Seven Years Later

Anime Expo is this weekend.

And—like last year—I’m not going.

Not making a statement or anything. I think it’s part of the process.

If you’ve followed this blog over the years, and especially in the past year, you know I’ve been going through changes as an anime fan.

I was into anime 1,000% from 2006 until last year. Last year, I felt a cooling in my interest, which continues to this day, though anime is definitely still a part of my life.

Case in point: Arslan Senki (The Heroic Legend of Arslan).

I’d stopped watching Arslan Senki in its first season because my life got busy. I enjoyed the series and always meant to get back to it.

A few weeks ago, I picked it up again, finishing the first cour of its first season. And found out there was a whole second cour I didn’t know about.

I marathoned the second cour in two evenings, all 12 episodes.

I’ve been so out of it as far as keeping up with what’s new each season, it then took me a while to discover that Arslan Senki has a second season that will begin a few days from now. When it does, I’ll be watching.

This past year has been like that. I watched the third and final cour of Durarara’s second season, and continued with new seasons of series I’d been enjoying like K, Haikyuu, The Case File of Young Kindaichi Returns and Kagewani (pictured at the top), but didn’t make the effort to search out new series.

I also marathoned the third season of Junjou Romantica on Funimation—and really liked it, a lot more than the first two seasons. So anime still holds surprises for me.

And to this day, I still totally love Kuroko's Basketball. One of my favorite ways to relax is to rewatch my favorite episodes/arcs from the series, especially the second Seirin-Touou game and the Seirin-Yosen game episodes.

I’ll continue to watch the series I enjoy. Not sure I’ll make huge efforts to find new anime series, as I’m enjoying the ones already on my list and my free time has been taken up with writing fiction and learning Japanese.

I’ve spent more time this past year on my writing career, and also on my Japanese studies—particularly learning kanji. In my work, if I can learn the kanji, it’s a huge boost in income for me. So there’s great incentive there. ;-)

Another interest that has captivated me is Star Wars.

I’ve been a Star Wars fan my whole life. I saw the original trilogy when it came out in the theaters, and the new movie Star Wars: The Force Awakens has brought all the old feelings back.

I’m especially intrigued by the fandom that has arisen around “Reylo,” the Rey/Kylo Ren pairing. There’s not only fan fiction, but a significant number of meta essays and posts on the topic.

So, I have no grand pronouncements or conclusions in this post, which marks the seventh anniversary of this blog. I’m still an anime fan. I still want to write about anime, though not as much as before. So this blog will continue.

A housekeeping note: I closed this blog to comments last year, as I was checking here less frequently and didn’t want to leave comments hanging without my moderation. Blogger unfortunately hides all past comments when you do this—it doesn’t let you close to comments going forward and also leave the past comments visible. If I get more active on this blog again, I will open to comments as before and the past comments will be visible again.

That's all for now. I'll post again when the mood strikes and I have something anime-related to say.

Until then, best wishes to all, and if you're going to Anime Expo - have a fantastic time. =D

Seiyuu Appreciation Day - One of These Things Is Not Like the Others

One of these things is not like the others.

One of these things is not the same.

Here's Edward Elric.

And here's the seiyuu that played him.

Here's Naruto Uzumaki.

And here's the seiyuu that plays him.

Here's Arslan from Arslan Senki.

And here's the seiyuu that plays him.

Ehhhhh??!!

So... somehow... the producers of Arslan Senki actually hired a MALE seiyuu, Yuusuke Kobayashi, to play 14-year-old Middle Eastern Prince Arslan and not a female seiyuu.

I'll admit I was totally surprised when I looked up who played Arslan. I was thinking whoever voiced Arslan would naturally be female - the voice was husky and slightly hoarse just like Romi Paku and Junko Takeuchi.

Instead, it's... a guy.

Why is this remarkable? Here's why.

This is Al from Fullmetal Alchemist.

This is the seiyuu who played him, Aaron Dismuke.

He was twelve years old then. And then this happened.

In other words, he grew up and his voice changed.

This is generally why shonen heroes are played by female seiyuu. Their voices are set - they won't change. They can keep voicing pre-teen boy characters forever.

I'm not sure if I'm impressed or alarmed by Yuusuke Kobayashi's voice as Arslan, because he sounds like a female playing a young boy, and I'm not sure this is supposed to happen given that Kobayashi is, in fact, actually male. Watch Arslan Senki and see if you don't agree. XD

Spring 2015 Watchlist

Here finally, and only a month late… my Spring 2015 Watchlist!

