Kyoto Animation next anime?

Hmmmm....this is first glimpse of next series to be animated by famous Kyoto Animation, the studio that spawned moe meme like Lucky Star and K-On!. This time it is Nichijou.

I already can see fanboys licking their lips in anticipation. Heh.

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The story of Nishimata Aoi

She is famous for her work on Shuffle! series. Her works also featured in many eroge games and been active since 1994.

Her first well known moe project is Ugo Rice where her illustration is said to be key factor reviving the dead town of 16,000 people into a happening place with anime fans flocking there to buy the rice thanks to her illustration. From there, the ball starts rolling where now there is even battery laced with moe drawings. Some people credited her as the catalyst of this phenomenon. What amuses me the most is the watermelon moe edition by her.

Aoi Nishimata next notoriety is her selection as Japanese artist in Star Wars illustration project where a lots of people in Japan reacted pretty badly to the choice. Some of them are pretty scathing of her originality and lack of evolution.

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K-On! / けいおん！ Season 2? No way!

In a news that bound to send moe fans into rabid ecstasy and illicit loud groans from others, K-On! Season 2 is on. The main site announced green lit for Season 2 production and manga did seem go quite far, the girls were preparing themselves for university level exams. Will they lose their appeal once they are not wearing the school uniform anymore?

Commercially it is successful so this announcement did not come as a surprise to me, to be honest.

Main website

anime

Maritan: Mili-moe?

Man, I don't know what to comment. I was laughing out loud watching this and...and...I am speechless. It is even funnier if you watched Full Metal Jacket, most of the punchline came from the fact that these were lines used by a famous Marine, R.Lee Ermey. The Engrish just puts the finishing touch on it. On Youtube there is several short lessons available for watch if you want more Marine cussing moe Drill Instructor.

The blonde white shirt is US Navy, the bespectacled girl is Japanese Self Defense Force.The strip and 4-koma manga started by Yukio Hirai and apparently it is first appeared in 2005 (books and CD format) to teach Japanese on how speak colloquial English (!) using US Marines mascot. It is an innocuous image of squeaky high pitched Japanese Engrish swearing off like a hard bitten Devil Dog but hilarious if somewhat disjointed mental dissonance. Apparently real US Marines stationed in Japan fond of Maritan and contributed some phrases to be used in the publication.

Perhaps she is first strange combination character in mili-moe genre (military + moe). This character is more appealing to me than Strike Witches to be honest.

Main Site

Bakemonogatari / 化物語 receipe of success?

According to sources, Bakemonogatari, the relatively unknown and under-the-radar series when it started took the fandom by storm as the DVD and Blu Ray sales of 1st volume shown. 56,000 is a very good figure, beating even moelicious, overhyped K-On! by wide margin.

For Japanese anime industry standard it is a fantastic figure given it is not very hyped up like K-On! or have illustrious predecessors like Macross Frontier. What more, Shaft is often running short of animators (they still advertising for qualified animators) so a lot scenes were minimized or replaced with stock footage, turning it into glorified drama radio. I even read rumors of Shaft Studio often racing against deadline all the time due to lack of manpower.

The series also use a lot of fast cuts to minimize action and some episodes have more talking heads than anything else. What worked for them is judicious use of all anime female trope they can muster and one straight talker in Hitagi Senjougahara who seens to be antithesis of what is considered as standard moe label. She is easily the most popular female character after Mio from K-On!. Not to mention, Akiyuki Shinbo, master of minimalist and creative camera angles is helming the series. If anyone looked into his filmography, one will struck by how many unusual anime series he made like Starship Yamamoto Yoko or Soul Eater. However sometimes he can overboard like looping jokes of nose bleed seen in Mariaholic. I often remarked on how well he seems to be doing with minimal approach, he often let the audience to fill in the blanks instead of telling the audience the entirety of the story he presented. And it worked beautifully in some series like Bakemonogatari.

With all these stacked up against the success, they managed to strike gold. Remarkable.

Upotte

Few hours ago, someone posted these pages. I am literally went OMGWTFBBQ. This is weird as hell and I don't know what to make of it. Synopsis is meaningless to describe how awkward this series is.



It is like mutant of gun porn and Japanese school girl. A lethal cocktail.



Perhaps NRA or gun rights advocate will approve this manga? Authored by Kitsune Tennouji,serialised in Young Ace published by Kadokawa Shoten.

Synopsis:
A teacher is looking for a school by the name of Seishou Academy, as he is a new transfer teacher for that school. Seishou Academy is known for having students with excellent marksmanship. However, he gets lost along the way and decides to look for someone who knows where the school is at a summer festival. He encounters a girl at a shooting range and finds her marksmanship skills to be professional. The girl tells the new teacher that she is an assault rifle, not a student. Her name is FNC and is an assault rifle of Seishou Academy. The new teacher attends school the next day to find students, including FNC, practicing shooting M16s and realizes that he has come to an unbelievable school. How will his experience be at Seishou Academy?

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Good ol' Japan.

Haruhi Suzumiya the Movie?

Oh man this is rich. After massive fan backlash and expectant poor anime sales due to "Endless Eight" arc of 2nd season of their best milk cow franchise, Kyoto Animation decided to repent by announcing Haruhi the Movie.

It seem like they animating the "Disappearence" arc where Kyon met alternative long hair Haruhi and non-alien Nagato. Other than this, no more information is available so far.

