Edo Nekoe Jubei Otogisoshi - Manga in Motion

There's something new in manga - or I should say there's something new in anime. Or is it both?

It's called "motion comics" or Manga 2.5. It's basically a video camera moving over manga panels with the panels being manipulated in ingenious ways that tell the story with movement, similar to an anime.

It's difficult to explain - but it works.

Crunchyroll recently started streaming Edo Nekoe Jubei Otogisoshi, a story about a talking cat and his owner, an Edo-era painter who paints cat images to scare rats away for home and business owners.

Jubei was an orphan who was raised by cats, and now he has a large cat named Nita who can talk. Each episode tells a story about a cat and its mysterious and miraculous interactions with its human owner. The art is beautiful and the motion work brings the stories to life in a way that is informed by both manga and anime, but which is distinct from either art form. It's really a third art form.

Here's the preview:



Yes, that's Tomokazu Sugita as Nita the cat. =D

The stories in Edo Nekoe Jubei Otogisoshi are wonderful. I think Crunchyroll is opening access to Edo Nekoe episodes for non-premium and general viewers sometime next month. Here is the link if you want to bookmark it:

Crunchyroll - Edo Nekoe

And here's a link to an advertorial on ANN from Renta, a Manga 2.5 company:

What is Manga2.5?

Seiyuu Appreciation Day - The Way of the Seiyuu

When I first became an anime fan, most Japanese voice actors sounded the same to me - mainly because they were speaking a foreign language and I was too busy reading subtitles to even notice the different voices.

I can't say when I began falling in love with seiyuu, but it probably started with Saiyuki, one of the first animes I obsessed over. The main cast are all well-known today - Toshihiko Seki, Souichiro Hoshi, Hiroaki Hirata and Akira Ishida - but that probably wasn't the case in 2000 when it first aired.

I couldn't get enough of Akira Ishida as Cho Hakkai. His gentle voice resounded in my head and I rewatched episodes just to hear him speak.

As I watched more and more anime, I discovered a new world of seiyuu and wondered what it was like to be one. By comparison, American voice actors never held the same fascination for me, though I did like a few of them.

I was thinking recently about why I'm so into seiyuu and now I know. It's because Japanese seiyuu are unique in their position among all actors in the world.

A translator I worked with early on when I was editing anime novels and manga told me that Japanese seiyuu were more talented than Japanese live-action actors, since they had to create the character using only their voices.

I agree, but it's even more than that. Because anime production is such a large industry in Japan, seiyuu can make a living just doing voice acting, making being a Japanese voice actor a kind of unique profession with its own lifestyle ("Seiyuukata," if you will, "the way of the seiyuu").

In my fanciful imagination, the Way of the Seiyuu begins when the seiyuu trains at a voice acting school, graduates, and signs with an agency that starts to get him/her roles in anime and video games. Their work days are full of voice acting at different studios, recording character songs, acting in drama CDs, doing radio shows with their seiyuu pals, making personal appearances across Japan singing and doing skits - I mean, I know it's hard work as well but who wouldn't want this job? =D

Going to recording studios and voice acting in anime and video games can lead to fame - recording contracts, concerts, appearances on stage as their characters year-round...

Everything you'd expect - except the one crossover that seems the most natural - live-action acting in TV and movies.

I've had fun with this before with my Incongruous Things posts on "Very Handsome Voice Actors" like Mamoru Miyano and Daisuke Ono, but seriously it's puzzling to me. Why don't more seiyuu do live-action acting and vice versa?

I'll admit there's the occasional "face made for radio" among Japanese seiyuu but many of them are good-looking (generally a prerequisite for an actor whose face is on-screen), and character actors wouldn't even need that. So why the high wall between voice acting and live-action acting in Japan?

One actor who comfortably does both live-action acting and voice acting is Kensho Ono. Only 13 when he began acting in TV dramas, Ono is known for dubbing all of Daniel Radcliffe's roles, including Harry Potter in the Harry Potter movies.

Ono has been voice acting in anime since 2006 and currently plays Tetsuya Kuroko in Kuroko's Basketball. He's only 24 now (look at that baby face!) and has found success both in front of the camera and behind a studio microphone, so hopefully he can serve as an example to others that the high wall can be breached.

I mean, I'd like to see more seiyuu in live-action roles - wouldn't you? =D

Five Years Later

Five years ago, I started this blog.

And I have learned many things about anime since then.

I learned that when told by a master storyteller and stocked to the gills with bishonen... even a story about basketball can be exciting. =)

And that psychopaths are sometimes just the other side of ourselves.

And that the Devil is a pretty dedicated fast-food worker. ;-)

I learned that not everything has to be explained at the end of an anime...

... for one to be moved by what happens.

I learned that nothing succeeds...

like absolute gut-wrenching intensity...

... except a smile.

And that two gorgeous protagonists...

...with tortured pasts...

in a great story truly makes my anime day.