I have quite a few carryover series from winter, so I wound up adding just two new series… well, three if you count the return of an old standby.

First, the two completely new ones.

Kekkai Sensen, with the clunky English name of Blood Blockade Battlefront, is set in a fantastical future New York City.

A rift in time-space – I think – it’s hard to tell, because the series’ premise isn’t explained too clearly, but – a rift of some kind has occurred and the Big Apple is now co-inhabited by humans and creatures from another dimension.

Our hero Leonardo Watch has a mysterious superpower lodged in his eyes.

Young Leonardo joins a group of other humans with superpowers who fight… something, I think it’s criminal creatures, but there appears to be a larger and more sinister movement working behind the scenes.

Despite the vagueness of the set-up, Kekkai Sensen is a lot of fun to watch. One of the humans in Leonardo’s group is Zapp Renfro.

Zapp is played by Kazuya Nakai, who chews the scenery and is obviously having great fun playing the character.

Leonardo is played by Daisuke Sakaguchi, which seems appropriate. Sakaguchi plays Shinpachi in Gintama, another anime where humans and aliens live in the same city with the culture and species clashes you’d expect from that.

I’ve watched the first three episodes, and so far my only complaint is that there’s not much consistency from episode to episode. Episode 1 was a wild ride, episode 2 was pretty much more of the same, but episode 3 was a closed room type of episode featuring Leonardo’s boss, an understated and not terribly interesting character.

Whereas episode 1 featured a crazed character I fell in love with instantly, Femt. But we haven’t seen Femt since episode 1.

Femt is fey and screams a lot and I found him totally hysterical. He’s played by Akira Ishida, of all seiyuu. I looked forward to seeing Femt in episodes 2 and 3 but he seems to have disappeared from the show.

Regardless of the unevenness of the series, I’m probably going to stick with Kekkai Sensen.

Arslan Senki, or The Heroic Legend of Arslan, is set in a fantasy medieval-era Middle East and tells the story of a young prince who loses his kingdom.

I gave the series a try for one reason: Hiromu Arakawa did the art.

According to MyAnimeList, Arakawa did the manga adaptation of Yoshiki Tanaka’s novel series, which I think means she also wrote the manga story (text and dialogue).

Arakawa is a fantastic storyteller. I loved Fullmetal Alchemist mainly for the story. Her art is good, but her character design has never grabbed me – well, except for Roy Mustang. ;-)

But here, wow.

And these two aren’t the only beautiful characters – there are others coming up.

The story has held my interest so far, even though it’s not Arakawa’s. I haven’t read the background on the Arslan Senki manga to find out why Arakawa chose to adapt someone else’s story. I can only assume Tanaka’s story impressed her that much.

If the great Hiromu Arakawa decided to spend time she could’ve used to do an original manga to adapt this one instead, I have to believe Arslan Senki’s story is going to prove worthy of her faith in it.

The old standby that has returned is, of course, Gintama.

The first five episodes of the new season had a lot of toilet humor, and I found myself rolling my eyes more than laughing.

But OMG, today’s episode. XD

Episode 6 (or 271, if you’re counting from the first season =D) featured a reunion of Gintoki with his old Joi rebel buddies, the dense-headed but lovable Katsura, and Sakamoto, Gintoki’s businessman friend with the loud deranged laugh.

About halfway through, the episode morphed into a Kuroko’s Basketball crossover (yes, insane things like this happen all the time in Gintama). The man who secretly set up their reunion turns out to be “Kurokono Tasuke,” a shadowy figure who helps from behind the scenes.

The name is a double play on words, for Kuroko no Basuke (Kuroko’s Basketball), and for Kuroko’s special ability in the series. He’s a player who assists by his sneaky passes and maneuvering behind the big players on the team. “Tasuke” means “to assist” in Japanese.

I couldn’t stop laughing. The best thing is that it’s a two-parter and next week’s episode has Gintoki and the others as the Generation of Miracles, Kuroko’s Basketball style.

The continuing series I’m watching are Naruto Shippuuden, Sailor Moon Crystal, I Can’t Understand What My Husband Is Saying, and of course Kuroko’s Basketball. The push to publish my novel The Hunt consumed most of my waking moments this past month, so I’m behind on all of them except Kuroko. I’m looking forward to getting caught up.