Nigorimasen! Blog

AnimeOnDVD recently posted a report written by Jason Yeh of a Gurren Lagann focus panel that held at Fanime and within it, there was this interesting portion involving producer Yasuhiro Takeda:

Someone commented that Kamina is an over-the-top character and asked if he was initially designed that way. Takeda answered yes and stated the staff had to also be careful not to have Kamina overshadow Simon, the main character. He let out a slight spoiler while talking about the matter, which resulted in an audience member yelling out “spoiler”. Takeda stated he didn’t care if the show was out of not in the US [sic] and would answer questions if people asked them. He pointed out the 40 or so Gainax employees sitting in the back of the room, who were waiting for him to slip up and say something he shouldn’t. Takeda asked the employees to stand up and the audience applauded in response.

Thanks, oversensitive audience guy. Takeda comes from an industry where many, if not most, fans keep up with the series they watch as they air (just as some dedicated people in the western otaku blogocube do) so it should come as no surprise that he feels no mercy for “spoiler” criers a year after Gurren Lagann began airing. His opinion is further confirmed from a comment by Gainax president Hiroyuki Yamaga at last year’s TTGL Fanime panel where he admitted he didn’t care if people downloaded fansubs to see how the series continued.

On another note, I found it funny that there were about forty other Gainax employees at the panel but then I read in the previously 2007 panel report that Yamaga promised to make all efforts to bring more staff members to 2008’s panel. The company sure brought enough this time around.

I found this news report on Nico and want to say two things about it:

1) It’s odd but a bit nice that the synthesized-voiced reporter felt the Gurren Lagann/Sci-Fi Monday deal was important enough to pass along to the NicoNico audience (about 700 views worth). Here’s the related story from Anime! Anime!.

2) That was one of the driest news reports I’ve ever seen, but it does get the information across in a straightforward way.

For those who don’t know, Weiß Schwarz is a 2 player trading card game like Project Revolution where you try to beat your opponent by using characters from various series. In the case of the advertised TCG, the series currently involved include Zero no Tsukaima, Little Busters!, Disagea, and Persona 3. [Akibahara Channel]

As you may have heard, ADV announced on Thursday a deal with CrunchyRoll to stream dubbed episodes of the Gonzo comedy anime Welcome to the NHK! in a promotional partnership. I didn’t have any particular response to the news at first because ADV has traditionally tried to get their dubs as much exposure as possible and because it was an official partnership between the companies, with Best Buy running a short sale ad at the beginning of the first one.

However, while checking out the partnership on CR, I saw High School Girls under the “Others Also Liked…” sidebar and recognized it as the same series that Media Blasters was releasing as Girl’s High. Episode 2’s list of three pseudo-recommendations contained Hand Maid May, a Geneon title that is barely available to buy but is still, I believe, under license by the company. A perusal of CR’s anime index revealed more than twenty other anime available for streaming that are still being sold on region 1 DVD and many of them are Geneon and Media Blasters titles.
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Totally unrelated, just wanted to use the image.

I’ve been reading the past couple days about the live-action Death Note premiering in theaters across America in a two-day limited run and while the effort garnered a fair amount of press, I feel it was a lost opportunity of sorts. The “unique theatre event” (from the press release) likely increased the appeal of Japanese film and anime-influenced productions given the brand attraction Death Note has. However, the fact that the film was shown dubbed and forced viewers to experience that instead of experiencing the original cast’s voices makes me shake my head in shame as a film purist first and an anime fan second. (I suppose it shouldn’t be called ‘forcing’ since attendees are willingly paying $10 per ticket but still.) Regular readers know that I am more forgiving than others with regard to dubs but why didn’t Viz think about bankrolling subtitles on their prints?

What’s odd about this is that in the next couple months, Bandai is going to be screening The Girl Who Leapt Through Time in limted release in three different locations: Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle. The two West Coast cities will be getting the subtitled version while those in New York will see the English dubbed version. While it’s good that there are different options, it seems like New Yorkers are getting the shaft in a way.

I would prefer anime films be screened domestically the same way foreign films are shown in arthouse theaters - with minimal alterations and subtitled so the audience can understand as best as possible. Alas, this is not likely to happen in the near future with financial interest tied in with these promotional screenings.

