My Otaku Little Sister Anime Can't End This Way! (Part 1)

So, the final 3 episodes of Oreimo Season 2 have gone up on Crunchyroll for premium members, and will be available for everyone a week afterwards (on Saturday). I watched my way through all of them, and...

...well, honestly, I was disappointed.

In addition to not liking these last episodes, now I find it hard to figure out just what is my overall opinion of this second season and of the show as a whole.

What follows in this post is some writing about how I disliked the direction this show ended up going in. A later post will look at my resulting overall view of this show.

WARNING: MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE ENDING OF OREIMO AFTER THE JUMP (AND THE PIC).

I still like Kirino, though. Art by yakan (2281101).

TOUHOU HIJACK!

I was going to do another Kin'youbi Mosaic today, but then I realized that all I wanted to talk about was one thing, so have a side post on the insane Touhou series.

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Among the various non-anime/manga otaku-related things I follow is the Touhou series. This series of doujin danmaku (a.k.a. "there are too many bullets on the screen!") shoot-'em-up games is known for three things: the blistering difficult games with lots of fancy patterns, the large cast of girls based on youkai and other aspects of Japanese (and Western) mythology and the sheer amount of fan art produced for it, and some of the best video game music tracks ever created entirely by one person, plus the sheer extent to which said music gets remixed.

I haven't done too much with the games themselves (I've played some of the 8th game, Imperishable Night, but still can't do anything higher than Easy), so there I mostly just watch gameplay videos on YouTube of people far better than I am. Take, for example, the following person clearing the 12th game, Undefined Fantastic Object, on the hardest difficulty level, like a boss:

If you're watching the video, remember to enjoy the music; that final boss music, in particular, is one of my absolute favorite pieces of music from anywhere.

The various girls are also interesting, mainly for the greater lore that they all are a part of. Touhou might not be a heavyweight in terms of storytelling, but it does do a lot in terms of worldbuilding to make the land of Gensokyo appealing and interesting, and the stories themselves are fairly interesting as a result. Aesthetically, while the girls might not look that well-drawn in the games themselves (chalk that up to the creator, ZUN, not being particularly skilled in art), they are well-designed, which allows for the legions of fan artists to craft up some great fan art.

Hina Kagiyama, Stage 2 boss of Mountain of Faith. Art by apple da-ze.

Anyways, I bring this up because the 14th game (not including side games), Double Dealing Character, came out earlier this week. There's lots of interesting stuff in here. The story involves the heroines' weapons going berserk and a bunch of weaker youkai becoming aggressive and looking to overturn the society where the strong rule. There's a neat cast of characters here, including a mermaid, a werewolf, a descendent of a race of little people, and two sisters who are animate musical instruments.

Benben and Yatsuhashi Tsukumo, a biwa and a koto, respectively.  Art by hourai ninjin.

The game itself is as insanely difficult as ever, if not even more so. The music is also simply fantastic. Overall, it's another great entry in the Touhou series.

There's even a shout-out to Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan):

The name of this attack just replaces the kanji for "huge person" with that for "small person".

To finish, here's some additional YouTube links if you want to see (or hear) more from this particular game:

1cc on Lunatic (hardest difficulty)
Extra Stage (a bonus level with a marathon boss)
Playlist with the game's music

Otakon 2013 Madness: Bandai License Rescues and More!

Otakon 2013 has come and gone, but not without making a big splash in the current North American anime industry. There's one particularly large piece of news that affects two major U.S. licensors, plus plenty of smaller news of note.

So without further ado, let's jump in with the big one and get on with this show!

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Sunrise Licenses Out Former Bandai Entertainment Titles to FUNimation & Sentai Filmworks

Early in 2012, Bandai Entertainment stopped releasing anime titles in the U.S., and then some months afterwards closed their doors for good. As a result, all the titles they had previously held the license for have gone back to their original Japanese licensors. Knowing that there is still an audience for these titles, one of these licensors, Sunrise, has been in talks with Funimation and Sentai Filmworks to license out these titles again.

