My Someday Anime Vacation

When I have a busy schedule, I tend not to look for new - or new-to-me - anime to watch. Instead, I feel like watching old favorites. It’s like going for comfort food, something familiar, rather than drumming up the energy to try something new (and that I may not like).

I’ve had a busy schedule for the past few years actually. Nevertheless, I’ve made the effort to add new anime series to my current watchlist when I could.

I have a theory. When time is short and all you want to do is unwind, you don’t want to take the risk that something new might disappoint. If you’ve been an anime fan for years you already have a catalog of stuff that you’ve watched. You know your favorites, right down to which title would best suit the mood you’re in, so you choose that one.

And it’s not likely to be something heavy or depressing. I’ll give you an example using Hollywood movies.

Let’s say a couple is home from work. It’s Friday night. They’re too tired to go out but they want to relax and watch something after dinner.

There’s a reason why they’ll drag out their Indiana Jones DVD, or the first Star Wars movie, or Guardians of the Galaxy and watch it for the millionth time. They want to enjoy something familiar and easy to watch.

Here’s an example that clearly shows why the opposite isn’t true.

I remember when Schindler’s List came out. The critics called it brilliant and a masterpiece and some said it was the best movie ever made. It told the true story of Oskar Schindler, a German manufacturer who saved the lives of Jewish refugees during WWII. At the end of the movie, Schindler is overcome with emotion when he realizes that he could have saved more people than he did, though those that he did save express their gratitude to him.

It’s a powerful and memorable film. Whether it was the greatest movie ever made is debatable - but I’d say one thing about it is beyond debate: it’s not the kind of film you feel like watching every day. I mean, it’s not like that couple is going to order pizza in on Friday night and say “Let’s watch Schindler’s List again.”

My point is this. Nobody has to know which anime series you turn to when you just want to relax. It’s one of those personal things. You’re not trying to impress anybody.

So lately I’ve been fitting in episodes of some of my favorite anime series, just an episode or two here and there when I have the chance. And when you’re watching for enjoyment, it’s funny, but you don’t even have to think about what to watch. The choice is made for you as you reach for the DVD or click on the show on the streaming site.

So if I had the time to take a vacation and just watch anime, these would be my first picks.

K, aka K Project, is a perennial favorite of mine. I’ve written a lot about K in the past.

When I try to explain why I love this series so much, I feel like I can’t find the words. K is about a fictional modern-day Japan that is secretly controlled by a group of “kings,” each with their own supernatural powers. The origin of these powers lies in the Dresden Slate, an artifact dating from Nazi Germany, which relates to the Silver King - the first and original king.

Each king has his own signature color. The Blue King is the enforcer, the chief law enforcement officer who leads an elite police force. The Red King - the Blue King’s nemesis - is the punk-like leader of a clan of misfits and delinquents. The Green King is the villain of season two.

The Colorless King is, as you might guess, mysterious and an anomaly. The Gold King - an august and grand figure - is the hidden power behind Japan’s Prime Minister and government. And finally, the Gray King is introduced in season two. At first, he seems like a throwaway type of character, easy to overlook. Basically, he hides in plain sight.

Season one starts out with the murder of a Red King clansman and ends with the death of one of the kings. The next part of the story is told in a movie, K: Missing Kings, and the series concludes with season two, which reveals the mystery of the Dresden Slate and the disposition of all the kings.

The story strings you along with unanswered questions and mysteries piled on mysteries, as the music and beautiful character designs captivate your senses. The setting is the fictional “Shizume City” and it really feels like its own world, a perfectly rendered fantasy world of secret kings and their clans hidden within ordinary modern Japanese life.

It’s incredibly stylish. If you’ve been an anime fan for a minute, you’ve watched anime series that had tons of style but scrimped on the substance. The K universe has both style and substance in spades. The story is fascinating and keeps you engaged, while the gorgeous visuals give you everything you could want to gaze at.

The story told in season one is of two mysteries: who killed the Red King clansman, and who is Yashiro Isana, a white-haired boy who fell from the sky and onto the Ashinaka High School campus. He is suspected of the Red clansman’s murder at first; but his true identity is a much deeper mystery, one that - once solved - actually resolves all the mysteries.

I’m not sure that K is for everyone. It has a cult following among certain fans. I can only suggest that you give it a try. It has a unique atmosphere all its own and you may find yourself as enraptured with it as I am.