I discovered that some animes are epic and timeless...

... while defying easy description

...and just like other animes...

Can remain in my heart forever.

And some other characters have found their way there.

Unexpected ones...

As well as the ones you'd expect.

Never to be forgotten

So all I can say is

Bring on the next five years.

Hybrid Child OAV Release Schedule

The anime adaptation of Shungiku Nakamura's Hybrid Child manga is set to be released in four episodes in as many months: October, November and December of 2014, and January 2015.

It's an OAV, which means it's a direct release and won't be aired on Japanese TV (I think).

There are three short stories that make up the Hybrid Child manga. Three stories told in four anime episodes - ? I'm not understanding how this will work out unless the fourth DVD is some kind of extra.

In any event, here's the link at ANN if you want additional details:

Hybrid Child Release Schedule

AX 2014 Seiyuu Announcements

We're less than one month from Anime Expo, and I think AX just made its "big seiyuu guest" announcement.

I think... ? Possibly... ?

Each year, AX announces a prominent seiyuu as a guest of honor. The first I can recall was Toshihiko Seki. They've also had Toshiyuki Morikawa, Katsuyuki Konishi, Nobuhiko Okamoto and Kazuhiko Inoue.

This year, they just announced Masakazu Morita.

Best known as Ichigo Kurosaki from Bleach, Morita was also Barnaby Brooks, Jr. in Tiger and Bunny and plays a major character, Yukari Mishakuji, in the upcoming K: Missing Kings movie that is premiering at AX.

Not to disparage Morita who I do consider a big-name seiyuu, but we have a few more weeks before the convention. I'm wondering if Morita will be the final seiyuu announcement or if there's someone else to come.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Ami Koshimizu.

Koshimizu is coming as part of the presentation on the wild girl-on-girl slugfest Kill la Kill, but she also played Kallen in Code Geass and most memorably the flirtatious and mighty Holo in Spice and Wolf.

So we have Masakazu Morita and Ami Koshimizu. What makes me think another seiyuu guest announcement may be coming is that Morita is linked to the K movie premiere and Koshimizu is linked to the Kill la Kill presentation. Neither appears to be a standalone guest of honor, here simply to be honored on their own.

I'll confess that every year I wait for AX's seiyuu guest announcements hoping they'll get one of the really huge seiyuus: Takahiro Sakurai, Tomokazu Sugita, Hiroshi Kamiya, Daisuke Ono or Jun Fukuyama. I wouldn't even mind if it were one of the big female seiyuus like Rie Kugimiya, Romi Paku, Fumiko Orikasa or Kana Hanazawa (who is in every anime these days).

I know the really big-name seiyuus are extremely busy and probably can't take the time out of their schedules to come to AX. I can still hope though. =D

Supporting the Industry - What I Did in May 2014

I started these Supporting the Industry posts two years ago, when Bandai Entertainment was closed by its Japanese parent company and the anime industry in the U.S. was facing an economic meltdown.

That was before the success of Attack on Titan, and the increasing profitability of legal streaming sites like Crunchyroll, Funimation and the like. As well as the still-evolving move from print to digital for manga.

I originally began writing these posts because back in 2012 the industry was on the brink. People uploaded videos to You Tube where they would show the anime DVDs, manga and merchandise they'd bought, trying to encourage others to support the industry and not just watch torrents and read scanlations.

We're over the hump now. As Justin Sevakis in his Answerman column at ANN stated recently, "Make no mistake, far from being bad days, we are in a golden era for both anime production and consumption. There has never been a better time to be an anime fan, to buy anime on physical media, to watch anime even though you might be broke."

In that same April 4 column (entitled Answerman: Weary Optimism), Justin cited the fact that a stable group of fans regularly buy Blu-rays and DVDs now, and license fees are reasonable enough that a U.S. producer can buy the rights, put out a subtitled box set and make a profit.

He continued on to note that Toonami is back, and "all but a handful" of each season's anime series offerings are available in North America as free simulcasts. And Hulu and Netlix are buying anime directly.

In a more recent column, Answerman: Personal Space, Justin also had this to say:

"For years, you and everyone else who wanted to watch anime basically had the choice of either pirating it, or shelling out the bucks for a VHS or DVD copy. That's not a very pleasant choice to make. Anime is expensive, and buying it sight-unseen is a recipe for disappointment. Many anime fans just want to watch a show once and have no need to keep a permanent copy. Even a huge media hoarder like myself, with my 1800+ disc collection, has no interest in buying a copy of every show he's ever seen. That was crazy, and that sucked. It was not a reasonable expectation of us as fans.