These talks have finalized, and now these two companies have announced a number of titles each that they plan to re-release in North America.

Before I go into which titles each company have licensed, keep in mind that this only concerns titles formerly released by Bandai Entertainment for whom Sunrise is the original licensor. In other words, don't expect anything like, say, Haruhi Suzumiya to come up here (that one's owned by Kadokawa, for the record). Also, as of the moment, none of the Gundam titles have been approved for re-licensing, so don't expect anything on that end, either. There are some huge titles among them, though, so here's a look at everything that's going to be re-released.

Sentai Filmworks
Brain Powered
Betterman
Z-MIND
Argento Soma
Zega Pain
The Girl Who Leapt Through Space
Infinite Ryvius
Kurokami: The Animation
Sacred Seven
Overman King Gainer
s-CRY-ed
The Big O (I & II)

This is definitely a pretty varied list. The Big O is definitely the biggest title here, having a very successful Toonami run; s-CRY-ed is another title that's appeared on Toonami. Another interesting title is Sacred Seven, as that title has yet to have a video release in North America, so Sentai will be releasing that one for the first time. Whether these will be released on Blu-ray or not has yet to be confirmed; likewise, whether a dub will be produced for The Girl Who Leapt Through Space (previously released by Bandai sub-only) or Sacred Seven has yet to be confirmed.

(Also, it's worth noting that, despite the similar names, The Girl Who Leapt Through Space has absolutely nothing to do with The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.)

Funimation
Angel Links
Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion (including R2 and Akito the Exiled OVAs)
Crest of the Stars/Banner of the Stars (including II and the Passage of the Stars ~Birth~ special)
Tales of the Abyss
Witch Hunter Robin
Mai-HiME (known in the U.S. as My-HiME, but I refuse to use that title)
Mai-Otome (known in the U.S. as My-ZHime, but I refuse to use that title; includes O ~S.ifr~ and Zwei OVAs)
Outlaw Star
Escaflowne movie + The Visions of Escaflowne
Cowboy Bebop

Yes, that is a rather impressive list, and not just because Cowboy Bebop is on there. Though that one is the big one, and Funimation has confirmed that they do plan to release the series on Blu-ray sometime in 2014. Whether any of the other series will be released on Blu-ray has yet to be confirmed. Tales of the Abyss and Mai-Otome O ~S.ifr~ were released sub-only, but considering that Funimation dubs everything, chances are those will get dubbed. Finally, it's worth noting that Code Geass: Akito the Exiled has yet to be released in the U.S. (in fact, it's still being released in Japan), so that counts as a new license.

Anyways, this is all very big news, and perhaps you recognize some (or a lot) of these titles. Maybe you missed out on them the first time around; well, this is your chance to own them on DVD again. Many of these will likely also be available for streaming, too (Cowboy Bebop already has plans for streaming on Daisuki.net), if you'd rather go that route. Which ones are you excited to see back in the U.S.? (I'm personally a fan of the Crest of the Stars series as well as Mai-HiME.)

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Sentai Filmworks To Experiment With Sub-Only Blu-rays

In addition to all of their Bandai license rescues, Sentai Filmworks has also announced their plans for December. Unfortunately, they have decided that two of my favorite titles of late, Humanity Has Declined and The Pet Girl of Sakurasou, would not be profitable to dub, and so they, along with So, I Can't Play H! (which, though I don't care about at all, I'm most surprised at not getting a dub), will be released as sub-only.

However, there's a surprising silver lining in this cloud of bad news: these three titles will be the first titles that Sentai will try releasing on Blu-ray despite being sub-only. This is quite notable, as previously, Sentai has stated that they would not release anything on Blu-ray without a dub, since the production costs for Blu-rays are high enough that they only want to do it with good sellers, which is the same thing they consider for dubs. However, at fan request, they will try to find a middle ground with these sub-only Blu-rays.

This is great on one end as we will still be able to enjoy Humanity Has Declined and The Pet Girl of Sakurasou in full HD, which we wouldn't be able to under past policy. Furthermore, should this experiment be a success, it could lead to two big things: looking to the past, previous titles that were released on sub-only DVDs could possibly get Blu-ray re-releases, and looking to the future, other great titles that might not be profitable to be dubbed could still get Blu-ray releases.