The second anime series I would rewatch in its entirety if I had the time is Kuroko’s Basketball (Kuroko no Basket).

I can’t believe it’s been ten years since the Kuroko’s Basketball anime began streaming. The series ran from 2012 to 2015 in the U.S.

Tetsuya Kuroko enrolls at Seiren High School with a secret mission. He joins the basketball team and befriends Taiga Kagami, a towering power forward. Behind Kuroko’s placid unreadable face is a history with certain players from his middle school known as Kiseki no Sedai, the “Generation of Miracles.”

This basketball team at Teiko Middle School consisted of a once-in-a-generation group of brilliant players, all of whom have names that are color-coded to their hair color: Kise, the blond; Midorima, the green-haired one; Aomine with the blue hair; Murasakibara, who has purple hair; and finally Akashi, the red-haired scary Svengali-like team leader.

Kuroko was the shadowy sixth man, the brilliant assist player that no one remembers but without whom the Kiseki no Sedai would have failed.

But Kuroko doesn’t want recognition. Towards the end, the Kiseki no Sedai became arrogant and complacent, seeking individual glory instead of playing for the joy of the game as they did when they started out. Kuroko wants to bring his old friends back to themselves, to have them drop their inflated egos and love the game and each other again.

As Seiren builds its fledgling team and goes out to battle the other high schools where the Kiseki no Sedai members currently play, Kuroko gets his chance to wake his old teammates up.

Kuroko’s Basketball is a perfectly crafted shonen story. It pushes all the right shonen story buttons and is a joy to watch.

If time was limited, I would at least rewatch the second Touou-Seiren game arc in season two, episodes 39-43. This was the arc where Kuroko and Kagami faced Daiki Aomine and Touou Academy for the second time. Among all of his Generation of Miracles teammates, Kuroko was closest to Aomine and vice-versa. It’s Aomine’s soul that Kuroko most wants to save, so to speak, which infuses this arc with more tension and drama than the other tournament game arcs.

Finally - Gundam 00. I’ve been wanting to rewatch this one for a few years now.

It’s the year 2307. The earth has been depleted of fossil fuels and so the planet is now powered through the use of solar energy collectors. Wars have broken out between various nations on the planet, so a private military force called Celestial Being is formed to intervene and eradicate “unjust” wars backed by the use of four Gundams.

Celestial Being itself is governed by Veda, a supercomputer that determines which targets the Gundams should attack based on its information and analysis.

You can probably see the problem already. A “perfect” solution of a powerful enforcement mechanism/team that stops wrongdoers and supposedly never makes mistakes... would at minimum fall prey to real world pressures, political and otherwise, and corruption would always be a possibility (not to mention the danger of some group or government outright stealing Celestial Being’s power and capabilities at some point). (And further - what gives Celestial Being the right to play God? A valid question, in my view.)

I was the copy editor for Bandai Entertainment’s Gundam 00: Novel 3 Fallen Angels. I remember how excited I was to be even a small part of the Gundam universe.

Gundam 00 is my favorite Gundam series. It resenbles Gundam Wing with its four bishonen Gundam pilot protagonists, but 00’s story is much more complex and interesting as it shows differing ideologies and various political factions vying for Celestial Being’s power, as well as all the arguments for and against its very existence. It’s this deep-ranging story involving politics and philosophy that makes Gundam 00 special among the Gundam series.

And this may sound trivial, but I’m a student of art and design and I’ve always loved Gundam 00’s use of color. A lot of anime series have beautiful color design (I would include K in this list), but even among them, Gundam 00 stands out.

The music is awesome, especially the opening and ending themes. This is Chiaki Ishikawa with the haunting third ending theme, “Prototype.”




Hopefully I’ll find more free time to rewatch these old favorites soon. I can’t believe it’s the end of February already. This year is moving quickly. I need to remember that, as the saying goes, How you spend your time is how you spend your life and simply watch more anime if it is indeed still that important to me - as with all activities that are important to me. There’s always enough time for what we truly want to do.

My Top 5 Anime Opening and Closing Songs

One of the things that hit me early on as an anime fan were the great opening and closing songs for anime series.

It was my introduction to J-pop music. Since then, through the years, I’ve had too many favorite opening/closing songs to count.

I read somewhere that the songs used for anime opening or closing numbers are actually popular hit songs in Japan. I don’t know if they are popular first and then get licensed for anime series, or if it’s the other way around – they become hits after people watch the anime.

