The Anime Almanac

When the Japanese company Aniplex held an industry panel at Anime Boston last May, their emphasis on the unlicensed series Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens baffled the audience and bloggers.

“Why are they spending so much time talking about Kannagi?”

“The show’s still unlicensed, right? What’s the point?”

“Do they want the fans to pressure American distributors to license it?”

“Do they really expect us to get hyped over this series at this point?”

I was reminded of another industry panel last year held by the Japanese company Kadokawa. That representative was there to introduce the American fans to new Japanese series and get them to demand it to be licensed in America. The problem with this plan is that since broadband internet had become so widely available in recent years, the fans were already well aware of these new titles and had probably already watched them.

So was Aniplex being just as ignorant as Kadokawa was with this Kannagi business?

“Well, we already had the Kannagi license back at Anime Boston,” says Bandai’s Marketing Director Robert Napton in an interview with me two weeks ago at Otakon. “That was the first time we were coordinating with Aniplex in what to say and what not to say. This has been in the planning stages for a few months.”

It wasn’t an act of ignorance on behalf of the Japanese company this time. It was the initial step in one the largest marketing ploys that the US anime industry has seen in years. And from the point of view of this blogger, I thought it was a tremendous success.

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One of the reasons why FUNimation rose to power to become over a third of the entire American anime market is because they releases a number of the most popular anime titles in America. Dragonball Z, Afro Samurai, and of course, Fullmetal Alchemist.

The company has already released the first Fullmetal Alchemist TV series and movie, and they are currently simulcasting the brand new Brotherhood TV series with intentions of releasing it on DVD next year. But the franchise is so darn popular that the company decided to bite the bullet and license the 24 minute long Premium OVA Collection.

The collection contains four segments. The main segment, a mini-series entitled “Seven Homunculi vs. State Alchemist”, is the most interesting of the bunch. It puts the viewer in a first-person perspective of an aspiring state alchemist. You go through training and then you are suddenly thrown in battle along side Ed, Al, and the rest of the cast. First-person perspective is something that you’ll rarely find in anime, so I thought this was a very interesting take on the FMA universe.

The other three segments aren’t nearly as intriguing as the main one, but each has its own charms. The “Chibi Wrap Party” is a goofy skit of the FMA characters celebrating the completion of the FMA movie. “Kids” is a very heartwarming piece showing childish versions of Ed, Al, and Winry playing through out a city. And there’s a weird and surreal live action segment that shows a life-size statue of Al traveling through out Tokyo.

Sure, it’s just a collection of DVD extras, but each segment is very amusing and should entertain any fan of the series. And with a MSRP of only $15 (with some places selling it for under $10), I think it is a DVD worth adding to your FMA collection.

I’ve been pretty hit-or-miss when it comes to releases from CMX Manga. In general, I’ve found their shojo releases to be very enjoyable and quite entertaining. Their Densha Otoko release was the best manga adaptation I read of that series, and their Emma series is one of the best manga releases out in the US, period. But shonen action series – the bread and butter of the American manga market – is obviously not CMX’s forte, and Shoko Fukaki’s The Battle of Genryu: Origin is one such shonen series.

Jun is a goofy young martial arts fighter who gains superhuman fighting ability once every month. At school, he practices with the help of his sparring partner, the hot Fusano. But there’s trouble one day when a group of thugs gang up on Jun, and he just barely survives the attack. The thugs were hired by Jun’s older brother, who (for reasons unknown to the reader) appears to be starting a war with his younger brother and their sister.

The cover art, lore, and overall attitude of this comic reminded me a lot of Ikki Tousen – just without any fan service.

And what’s Ikki Tousen without the fan service?

Not very much of anything. (-_-)

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Ah, Otakon. That time every year when all the otaku living on the east coast make that pilgrimage to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor for three days of anime craziness.

For a more in depth report of my time down in Baltimore, you can read my complete coverage of the event through my “In Tweets” posts last weekend with Day 0, Day 1, and Day 2. Sadly, my server wasn’t working correctly on Sunday and so there is no Day 3 report. But there should be more then enough details for you all to read as is.

Here are a few stories and highlights I’d like to share with you from last weekend.