This week Funimation has been announcing licenses and so far all of them have involved 13-episode sets. On Monday, it was Save Me, Lollipop (aka Mamotte! Lollipop) that will come out as a 13-episode set in December and Tuesday they announced plans to release the first 26 episodes of Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple in two 13-episode box sets in 2009 without specification on the second set of twenty-six (meaning they may not have those yet). The latest was Gunslinger Girl -Il Teatrino-, the second anime season of the female cyborg assassin series, and those 13 episodes are going to be released as, you guessed it, a box set sometime in 2009. (Funi had put out the first season as singles in 2005 and repackaged it into a complete collection in 2006.)

It seems that they are certainly living up their plan toward more initial season sets but they are still releasing single volumes for new series like Shuffle! and xxxHOLiC, likely due to agreements with the Japanese owners. I wish I had access to sales numbers to see if this bulk packaging is actually working…

Just to give you an update on some of their previous announcements, Darker Than Black is listed as simply “2008″, Ghost Hunt’s site says Fall 2008, Ouran’s has no date but it was announced as 2008 at Otakon ‘07, and Negima!? and Planet of the Beast King (Jyu-Oh-Sei) don’t have their own sites yet but AnimeSuki lists both as 2008. So I guess we can expect some substantive details in the months ahead, maybe.

P.S. A user on the AoD forums predicts that Soukou no Strain will be announced tomorrow based on the silhouetted teaser on Funimation’s front page. And guess what, that has 13 episodes to its name as well.

I’m gonna throw in my two cents on my current feelings about Lucky Star (albeit possibly tardy…or maybe not) as a slight fuss arose in the anime blogocube following Scott’s post. Like Scott, I showed the series in question in my anime club with the final episode shown this past Wednesday. While most people liked it watching for the first time, I began to be pretty passive about it rewatching, working on a crossword or reading some articles for a class. On principle, I usually don’t watched something I have already seen (anime, movies, TV shows, etc.) except I am looking for something in particular to pick out or if I am listening to a director’s commentary. For example, I can recall somehow seeing Love Actually three times within a 9-month period and enjoying it less and less on each subsequent viewing.
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In this week’s Anime Corner Store newsletter, Robert divulged a small update on the Geneon situation, namely, that they have been “in serious talks with a major US home entertainment distributor” (Paramount?) to get some of their series back on store shelves. He can’t reveal any specifics at the risk of ruining his firm’s relationship but he did say the company is new to the anime space, that they will likely pick and choose which titles are included in the deal.

I would expect an announcement to occur in the next couple months if a deal indeed gets made. You can read the unedited section from this week’s newsletter yourself after the jump and begin to speculate on your own.
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The first DVD volume of Lucky Star shipped yesterday (the earliest I expect to get my copy is the 15th) and I figured this would be a good time to kick off an experimental, new feature for the blog. I’m calling it “Reading Out Loud” because that’s basically what the posts will be about: myself reading print articles, columns and reviews out loud with dramatic emphasis when appropriate.
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Chris Beveridge posted a complaint Monday about the lackluster marketing and solicitation efforts of ADV Films and FUNimation to the broader non-hardcore audience. I personally haven’t had as bad a problem with on-box descriptions but I’ve had more of an issue with minimalistic ads, such as the above from the June issue of PiQ that I got in the mail late last week.

At first, I was like “what the hell is Shattered Angels?” and the one-line copy - “Why Choose?” - wasn’t helping me understand what the hell they were trying to advertise. It took a quick search engine query to divine that Shattered Angels is actually Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora under another name. (I later noticed that the image credit mentioned the production committee in the lower left corner but tiny, grey text on a white background is not very readable to the average eye.)
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I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Nozomi Entertainment, the licensing arm of TRSI, announced it will release the first season of ARIA the Animation (or as I like to call it, “that laid-back gondola anime”) subbed on September 30th. But while they continue to attract attention for bringing cult favorites like Victorian Romance Emma and Maria Watches Over Us to the states in season box sets, another independent licensor seems to be remaining stagnant and it’s not entirely clear how they will rise out of it.
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