In any event – the music used for anime opening/closing credit sequences is an added source of pleasure for me when I watch anime. The right song, along with a credit sequence that captures the series’ atmosphere, can put me in a mood that lingers long after I’ve finished watching the episodes.

Here are a few of my favorites.

Number 5:



Naruto Shippuuden – Opening 1
Song: Hero’s Come Back
Band: Nobody Knows
You Tube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1hz_dnQWvs

Naruto and Naruto Shippuuden had a lot of great opening and closing songs. This one, “Hero’s Come Back,” was perfect for the start of Naruto Shippuuden, which takes place after a three-year time skip when Naruto is away from the village training with his ninja master Jiraiya.

The song and credit sequence truly set up the theme of a hero’s return. I remember watching the first episode of Shippuuden and being excited to see what the characters looked like now that they were teenagers and no longer children.

I especially like the confident look in Naruto’s eyes at the end as he strides forward to join Sakura and Kakashi. That look tells you everything about how much he matured when he was away.

Number 4:



Mobile Suit Gundam Seed – Ending 1
Song: “Anna ni Isshodattanoni”
Band: See-Saw
You Tube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYcERWBQCXA

Gundam Seed remains my favorite Gundam series (though Gundam 00 is a pretty close second).

Most American fans list Wing as their entry point to the Gundam universe, but for me it was Seed. Seed was the first Gundam series I saw, and I watched it early on as an anime fan, so all the typical themes found in shonen mecha anime were unfamiliar to me: the violence, the harsh treatment of the young pilots, the horrors of war.

I recall being riveted... and at the same time aghast at how graphic many of the scenes were. At that time I still had the bias that anime was just another form of “animated entertainment” – which for me as an American meant Disney and kid’s stuff. Gundam Seed made my jaw drop many times and changed my mind about that pretty quickly.

I love the haunting tones of this song. They often started playing the opening notes of it during the final scene of each episode, and it was a great way to finish the episode while maintaining the melancholic mood.

Number 3:



Kuroko’s Basketball – Ending 3
Song: “Walk”
Band: Old Codex
You Tube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBA48XcpcV8

J-pop music is sometimes compared to 1970s American bubblegum pop music – a comparison that seemingly condemns both as being something that’s inferior.

There’s absolutely a place in life for happy upbeat music. I always looked forward to hearing “Walk” at the end of Kuroko no Basuke’s second season episodes because it never failed to lift my mood. The driving rhythmic beat, the group harmonies in the chorus, the music playing over still shots of the characters that captured their unique personalities – “Walk” is just pure fun in music form.

Number 2:



Mobile Suit Gundam 00 – Opening 2
Song: “Ash Like Snow”
Band: The Brilliant Green
You Tube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d_for2jnQ0&list=PLXDqpIyz4Nl03V9d9ItqJbTOZl-yZeYh_

Something I realized when I became an anime fan was just how much awesome music there was in anime – not just the opening and closing songs, but the soundtrack and incidental music in each episode.

I’ve never made a study of J-pop, but then – I don’t have to. It’s music that does the only thing music is supposed to: it makes you feel things. It does that very well, and when it’s used effectively to complement the action on the screen, it adds another dimensional layer to the experience of watching anime.

“Ash Like Snow” is an example of a great rock song, period. If it had English lyrics instead of Japanese lyrics it would be a hit here in the west. Listening to it makes me realize there are countless J-pop songs like it that I’ll never hear because they’re not attached to any anime series, and that kind of makes me sad.

The song fits the Gundam meta theme of the futility of war, “ash like snow” invoking images of nuclear winter:

Ash like snow
It’s falling down from your sky

Ash like snow
Ash like snow
Ash like snow
Let me hear why I have to fight

... And finally, Number 1:

This was my favorite opening song for this series, and here it accompanies one of the best AMVs I’ve ever seen.

That’s my opinion... and the opinion of over twenty million others.



Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood – Opening 4
Song: “Period”
Band: Chemistry
You Tube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vx69Pe7Ncs

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood remains number one on a lot of fans’ top ten lists even now, and for good reasons. If you’ve seen the anime—you know why.

Hiromu Arakawa’s manga story received a beautiful execution in anime form. When non-anime fans ask me what the best anime series is in my opinion—Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is still my answer, ten years after it came out.

As of today, this AMV has logged a staggering 20,067,325 views on You Tube. Cut together from the opening credit sequences, it’s a fan masterpiece, evoking feels and chills (especially the final shot).

