News Roundup - K, Kuroko's Basketball and More

Some recent anime news... the sequel to K has finally been announced. They haven't said whether it will be a new series or a feature film, but I'm betting on a film since K: Missing Kings was a sequel to the series and it ended on a cliffhanger. So it would make sense to continue the story in the sequel's current format, i.e., a movie.

In other happy news...

The third season of Kuroko's Basketball will air starting in January 2015! I'd fully expected it to air in either spring or fall. I'm thrilled that they're giving us the final season so quickly. The manga only ended in September, after all.

Tadatoshi Fujimaki is starting a sequel manga series to Kuroko's Basketball this December, so clearly he doesn't believe in letting things cool off. XD

I'll admit Gakuen Heaven is not one of my favorite BL stories, but I did buy the DVDs on sale and watched it (and then sold the DVDs to Bookoff...). According to ANN, mangaka You Higuri is starting a sequel manga series for Gakuen Heaven, so fans of that franchise should be very happy at this news.

I know there's been other news in the anime world lately, but my work schedule has made it hard to stay on top of it all. Oh, there is one thing...

The good people at Lawson's conbini in Japan now sell Kyuubey meat buns:

Enjoy those creepycute meat buns, Kyuubey fans!

The Return of Seiyuu Appreciation Day

I missed doing Seiyuu Appreciation Day on September 21. Because... I forgot. O_O

I can't remember why I forgot, but it probably had something to do with my August break from this blog, which included missing doing Seiyuu Appreciation Day on August 21 as well. That was okay since it fell during my break, but I think I just forgot to do a post when September 21 rolled around.

Ah well. This is a good excuse to explain what Seiyuu Appreciation Day is again for any new readers here.

A number of months ago - it might even have been a year already - I chose a random day of the month, the 21st, to do a post on seiyuu. One of the joys of becoming an anime fan, for me anyway, has been discovering the world of Japanese voice actors, a.k.a. seiyuu. Seiyuu are not only voice actors for anime. They often do foreign movie dubbing and narration for documentary films. They are also entertainers in addition to doing voice acting, and frequently have singing careers and perform on stage in shows based on the animes they act in.

I've written a lot of posts about seiyuu. If you're interested, you can read them by clicking on the "Seiyuu" and "Seiyuu Appreciation Posts" tags in the right column under Labels.

This month's post is on the two polls that were recently held in Japan for Most Attractive Female Seiyuu and Most Handsome Male Seiyuu. (So no, the picture of the lovely Mamoru Miyano above wasn't simply gratuitous eye candy. XD)

First, the women's poll. Here's the link at ANN:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2014-10-15/10000-anime-fans-pick-the-most-attractive-female-voice-actresses/.79921

The top ten in order are:

1. Kana Hanazawa
2. Sora Amamiya
3. Suzuko Mimori
4. Ai Kayano
5. Miyuki Sawashiro
6. Manami Numakura
7. Marina Inoue
8. Haruka Tomatsu
9. Nana Mizuki
10. Maaya Uchida

I confess I only recognize Kana Hanazawa, Marina Inoue and Nana Mizuki, as I follow male seiyuu rather than female seiyuu. Kana Hanazawa is probably the hottest female seiyuu around right now, as she's been capitalizing on her success in Madoka Magica for the past few years. [Edit: I thought Kana Hanazawa played Madoka, but I looked it up and Aoi Yuuki played Madoka. Don't know why I thought it was Hanazawa...] I know Marina Inoue plays Armin in Attack on Titan and of course...

... Nana Mizuki is Hinata in Naruto and has a very successful singing career in Japan.

Now, on to the men.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2014-10-16/10000-anime-fans-also-pick-most-handsome-male-voice-actors/.79983

The men ranked as follows:

1. Mamoru Miyano
2. Tatsuhisa Suzuki
3. Daisuke Ono
4. Yuuki Kaji
5. Hiroshi Kamiya
6. KENN
7. Shouta Aoi
8. Nobunaga Shimazaki
9. Hiro Shimono
10. Yuuichi Nakamura

I'm surprised that Tatsuhisa Suzuki got ahead of Daisuke Ono, though Suzuki is certainly cute. I'm just used to seeing the No. 1 and No. 2 spots being taken by either Miyano or Ono. ;-)

I'm not familiar with Shouta Aoi, but he's certainly very attractive:

And Nobunaga Shimazaki played Haruka in Free!.

He also played the nervous, constantly apologizing Ryo Sakurai in Kuroko's Basketball.