"The really, truly great thing about being an anime fan these days is that we no longer have to make that choice. We can watch just about anything we want to see, legally, and cheaply. And if we really really like a show and make sure we have a copy to have on the shelf and gaze at lovingly and occasionally fondle and sniff, chances are, we can buy it on a disc. It's a great system. Not everything gets released in both forms, but enough does that we're really spoilt for choice. There's nothing hypocritical about taking advantage of that system. It was the hope of the industry that your needs would be better met by legal means, and it's absolutely a good thing that you're now participating in a system that gives money back to the creators. (If you pay to subscribe to those websites, that's even better.)"

Sorry for the wall o'text quotes, but I couldn't say it any better than Justin did.

We live in very good times for anime right now. There's no longer the fear that the industry might simply wither away and die like there was in 2012.

So is there still a point to me doing these posts each month? I think so. The price of peace is eternal vigilance, as someone once said. ;-) If nothing else, writing about how I support the industry every month reminds me that I need to keep supporting the industry that produces the entertainment I love. And if anyone reads these posts here and is reminded of the same, and then chooses to watch legal streaming instead of torrents and read licensed manga instead of scanlations, and buy DVD box sets and licensed merchandise, the industry benefits.

I usually forget to mention this, but I'm still paying $6.95 every month to the Anime Network. It's been a year since I subscribed to the Anime Network just to watch one show, Zettai Karen Children. I've long since finished the series but my subscription continues on.

Why? For one, like most monthly subscriptions charged to one's credit card, it's easier to just think, "Oh, I'll cancel it at some point" and then keep forgetting to do it. For another - at some point in the mists of time last year I looked at the site's catalog of shows and saw they had a few that weren't available at Crunchyroll or elsewhere. So that adds to the "Oh, I still have shows I want to watch there" thinking.

I think the real reason I still subscribe is even simpler. I'm supporting the industry with my little $6.95 each month there, just like I do with my annually-charged Crunchyroll premium subscription. Whether I ever watch anything at the Anime Network again, it's a good thing to do.

However - it's time to call it what it is. I will now refer to the Anime Network as the Zettai Karen Children Network, since that's what it is for me. =D So in May, I attended Fanime in San Jose, with all the expenses an out-of-town trip entails (hotel, airfare, etc.), and also paid my monthly fee to the Zettai Karen Children Network.

News Roundup - Kuroko S3, Hozuki OVAs and Hybrid Child Staff

Kuroko's Basketball's third season has been greenlit. =D

No date set yet, but season 1 aired from April 2012 to September 2012 and season 2 aired from October 2013 to March 2014. So there was almost one year between the first two seasons. I guess it would be too much to expect that S3 would begin airing this October - ? We can hope, certainly.

In more good news, Hozuki no Reitetsu will have three OVAs released in 2015! The OVAs will be based on volumes 17-19 of the manga.

Finally, an announcement regarding the anime adaptation of Hybrid Child:

The anime adaptation of Shungiku Nakamura's Hybrid Child manga was greenlit some time ago, with the following cast:

Kotaro Izumi - Nobuhiko Okamoto
Hazuki - Daisuke Hirakama
Ichi Seya - Ryohei Kimura
Yuzu - Tsubasa Yonaga
Tsukishima - Yoshitsugu Matsuoka
Kuroda - Yuuki Ono

The director will be Michio Fukuda who directed Nurarihyon no Mago, and the script will be by Aki Itami. The production company will be Studio Deen, the producers behind the anime adaptations of Nakamura's other BL manga series, Junjou Romantica and Sekai-Ichi Hatsukoi.

In my Hybrid Child review, I discussed the difficult themes involved in the three stories that make up Hybrid Child, particularly the second story with Ichi Seya and Yuzu. Though in the Edo period relationships between adult samurai men and their "juniors" were commonly accepted, I'm wondering how the producers will handle the scenes between the adult Seya and the child-like hybrid Yuzu.

I am definitely looking forward to Ryohei Kimura as Seya and Yuuki Ono as Kuroda. Kuroda's story, the final one of the three, is a truly beautiful and heartbreaking love story.

With the anime production of Hybrid Child coming soon, and with series like Kuroko's Basketball S1 and Sekai-Ichi Hatsukoi being released on DVD in Japan, I'm seriously considering getting a Blu-ray player so that I can purchase and watch Japanese DVDs. Even a series like Hozuki no Reitetsu, which I enjoyed but probably not enough to buy - if I wanted to buy it, I would like to have that option. Not to mention Bakuman, which I had to stop watching in its second season since I pledged not to watch fansubs anymore to support the industry. Bakuman had one DVD release for the first seven episodes of S1 - which I bought - and that was it. Bakuman has never been legally streamed here in the U.S.

I'm just finishing up the first year of Japanese language classes (it's the second time I've taken first-year Japanese actually), and I'm understanding a lot more Japanese dialogue when I watch anime these days. If I keep up my studies, it's conceivable that I could watch Japanese anime on DVDs at some point in the future - because of course - Japanese DVDs won't have any English subtitles.

And I can't think of anything that would spur me on more to keep studying Japanese than the prospect of watching anime in its native language. ;-)