I do not hold my breath for it.

Hatsune Miku the singing robot

Hatsune Miku, the famous virtual idol that took the world by storm now featured in this video as singing robot. Pretty freaky if you ask me, to be honest. This is another video of her development history from her makers.

What's next? Saber?

Anime bubble burst, Japan's softpower under threat?

From my friend and Sankaku, apparently the thing I have been fearing has happened; the burst of anime bubble which peaked at 2006 (The year of Haruhi Suzumiya). These 2 focused on moe retardation responsible for stagnation of anime storytelling, making anime genre becoming stale as too many predictable and generic animes (Akikan? Asu no Yoichi? Sekirei?) There is only so much harem school girl moe anime one can take before become jaded with the genre. To some extent but not all malaise of anime industry today can be attributed to this.



One just have to look at Kannagi which recently concluded and we can see how moe has distorted and blocked proper storytelling. One sacred rule of moe is purity of essence aka virginity. Woe on those who break this rule, unreasonable fans will rage and punish an otherwise well told story. How to blame studios not to deviate from this formula then? It takes 2 to clap. Kannagi is an interesting example of what I think is good story tries to combine with moe appeal but ends up paying the price since these 2 are incompatible concepts to go along. I know this is a rather controversial view but this is how I see it.

My friend put this as case of point:

"And you can also see this trend with well established titles such as the Sunrise’s Gundam franchise or Tatsunoko’s Macross. Macross Frontier was for me a crappy attempt to cash in on the Macross fame, whereas the old one was an epic space opera followed by hard hitting drama (Zero). Frontier was generic shounen shit with only good soundtrack saving it from being the most shittiest franchise ever created (thankfully for Frontier Macross already had 7 to take that title). Gundam was always the same since Turn A, with only Wing and the first season of Double O having a storyline that can be considered to be able to stand by itself."

Amen to that, brother.

Asahi Shimbun, leading newspaper of Japan also points out that digital fansubbing hurt the industry bad especially overseas. The recent initiative by TV Tokyo and GONZO for example to have simulcast in US and Japan is a backhand acknowledgment on success of fansubbers denting their profit, before this they couldn't give a damn about fansubbers. This have generated positive results, the studios are more aware and move quickly to broadcast quality episodes using streaming etc to combat fansubbing. However is this too late?


Statistically, 308 series were churned out in 2006 represents the peak to 288 in 2008. In same time period 1st quarter of 2009 have 30 series out as compared to 60 in 2006. It is grim situation as more and more studios feel the pinch of economy gloom. One case example is Vallkyria Chornicles animation quality is not so stellar as compared to Tales of Abyss despite being funded by SEGA (they in trouble too). It is symptom of what I believe is lack of $$$ to pay for animation due to current economy pressures.

Cheers.

More details on EVA 2.0 new girl

Okay, this is what I know:

1. Maaya Sakamoto (Kara no Kyokai insane knife user Ryogi Shiki) will be voicing her.
2. She designed as "fan service" female character. Means naked scenes of her?
3. She will be center of "new shocking stories" that never seen before. More moe?
4. She is a glasses wearing trope of anime stereotype for appeal to meganekko crowd (spectacles fetish).
5. She did not have a name that based on any Imperial Japan's warship convention.
6. Her name will be Mari Makinami.
7. She is a brunette.

As for Asuka's new name, I don't know what is the significance. Perhaps an EVA fan can tell me more about this. To be honest, I am not too comfortable of where is the direction of remake of EVA is going. Ah well, it remains to be seen. My suspicion of Mari is somewhat a pastiche of Mana Kirishima and Mayumi Yamagishi, side characters from non canonical Girlfriend of Steel and 2nd Impression games. However what role will she play is entirely unknown, GAINAX have kept a tight lip on that.

Trailer here.

K-On! / けいおん！ Mio pantyshot? LOL

Mio, easily the fastest growing popular character female since Nagi from Kannagi, have the accidental panty shot in this chapter.

Question is, will Kyoto Animation do this part faithfully? Or they modify it? How the fans will react? Or haters will use this to justify why they hate the anime? The list is mind boggling.

The fan's reaction will be interesting to see, IMHO.

Cheers.

Punk songs by Japanese VA.

Pretty hilarious concept to imagine cutesy voice singing hard edged songs but yeah, here it is. Especially voice of Haruhi Suzumiya's resident doormat, Mikuru (Yuko Gotoh) singing Nirvana's signature song, "Smells like Teen Spirit". LOL!

I suspect this album is strictly for anime crowd.

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Track of the list

1. Halko Momoi - "Sex and Violence (The Exploited)
2. Haruna Ikezawa - "Basket Case (Green Day)
3. Kaori Shimizu - "White Riot (The Clash)
4. Mai Kadowaki - "Pretty Fly (For A White Guy) (The Offspring)
5. Rie Tanaka - "Anarchy In The UK (SEX PISTOLS)
6. Yuko Goto - "London's Burning (The Clash)
7. Halko Momoi - "Call Me (Blondie)
8. Haruna Ikezawa - "God Save The Queen (SEX PISTOLS)
9. Kaori Shimizu - "Blitzkrieg Bop (Ramones)
10. Mai Kadowaki - "Search and Destroy (Iggy & The Stooges)
11. Rie Tanaka - "Ruby Soho (Rancid)
12. Yuko Goto - "Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana)

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