Kin'youbi Mosaic Returns Again! 2/7/14 Weekly Ramblings

Oh hey, my Weekly Ramblings series is back again! Real life has been busy lately, hence the lack of updates lately, but for now, have some assorted news and ramblings.

Speaking of news, I've replaced the news feed on the side of the blog with my Twitter feed. I do reblog news on my Twitter account, so you'll still get various news, as well as various other things I tweet about. And, of course, if you have your own Twitter account, you can also click that Follow button to follow my feed on your account.

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Is This A Zombie was one of Funimation's shows that they released DVD-only at first. (The reason has to do with the distributor, Kadokawa, wanting to protect the sales of the show's Blu-rays in Japan; see my post on reverse importation for more information.) However, some time has passed since then, and now, Funimation has solicited a Blu-ray/DVD combo of the first season under its Anime Classics line. Click here to see some different places where you can buy this release.

Here are a couple of other things newly available for pre-order:

If you missed out on AnimeSols's crowdfunding project for old, classic anime, this is your chance to reap the fruits of their efforts: the first 13-episode DVD sets of Creamy Mami and Black Jack are available for pre-order. And while you're at it, why not consider helping out with the pledge drive for the final Creamy Mami set? You can even add on one of the first three sets for $40 apiece, which is cheaper than the prices for the pre-orders linked above (though you'll have to wait until set 4 ships to get them).

And following in the tradition of the first two movies, Aniplex of America is offering an import release of the third Puella Magi Madoka Magica movie. There are a couple of options here: if you just want the movie itself and don't care for the various fancy extras, you can order the standard edition Blu-ray for a relatively-reasonable-for-Aniplex-standards $55. If, on the other hand, you want such bonuses as a soundtrack CD, artbox, and booklet, plus other stuff, there's also the Limited Edition sets, available for about $95. There are a couple of different places to get the Limited Edition, each with different prices and its own additional bonus: Rightstuf (clear files w/theatrical poster art, $95), Animate (B2-size wall scroll, $98), and C&L Internet Club (key holders, $121.50).

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Curious about how well various anime are selling in Japan? This site is a site dedicated to sales data for Japanese anime DVDs and Blu-rays. The data on this site is incredibly comprehensive and goes back quite a number of years, though it is limited by the fact that it can only give data reported officially by sales-tracking company Oricon. You can check out the Sales FAQ/Guide on that site for more information.

For now, though, I'll quick-link to the average sales of all 2013 anime so far. A number of those shows, particularly those that aired during Fall, are still being released, but from there you can tell what are the big sellers in Japan. Shingeki no Kyojin is even more of a hit over there than it is here, and perhaps you might not have expected Free! and Love Live! to be such major hits.

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Crowdfunding anime is always something I like to draw attention to in these posts, and in addition to the aforementioned Anime Sols,  the latest project on this end is the movie Mai Mai Miracle, this time on Kickstarter. It definitely looks like a nice, charming movie, and it's certainly very popular, with the base $30,000 goal being met on its first day out, and the show already close to meeting the $60,000 stretch goal for an English dub. The jury is still out on what other stretch goals might appear, but this is definitely a project to be keeping an eye on.

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And in completely random news, cat cafés are coming to the US! These cafés will house adoptable cats that visitors can be in the company of.

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.