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When I looked at the back of the box for FUNimation’s rerelease of Rozen Maiden Traumend, I literally laughed out loud. Of all the good things that review sites have said about the series, they selected one quote in particular to write on the box:

“Very Enjoyable” – AnimeOnDVD.com

Very enjoyable?

Very enjoyable is the type of thing that I would put in my review when I thought an anime or manga series was entertaining, but not necessarily all that great. For example, I’ve said that Venus Versus Virus and Venus Capriccio were both “enjoyable” series. So reading this quote on the back of the box read more to me like:

“Meh… it’s alright, I guess…”

But being a closeted fan of the manga artist group Peach Pit, I was very interested in seeing this series. So I popped in this 12 episode series to find out for myself that it was, in fact, very enjoyable.

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Reni Makes Her Big Con Debut

On Site:

Jon I. from JANAiBlog	Scott from The Anime Almanac	Edward Sizemore from Comics Worth Reading
animevice from Anime Vice	OutOfTimeProd from Out Of Time Productions	Greg
Kim	Alex from alexleavitt.com	Peter Tatara from New York Anime Fest
VIZ from VIZ Media	Narutaki from Reverse Thieves	funimation
Toshifumi Yoshida	Patz from The Gaming Dungeon	Hisui from Reverse Thieves
Frederik L. Schodt from Homepage	Vampt Vo from Ani-Gamers

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“Well, Mell was swell as hell.”

On Site:

Scott from The Anime Almanac	Jon I. from JANAiBlog	Kim
Edward Sizemore from Comics Worth Reading	animevice from Anime Vice	Greg
Peter Tatara from New York Anime Fest	OutOfTimeProd from Out Of Time Productions	Alex from alexleavitt.com
Carl from Ogiue Maniax	DJ Ranma S from Anime Jam Session	Vampt Vo from Ani-Gamers
Toshifumi Yoshida	Narutaki from Reverse Thieves	Patz from The Gaming Dungeon
funimation	bandaient	Hisui from Reverse Thieves
Frederik L. Schodt from Homepage

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The Gang’s All Here! (^_^)

On Site:

Scott from The Anime Almanac	Edward Sizemore from Comics Worth Reading	Jon I. from JANAiBlog
Kim	DJ Ranma S from Anime Jam Session	Vampt Vo from Ani-Gamers
Peter Tatara from New York Anime Fest	Patz from The Gaming Dungeon	Greg
Narutaki from Reverse Thieves	Hisui from Reverse Thieves	Toshifumi Yoshida
Carl from Ogiue Maniax	Frederik L. Schod

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I first heard about Oshiri Kajiri Mushi, or “The Butt Biting Bug”, from the popular blog Boing Boing in August 2007. According to the blog, this children’s cartoon was the biggest craze in Japan at the time:

The repeating monotonic line “Oshiri kajiri mushi…” ingrained the song into my brain so much that I ended up singing the tune to myself for the rest of the day. I also found the cartoon to be hilarious, especially how the bug goes through samurai endurance training to get back his motivation for butt biting.

My fascination and love with the cartoon has not gone away in the two years since then, so when I found out that Delvi of UrumaDelvi, the husband-and-wife team who created the bug, was going to be in New York last weekend, I leapt at the chance to talk with her about the popular short and their career in animation.

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Why do we care so much whenever our favorite novel, comic, or cartoon is adapted into a live-action movie? After all, we already have the original version right there in front of us, and we know that something in the story is going to be lost when squeezed into a 2-hour-long flick. So why do we care so much when that story is shown back to us on the big screen?

I think the reason is because when you see the story on the big screen being portrayed by real life actors, it feels more real and authentic. It gives the fan the notion that the fictional world could happen in real life. Even with something so deep in fantasy as the Lord of the Rings saga could actually look realistic when done as a big budget Hollywood blockbuster.

Viz has recently released Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys and Pluto in America, and both series have been taking manga critics by storm. When everyone submits their “Best of 2009” lists at the end of this year, you can bet that those two titles will be placed at the top of many of those lists.

They are most certainly at the top of my list right now. As the newest member of the Urasawa fan club, I was very eager to see the first two films of the 20th Century Boys live-action trilogy being shown at the New York Asian Film Festival last weekend.

So did these films succeed in bringing the original comics to life on the big screen?

Yes, oh god yes, they did! (^_^)

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