For that reason, I highly encourage those with the funds to do so to buy Humanity Has Declined and The Pet Girl of Sakurasou this December (they will go on pre-order on RightStuf sometime towards the end of this month). Both are amazing shows and I highly recommend them, though that's not surprising if you've read my Hall of Fame induction for the former and my review for the latter.

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Viz Media to Release Ranma 1/2 on Blu-ray

Remember Ranma 1/2? That crazy martial arts comedy about a guy who changes into a girl when drenched in cold water and who ends up engaged to a man-hating violent girl? ...actually, I don't, because it was before my time as an anime fan. But whether you're an older fan for whom this show holds nostalgic value or a new fan wondering what the craze was about back then, there's some great news here from Viz: they will be re-releasing Ranma 1/2 in the US, and not only on DVD, but on Blu-ray! Now, you might be wondering what is the point of releasing something on Blu-ray that is from a time before when HD telecasting became a thing, but it's worth noting that the recent Blu-ray release of this series in Japan cleaned up a lot of the animation to give everything a much nicer look, so this is one older series that will be worth upgrading for.

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So, Otakon might not have had as much news quantity-wise as Anime Expo, but the news that did come out was undoubtedly just as big. Some other smaller news, such as Aniplex of America licensing next season's Kill la Kill (from the director of Gurren Lagann, which will appear on Neon Alley along with Ranma 1/2 this fall), have also come up. All in all, it was definitely quite a convention!

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.

2.1 billion brothers and sisters all at once... what would YOU do?

When I saw Brothers Conflict (which has the rather appropriate shorthand title BroCon), the show about a girl who suddenly finds herself with twelve stepbrothers, among the list of Summer 2013 shows, I knew I had to watch it. Even if it turned out to be incredibly stupid (which it certainly did), I knew I’d still enjoy it in its own way. After all, the show was essentially a gender-flipped version of a show that, despite not being particularly well-received among the anime fandom, remains a personal favorite of mine. That anime, in which a hapless young man finds out he has no fewer than twelve younger sisters, is none other than Sister Princess.

The series that started the imouto craze.

(Note that for this post, I will be referring entirely to the first anime series, not the original light novel-esque serialization, any of the video games, or the second "RePure" anime series.

Sister Princess was one of the first anime I watched, around the time I really started to become an anime fan; it was also the first anime DVD I ever bought, mainly because the premise seemed so off-the-wall to me that I had to see just how it’d play out. After a rough start, I ended up enjoying it a lot; the show did flirt with the “forbidden line” but never did cross it, and overall it’s still very much a show about family, and is the show that is responsible for my love of shows about family. (It, along with some other shows, is also responsible for my love of slow-paced slice-of-life shows.)

One thing that is different between this show and BroCon is that in Sister Princess, we never do learn exactly what relation the sisters are to the male lead Wataru. They’re probably not all full sisters, but we don’t know which of them are (if any), which are half-sisters, and which are adopted or step-sisters.

Or, really, if they have any legal sibling relationship to him at all.

That last possibility was one that I had thought of when doing some “wild mass guessing” on this show, which does have a small mystery element to it. That is, what if none of these girls are actually his sisters in blood, adoption, or marriage by parents, but just unrelated girls that have put it on their hearts to view and treat this guy as a brother? (This is, for the record, excluding the thirteenth “sister”, who is established as having no relation to him, that ends up as part of the sisterhood as well.)

It’s a wild theory, but it’s a theory I have for a particular reason: it is most like what happens when one becomes a Christian. Becoming a Christian—which means being adopted as one of God’s children—means gaining approximately 2.1 billion brothers and sisters from all around the world (according to the CIA World Factbook), since all fellow Christians then become our brothers and sisters in Christ. That said, there’s a much smaller subset of these siblings with whom any given Christian will likely be more familiar with than others. Still, looking at it from this perspective, suddenly finding oneself with a baker’s dozen of brothers or sisters actually does sound just a bit familiar, and while these brothers and sisters likely won’t be as affectionate as the ones in anime are, they could be very friendly simply because you are their brother or sister in Christ.