If you’re an FMA:B fan, I hope it does for you what it does for me: bring alive the genius that is Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood all over again.

Last and First Idol and the Origins of Everything

I attended Crunchyroll Expo 2018 in San Jose earlier this month. It was my first anime convention in two years. I decided to go as part of my return to the industry (more on that in an upcoming post).

As anime cons go, the Expo is new—only in its second year—and it was small, but with a good schedule of events and guests.

I hadn’t intended to, but I found myself at the Dragon Ball Super big event on Sunday morning.

Ryo Horikawa, Vegeta’s seiyuu, hosted the showing of the final three episodes of the series. A rather sweet older man, Horikawa spoke in halting English to the nearly-full ballroom, expressing his pleasure at being at the convention, and then the episodes began.

I’d never watched any of the Dragon Ball series, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I didn’t expect a realization about the origins of my favorite kind of anime.

First, the episodes were great fun to watch. The climax of the Dragon Ball Super series has whole universes getting erased in a gladiator-type elimination scenario. The final three episodes begin with Vegeta being vanquished, leaving Goku to finish off the final villain, Jiren.

The fight scenes are amazingly over the top, with Goku and Jiren hurling each other into asteroids and planets exploding and everything else you can imagine.

At one point, Goku looks like he’s down for the count. But then his assembled family and friends cheer him on, and Goku remembers what he’s fighting for... that he’s not fighting alone, or just for himself, but for every...

... Wait a minute.

He’s not fighting just with his strength alone, but with the hopes and wishes of the entire village.

He’s fighting for his friends.

He wants to win the championship with his new school’s team, and show his former teammates that working together and not as selfish individual star players is the right thing to do.

I realized while watching Dragon Ball Super that shonen anime didn’t begin with Naruto, Bleach or Kuroko’s Basketball. It began with this guy.

I discovered anime in 2005, so maybe I can be excused for not understanding this before now. For not understanding that before Naruto and Sasuke, there was Goku and Vegeta. The origins of the whole meta shonen storyline, the hero’s journey from an egocentric reach for individual glory to appreciating others, from saving himself to saving the world—it began with Dragon Ball.

The origins of shonen stories may be obvious, but the originators of other Japanese cultural phenomena are less easily discernible. Take idols, for example.

Idols are a unique Japanese phenomenon. They sing and dance, but they’re so much more. Their striving to become famous is actually considered part of their appeal. They are actual and representational, in some weird way becoming more than the sum of their parts.

It’s rare that one reads a work of fiction that is entirely unlike anything one has read before. Most writers stay within a range of possibilities in their stories that is well-trod, recognizable—safe.

And then there’s Last and First Idol.

Winner of numerous awards in Japan, and published in English by J-Novel Club, Gengen Kusano’s Last and First Idol is a collection of three novellas about Japanese pop culture iconic figures: idols, gamers, and seiyuu.

The title story is about Mika Furutski, an aspiring idol who, despite working very hard at her craft, is only average at singing and dancing. She admires her fellow high school student Maori Niizono’s effortless excellence at these things and the two become best friends.

And then the end of the world happens.

But that doesn’t mean the story ends! It’s not the end of the story, not by a long shot.

It’s hard to convey how fascinating “Last and First Idol” is without spoiling it. Just when you think you know where the story is going, it takes another brutal and unexpected turn and you’re caught up in a new level of weird.

The same can be said for the second novella, “Evolution Girls.” Youko Sasajima is an everyday salarywoman in a safe boring job, when she downloads a game to her phone. A MMO game, Youko finds she’s good at it. Too good.

She’s an intelligent young woman and knows that game addiction is a thing, so she’s in no danger of getting addicted to this silly game. Right?

Before long she’s spending all her time playing the game, including at work, holding the phone in her lap so no one can see. She’s skilled, so she holds off on making in-app purchases, but the moment comes when she just has to power up, so she takes out her credit card and...

Soon she’s lost her job and stays home all day, playing the game. Bonus points are available every two and a half hours, so she sets her alarm and wakes up every two and half hours through the night so she can get the points.

Youko burns through most of her savings and begins existing in a zombie-like state where the game is her only reality. And one day, absorbed in the game, she walks out in front of a truck and gets killed.

Oh. You really thought the story would end there? This is where the true story begins.

Again, there’s no way to say any more without giving it away. But Kusano takes the overused “trapped inside a video game” trope, turns it inside out and basically reinvents it.