You might wonder why do polls on which voice actors are attractive - but again, they're not just voice actors, they're also entertainers. So these polls actually do make sense, in a way.

If you click on the ANN links to look at the polls (which have pictures, btw), be sure to read the comments - they're a lot of fun. =D

Fall 2014 Watchlist

I've cobbled together what I think might be my fall 2014 watchlist. I say might be, because my work schedule recently got a lot busier and I've barely had time to try out the fall shows.

However, I can make good guesses based on my usual tastes. So, without further ado, from the most definite picks to the maybes...

Psycho-Pass S1 was an amazing series, so I'm in for the second season despite some main characters from the first season looking like they're missing and having to watch it on Funimation's frustrating, creaky streaming site.

I watched the first episode of Parasyte, which I found kind of creepy/funny/creepy again. It's one of the most-hyped shows of the season, which usually (but not always) means it's worth watching. I haven't read much about it, so the plot should surprise me no matter what direction it takes.

My surprise find this season is Shirobako. I always watch animes about the manga industry, but I've always really wanted to watch animes about the anime industry, but there aren't any. Until now.

I've only seen the first episode so far and the opening gave me pause, since it shows the four main characters about to graduate high school? college? It was hard to tell. It was the typical cutesy high-voiced moe kind of scene and I thought, uh-oh.

But it was just a flashback. The next scene jumped to the main character now working at an anime production company in Tokyo, and it was great. I've always wanted to see what anime production in Japan is like behind the scenes, and this series looks like it will show it all.

The final one on my list of definitely-watching shows:

What can I say - Orenchi no Furo Jijo is a series about a merman who lives in a bishonen's bathtub. =) Also, the episodes are four minutes long. I watched the first one, and the funniest thing about it was completely unintentional. The episode was four minutes of silly fluff, but the opening credits were completely 180 degrees different from the episode that followed. It was dark and noir and seemed to show somebody drowning(!?). A commenter on Crunchyroll said it best:

Wow, that OP seems kind of... out of character?

So who knows where this little show is headed - but I'll certainly give it a whirl.

And last of all - the maybes on my list. I'm going pretty much on what I've heard/read about these shows only.

Terra Formars is a dark action series about killing mutated cockroaches on Mars. Apparently it's being shown heavily censored and people are complaining. But I'll probably give it a try.

I seem to recall hearing before my blur of a work schedule began that World Trigger features some of my favorite seiyuu. So I'll try it out.

And the most maybe-maybes on the list... Akatsuki no Yona is a shojo series in a historical setting that has an intriguing-sounding plot, so I'll watch at least the first few episodes if I have time. Fate/stay night is the latest series in a very popular universe. I watched the first few minutes of its hour-long prologue episode and I have to say it didn't particularly hook me - but I may give it another chance.

And Rage of Bahamut: Genesis is getting all kinds of love from reviewers, but I read the plot synopsis at ANN and it just left me cold. It's the least likely one to be added to my watchlist, but I've been surprised before, so who knows. ;-)

Supporting the Industry - What I Did in September 2014

Don't adjust your computer - it's time for my trademarked blurry photos!

In September, I attended Yaoi Con, with all the expenses associated with attending a convention. I didn't buy a lot in the dealer's room/artist alley, not things that were anime-related anyway. I did buy some m/m romance books.

The Love Stage poster above was a free gift from Crunchyroll, who gave them out to paid subscribers.

I bought a set of Hakuouki postcards from Akadot Retail. All of the booths were small this year, Akadot Retail/DMI's booth included, so it was a bit of a limited shopping experience all around.

I paid my usual monthly fee to the Anime Network, and also started thinking about buying some anime DVD box sets that have been on my to-buy list for a while now. I'll report on any purchases made in my post next month.

And that's about it. As to the new fall season, I'm narrowing my list down and trying out some of the series that look good. I'll post next time about my watchlist for fall 2014 and what I finally decided to watch.

The End of Naruto

Shonen Jump has just announced that Naruto will end on November 10.

The manga has been running in Shonen Jump since 1999. I began watching the anime, starting with a lot of catching-up on the early episodes, in 2006. Naruto has been a part of my anime world for nine years.

It's hard to believe it's ending, but now I'm faced with a dilemma: Should I try to avoid spoilers, or should I give in and look to see how the story ends?

According to some commenters, the anime is about a year behind the manga. So it would be a year if I wait for the anime to get there to know the ending.

Decisions, decisions. O_O?