Moreover, the official tagline from ADV Films, “Twelve sisters all at once... what would YOU do?” is no longer just a weird line of advertising; it becomes a reality.

Anime Hall of Fame Induction: Princess Jellyfish

In my Anime Hall of Fame series, I highlight shows that I enjoyed a lot and think are worth trying out. Click the "stardf29's Anime Hall of Fame" tab at the top of the page to see a list of all the inducted anime series so far. More anime series will be inducted over time, and this post will be updated with any new information for this series.

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Princess Jellyfish

Official art. (The girl in front might look familiar if you watched episode 4 of Genshiken Nidaime.)

Kin'youbi Mosaic: 7/26/13 “Little Theory Busters” Edition

In this new 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.

So, during my Anime Expo post, I noted that Sentai Filmworks announced the first Little Busters! set for release this November, but only on DVD, and theorized that the Blu-ray might come later to account for the delay Japanese licensors usually implement to reduce reverse importation. However, that theory got busted, as they recently announced that the Blu-ray would also be released in November; in fact, both the DVD and Blu-ray are available for pre-order already on Rightstuf.

With only a 3-month turnaround between the last Blu-ray being released in Japan and this first set, that is among the fastest turnarounds for a US Blu-ray release (excluding import releases). Other fast turnarounds include Bodacious Space Pirates (4 months) and Persona 4: The Animation (1 month); the latter suffered for it as the Blu-ray ended up being dub-only. (It is worth keeping in mind, though, that what’s being released in November is only the first 13 episodes, for which the corresponding Japanese Blu-rays finished releasing earlier.)

It is nice to see such a fast turnaround on this series, though I wouldn’t expect such things to be common.

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Discotek Media is quickly becoming one of my favorite North American anime licensors. They recently released the complete collection of Lovely Complex, a show I have wanted licensed for a long time since I first saw it back in 2007. It’s a shoujo romantic comedy about a tall girl and a short guy, and being vertically challenged myself, I could easily relate to the series. I definitely recommend checking it out.

And then, not too long ago, they also announced that they had rescued the license for the first Cardcaptor Sakura movie, and will release it on DVD and Blu-ray in 2014. Now, Cardcaptor Sakura holds the distinction of being the very first anime I watched in Japanese (with English subtitles). I had first been exposed to it thanks to the (rather butchered-up) Cardcaptors dub that aired after Pokemon way back when, and wanting to take another look at it, I stumbled upon the original series and immediately fell in love with it. It’s a show that is in many ways responsible for my interest in anime in the first place, and remains one of my favorite shows to date, so to hear that even a part of it has been licensed again made me ecstatic. I can only hope this will lead to a rescue of the second movie, or even better, the whole TV series…

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This Week's Crossover Fanart: Genshiken x Yotsuba&!

Chika&! Art by Kabaya Kousuke.

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The recent episode of Silver Spoon featured some characters as they went to a horse racetrack. Though main character Hachiken initially doesn’t see the fun in watching horses race, he eventually gets caught up in all the excitement of the race (which is different from thoroughbred racing in that these horses have to pull loaded sleds).

I have gone to the racetrack myself several times, and it is indeed a fun experience. There are two factors that are key to enjoying a horse race. The first is to be invested in a horse; this is why it’s good to bet on horses if possible, even if it’s just the minimum bet ($2 in my case). In Silver Spoon, the characters are too young to make bets (and have no one to make bets on their behalf), but they are still invested in one horse as it is one of the characters’s personal horse. The second key is to go with friends, as a lot of the fun is just in getting caught up in the whole thing with other people (which was definitely the case in Silver Spoon).

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Finally, some sad news as Ryutaro Nakamura, director of shows like Serial Experiments Lain and Kino’s Journey, passed away this Thursday from pancreatic cancer. (He was 58 at the time of his death.) Prayers go out to his family and loved ones.