The final story, “Dark Seiyuu,” begins in the future. Seiyuu have evolved, along with the help of artificial intelligence, to the point where they can power space ships with their throat vibrations while singing. Genetically modified to sport special laryngeal sacs on their necks (while reading this story, I envisioned a giant turkey wattle), these souped-up seiyuu can manipulate sound, light and gravity.

Oh, and they also still voice act in the occasional anime here and there. ;-)

Akane Yomokura is a seiyuu and serial killer who murders other seiyuu to collect their laryngeal sacs. She’s “Dark Seiyuu”’s protagonist.

She begins hearing a voice in her head. She tries to ignore it, but it won’t go away. And then a hooded figure called the Dark Seiyuu releases a cryptic statement for the news media: “Seiyuu, listen to the voice.” This message presages a fateful event, one that changes the Earth forever and sends Akane Yomokura out into the galaxy in search of her nemesis - the Dark Seiyuu.

Remarkably, in Last and First Idol, not only the main characters, but all the villains and supporting characters are female. Male characters are almost non-existent. Without making a point of it, Kusano creates worlds where the agency of girls and women is assumed and unquestioned. They are neither fetishized nor sexualized, as female characters nearly always are to some extent, which is refreshing.

Author Gengen Kusano takes the idol, gamer and seiyuu concepts past all normal story limits, to the far edge of hard science fiction and beyond.

If you want to read a set of amazing stories you will never forget, pick up Last and First Idol.

Disclosure: I was J-Novel Club’s proofreader for Last and First Idol.

Amazon link: Last and First Idol

J-Novel Club link: Last and First Idol

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

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.

Winter 2015 Reviews - Shirobako, Durarara 2 and Kuroko’s Basketball 3

I watched the final episodes of three series in one day.

Actually – it wasn’t the end end for Kuroko’s Basketball 3 (just the end of the first cour of S3), or for Durarara 2 (which will have two more cours to round out its bizarrely drawn-out S2). But it was definitely the end for Shirobako.

The last two episodes of Shirobako more than lived up to the episodes that preceded it. This was just a wonderful series from start to finish. Watching the adventures of Aoi and her four friends from college in Tokyo’s anime industry made me feel like I was living it myself – the long work hours, the scrambling to find freelance artists, sitting in the recording studio listening to seiyuu audition. Helping director Kinoshita make his dream come true on the screen. Celebrating Third Aerial Girls Squad and the fact that all of them – even Shizuka! – finally did work on it.

I think I read at ANN that Sentai has the license for this. It’s already on my beta to-buy list and I may move it to the alpha list.

The first 12 episodes of Kuroko’s Basketball 3 went by so quickly. I have to say that this cour didn’t engage me as much as the previous two seasons. I think the fact that Seirin is clearly no longer the underdog, and is about to play the final match-up with Rakuzan, made the action less than edge-of-your-seat suspenseful. You could see, after all, that this was what the entire series was leading to.

And now we’re at the finals… almost. Next up is a flashback arc, but it’s one that many of us have been waiting to see. For two and a half seasons now we’ve been teased with hints about how the Generation of Miracles team formed at Teiko Middle School, how Kuroko joined the team as sixth man, and what made him leave the team.

Hints and glimpses and knowing looks, but no explanations. Well, now we’ll find out the whole truth. I’ve waited years to see the next six episodes. Finally! I am geeked for Kuroko's next six weeks. =D

Durarara 2’s first cour was good anime watching. The story universe has matured and developed into a world that still holds your interest and intrigues you.

I was hoping that Celty would finally get her head back. I think at the end of S1 we saw her head in a jar on Izaya’s shelf. But alas, no action regarding her head in this cour.

But speaking of Izaya… wow. This cour had Izaya setting up (who else) Shizuo to take a major fall, but then the tables turned on Izaya in a really shocking twist in the last minute of the final episode. I’ll be waiting with interest to watch the next cour, which I think begins in July.

Finally… I actually wanted to watch four animes come to an end in one day, but I forgot that Death Parade streams one week behind for free viewers at Funimation, so I’ll have to wait till Friday to see the final episode.

I wrote before about Death Parade and my issues with it, but the last three episodes have been very strong, enough to redeem the whole series in my view. So I’m really looking forward to seeing the final episode. I’ll post about it when I do.

Seiyuu Appreciation Day - The Other Guys

In the current endless run of flashback fillers in Naruto Shippuuden, we're seeing more of Neji now than ever before.

