Kin'youbi Mosaic: 8/2/13 Sols Eater Edition

In this weekly series, I simply talk about whatever random news and thoughts I feel like talking about. Don’t expect a whole lot of serious stuff here. The title is a play on the currently-airing "Kin'iro Mosaic", as "kin'youbi" means "Friday" in Japanese.

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While a number of anime companies are likely preparing all their big announcements for Otakon next weekend, one anime company has news of particular note. Anime Sols is different from other companies in that they specialize in older anime, and more notably, they rely on crowdfunding to raise the money needed to release a series on DVD. Basically, how it works is as such:

1.       They put out a number of old anime titles, and start streaming one episode of each a week for free.

2.       They set a goal for each series (around $20,000) to raise within 2-3 months, in order to release a 13-episode box set and keep streaming the series; a number of pledge packages are offered for people to pledge with. (Note that while this is structured similar to Kickstarter, it is not done through Kickstarter.)

3.       If the goal is met, a 13-episode box set is released, and a new (somewhat lower) goal is set for the next 13-episode set, and the process repeats.

4.       They go back to step 1 and repeat; any shows which failed to meet their goals have their streams taken down at that time.

Anime Sols hasn’t had much success with their first slate of titles, though two of them did meet their goals for their first 13-episode sets: the magical girl series Magical Angel Creamy Mami and Osamu Tezuka’s famous medical drama series Black Jack. Expect the DVDs to be available for pre-order on Rightstuf at some point.

It’s definitely an interesting project, though one with some kinks that I hope get sorted out; their initial slate was perhaps a bit too big and made it somewhat unfeasible to try to support multiple projects (and the titles themselves weren’t that popular), and I wish they could find some way to at least continue streaming series that failed their DVD set goals. Still, on principle, this is a cool endeavor that I’d like to see be successful. If you’re a fan of older anime, why not check it out?

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As for a crowdfunded project that is much more successful, the Kickstarter for Little Witch Academia 2 has met its stretch goal of $500,000 with 5 days to spare. (As of the time this post was written, it is at $516,600, well exceeding the initial goal of $150,000.) For reaching the stretch goal, the Blu-ray release of Little Witch Academia 2 (expected around April 2015) will come with an audio commentary from the staff, and the limited edition of the release will come with a soundtrack.

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Earlier in the week I made a post about Sister Princess and how the show demonstrates how becoming part of a family and learning to care for the sisters caused the male lead to grow up. I also mentioned that my fond feelings for this show and the role it served in my overall anime history is why I am currently watching this season’s Brothers Conflict, regardless of how horrible the show ended up being, simply because the show is essentially the reverse of Sister Princess premise-wise.

On that note, I should mention that by no means does Brothers Conflict (or BroCon for short) display any of the themes that I had noted in Sister Princess. Part of the reason is that the female lead, Ema, is extremely passive and has yet to take any real initiative in caring for her brothers, mostly just responding to whatever they ask her to do. Of course, the fact that many of her brothers are outright flirting with her—one has actually kissed her, and another asked her out—doesn’t help things at all.

So… yeah. Sister Princess might have some gems hidden underneath what looks like trash, but BroCon right now is nothing but trash. It’s trashy in a way that I can enjoy in an ironic, snarking way, but it’s still trash. Who knows, though, maybe it will improve somewhat. I’ll probably do a more detailed comparison of the two series after this season.

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I recently finished Our Home’s Fox Deity, a 24-episode show about a fox spirit that joins a family to protect them from various supernatural forces, and the combination of hijinks and supernatural conflicts that ensue. It’s a show that is definitely enjoyable, as it has a very charming cast that all interact well, and there’s plenty of fun stuff within. It’s not particularly deep, and it has its flaws, most notably in one arc that goes on much longer than others and gets a bit too convoluted with multiple factions involved, but it is overall a good show. It’s not one I’m dying to recommend to others (hence it won’t be in my Hall of Fame), but it should do well if you’re looking for a fairly light-hearted show with Japanese supernatural beings.

If you want to check it out, it is available for streaming on Crunchyroll.

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Next week, "Kin'youbi Mosaic" will become "Topic no Inai Nichiyoubi" ("Sunday Without Topic") as that is Otakon week and I will wait until all the panels are over on Sunday before posting my random thoughts which will inevitably involve announcements from that convention.