends again?

I may be different from other female fans – or even other fujoshis – but I find male characters are at their most attractive when they’re being guys, not girls in boy drag. I was bemused watching Free!, wondering why I didn’t like it more. The final episode in particular made me cringe as the characters fell all over themselves expressing their feelings for each other, even Haru who barely said a word through the whole series and at the end winds up emoting all over the damn place.

It sounds like I hated Free! I didn’t, but I am disappointed that Kyoto Animation didn’t make Free! a sports anime with guys being full-blooded guys as well as focusing on their friendship and what they meant to each other – but in a more realistic way. For me, Free! was too soft at its center to fully engage me and it all came down to the characters. The story didn’t set me on fire either, but if the characters had been more dynamic the story would have been as well – so again – it was the characters.

Be that as it may, I’ll probably watch the second season to see where the story will go now that Haru and Rin are friends again, which was the only point of tension in the entire series. I guess Haru could beat him again at freestyle. ;-) We’ll have to wait and see.

Supporting the Industry - What I Did in September 2013

A quiet month on the support front. I did buy a DVD box set at the last Suncoast in America.

Saiyuki Reload is the first of two sequel series to Gensomaden Saiyuki. The series is twenty-five episodes long and ten years old.

Because my pictures are blurry, maybe you couldn't see the price markdown. Here's a closer look.

Okay, okay, this picture is blurry too. So I'll tell you: the original price was $149.99. The price I got it for was $20.00.

That's $20.00, as in two ten-dollar bills. Huh?

Yes, it's Geneon, so they're basically throwing it out the door. But still, I continue to be astonished at what I can get box sets for these days. I guess it was good in a way that I started buying anime DVDs late in the game, as they're dead cheap now. I'm under no illusions that Kazuya Minekura or the original producers will see any revenues from my purchase, but maybe this will help Suncoast (and Right Stuf and the other distributors) keep in mind that even ten-year old sequel series to moderately successful series from the previous decade will have end-purchasers at the bottom of the food chain paying them a few bucks to take it off their hands; in other words, keep stocking anime DVDs because some fool anime fan will buy them someday in the near or far future. For what that may be worth, I mean. ;-)

Me, I'm happy with my purchase. And now to keep my eye out for Saiyuki Reload Gunlock, the final sequel series. =D