I miss Neji. :-(

Look at Neji's picture above. Now imagine you hear his voice.

...

Were you able to hear him? Neji's seiyuu, Kouichi Toochika, has a very distinctive voice - soft-spoken with a certain husky timbre.

Neji is only one supporting character in the Naruto universe and he even got killed off - but I can still hear Neji's voice if I call up the character in my mind.

Most of the time in these seiyuu posts I talk about the big-name seiyuus, the stars, because they're the ones I see most in anime. But sometimes you'll hear a voice in a supporting role that really catches your attention.

One such supporting character was Kensuke Fukui, the point guard for Yosen in Kuroko's Basketball.

Fukui only has a few lines in several episodes when Yosen battles the main team Seirin in the semi-finals. I didn't even know the character's name until I looked him up for this post - I only thought of him as "the point guard from Yosen with dishwater blond hair and a nice voice." Since that's a mouthful, it's good that I know the character's name now. ;-)

The seiyuu voicing Fukui just had a really nice voice and I noticed it. Warm, masculine, sexy. I looked up the seiyuu and found to my surprise that Kaito Ishikawa has played two main roles in series that I watched, and I didn't recognize him.

First, he was Tobio Kageyama, the second main character in the volleyball anime Haikyuu.

Kageyama is one of the best male tsunderes I've seen in a while. ;-) I mean, look at that expression. XD I couldn't believe Ishikawa played Kageyama and I didn't recognize him as Fukui, but the next surprised me even more:

Ishikawa was Ledo in Gargantia! I didn't recognize him from that role either! And Ledo was a difficult role. You'll recall that the character comes from a different universe and has to learn the language, speaking it hesitantly and with an odd cadence at first.

Ishikawa also played Nine in Zankyou no Terror and has done main roles in other series. So even though I didn't remember his voice from the two big roles I'd heard him in, I heard Ishikawa's voice in this small role as Fukui in Kuroko's Basketball and enjoyed it enough to notice and look up who the seiyuu was.

Often you'll see big-name seiyuu playing special characters in an anime, like in the last Shirobako episode when the director finally comes face to face with the elusive mangaka whose manga MusaAni is adapting. I didn't have to look it up to know it was Takahiro Sakurai playing the mangaka, since I can recognize his voice. =D

But seiyuu who play big roles will also play smaller roles without any fuss or fanfare, like Kaito Ishikawa playing Fukui. Actors love to ply their trade, after all, and every role is another chance to do what they love best.

Thinking of warm and distinctive masculine voices makes me think of Kenji Hamada, who plays Teppei Kiyoshi in Kuroko's Basketball.

Hamada's voice is so distinctive, I've recognized him in two small roles in other series since I first heard him in Kuroko's Basketball.

And then there's Hasumi Itou, whom I've mentioned before, who played Kaoru in Hakuouki, Chizuru's cross-dressing long-lost brother who we see in makeup and a kimono for many episodes until he finally reveals his evil little male self. ;-) Itou is the seiyuu who did that weird, unforgettable scene where her voice slid from fake-female to low-male without a hitch, just a pure slide from one to the other.

Aside from Hakuouki, Itou only has one other credit, as Aoi Toosaka in Fate/Zero. She is definitely a seiyuu to keep one's eye on.

Of course, one of my favorite seiyuu who never gets a main role but is always one of the other guys in a series, is Nobuo Tobita.

Tobita was the star of Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam decades ago, and since then has only done supporting roles. But his beautiful gentle voice remains one of my favorites and hearing him is always a treat.

Finally, talking about supporting seiyuu and being one of the other guys wouldn't be complete without mentioning Shizuka, who finally got a voice acting job in last week's Shirobako episode. Shizuka, you'll remember, was the only one among her college friends who hadn't succeeded in the anime industry yet.

In honor of Shizuka getting her first role, here's a photo of Shizuka's seiyuu, Haruka Chigusa.

In the episode, Aoi Miyamori is in the recording studio when Shizuka walks in to record her role. Miyamori is shocked to see her friend, then nervous for her as she reads her lines, and then finally cries in relief and happiness when Shizuka finishes the acting job without a hitch and to the director's approval.

It was all done without words and was beautiful to watch. Ah well, might as well show you Miyamori's seiyuu's picture as well. Here's Juri Kimura. :-)

Again, if you're not watching Shirobako, you're missing a gem. =D