Gifted with the power of seven Djinn, fourteen-year-old Ichika must face a series of trials that puts her life at risk.

What They Say:
Before you make a deal with a girl in a mirror, reflect seriously on the source of the offer. Ichika Tachibana fails to take this advice in order to retrieve a lost charm, and as a result suddenly ends up with the magical forces of a Djinn at her command. Sounds like a good deal, right? Wrong. At first, things seem wondrous, with her new friend Manatsu assisting her via text messages and the occasional spell; but as her powers grow, Ichika’s situation quickly goes from magical to nightmarish, and she finds herself drawn into an ever expanding web of deceptions, lies, and increasingly dangerous situations. For what she’s really done is subjected herself to seeing mankind as the Djinn see them. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to place a high value on human life.

The Review:
Audio:
The audio presentation for this series comes with the Japanese track in stereo encoded at 224kbps. The show is mostly focused around a basic slice of life dialogue and friendly scenes as opposed to the bigger moments so the mix doesn’t provide much of a workout. When it does stretch its wings a little it’s mostly in the music and the occasional sweeping scene when the Djinn are in action. The dialogue aspect of the show is well handled with some decent placement to it but not all that much in the way of noticeable depth. The show isn’t one that really stands out when it comes to the audio but it’s well done and problem free.

Video:
Originally airing in 2004, the transfer for this TV series and OVA is presented in its original full frame aspect ratio. The show is spread across two discs with six on the first and seven on the second due to the length of the extras on the first. The show has a good visual design to it with a strong real-world approach that has lots of good colors to it and a very nice level of detail. The transfer captures the colors well with richness and vibrancy when needed and the dark areas manage to avoid any significant blocking and noise though a little creeps into some of the blues at times. There’s nothing that really stands out badly here as the source is well captured and presented which should please the majority of fans.

Packaging:
Utakata gets a standard Sentai release in that the two-disc collection is inside a single sized keepcase. The front cover has a strong theatrical feeling to it with the two leads running hand in hand with a long shot of the city behind them. The colors for it are very rich and appealing and the detail is far stronger than most shows get. The logo is also really nicely done along the bottom with the way the swirl wraps around it. The back cover is nicely laid out as well with an appealing shot of the two leads together in warmer clothes holding handles set against a cool winter sky. On each side of them, there’s a good number of shots from the show that highlights the appealing designs and gives you a lot to look at. The summary is far more detailed than I expected as well with a small font and a lot of text carried across both sides. The bottom brings out the episode and disc count well while also detailing the extras rather nicely so you know what you get. The rest is the usual production credits and technical information.

Menu:
The menu design for the series is good overall with it split in an almost fifty/fifty style with character artwork on the right and the navigation along the left. The character artwork has the same kind of detailed feeling we get from the cover design and each of them is different. The navigation side has a very light feeling to it with whites and ice blues that breaks down the episode numbers and titles. Since there are real extras on each disc, submenus are a bit more useful since there’s no language submenus and everything loads quickly and smoothly with no problems. The menus are decently in theme and gives you an almost otherworldly feeling when it loads up and sets you into the right mindset for it.

Extras:
The extras for this release are spread across two discs due to the size of a couple of them. The first disc has the two specials which run ten and fourteen minutes respectively that covers some of the location scouting and background done on creating the set design. The second disc has a bunch of smaller extras to it that are fun, such as the copyright and safety warnings that were aired with the show originally. The alternate episode previews are included as well as the clean opening and closing sequences.

The story of Utakata revolves around fourteen-year-old Ichika, a friendly and likable girl who has a good group of friends and supportive parents. She’s got some friends she likes more than others, some she has some trouble with and there’s a boy she might have some slightly stronger feelings for. Ichika has had some strange dreams recently of a green haired girl that seems friendly but then turns to either her or the stranger strangling the other and threatening to kill her. It’s startling to be sure but becomes even more so later on when she spends time doing end of semester cleaning in one of the side buildings of the school. Within a mirror there, she sees the same girl who comes out of it and wants to befriend her. It’s almost surreal that Ichika agrees to it and Manatsu ends up spending the summer at her home as a penpal that’s suddenly come to stay.

While there is a logical reason to it that is eventually explained, a lot of points in the show has these kinds of surreal moments where it doesn’t flow well in how, well, reality would work. Granted we’re dealing with a magical girl show done differently, but some of the basic real world situations end up going in this direction which makes it come across awkwardly. Even in the magical girl arena it has this feeling. Matsuna’s introduction is that she’s from another world of sorts, something Ichika believes easily enough, and she adjusts a special piece of jewelry that Ichika has with seven jewels on it. Each of those jewels represents a Djinn (and a trial) that Ichika must overcome as she can take on the Djinn’s special power.

Interestingly, the Djinn and its power are used rather sparingly and for seemingly inconsequential things. Well, inconsequential to anyone else but important to Ichika. It feels like a regular theme that she uses it to find her friends who may be lost or away when she needs them. It’s more towards the end of each episode and I liked that each Djinn summoning gives her a different outfit with familiar themes across all of them. But the way she uses the powers doesn’t even feel like it’s right for a fourteen-year-old girl. I’m not expecting Western style superheroics or the fun of Sailor Moon, but Ichika’s use of its powers is generally very selfish and inconsequential.

With Utakata trying to straddle the line by being more mature, it doesn’t exactly reach it. One of the things that it does to stand out is to deal with more serious issues that her friends go through. Betrayal of love is one as well as some form of child abuse that is dealt with in a very obscure kind of way. I did like that she has very different relationships with the people she calls friends. There are some that are close and others that are casual, but there’s a sense that she’s not been able to get close to some of them. There’s an underlying issue with why she’s pulling away from them as the show moves forward, and you can get it through the narration, but it’s something that’s thrown out towards the end that doesn’t help the show and instead feels like an awkward monkey wrench in things.

What I found irked me the most is that as it progresses is the way it’s all playing a larger game with Ichika. Through the narration, we learn that she discovers that many people are watching her and that puts everyone under suspicion. The most obvious is the beautiful woman who lives next door named Saya, but everyone feels like they’re in on what Ichika is going through and seeing how she’s going to survive this mysterious test. And having the test be a mystery for so long doesn’t help either. With each new little nod towards it and the apparent undisclosed importance of it, I felt more and more on the outside of a joke and it kept me from getting connected with it. Manatsu being so involved in it and being reminded that she can’t say anything since it’s against the rules only added to the frustration.

In Summary:
Utakata is an interesting take on the magical girl genre but not one that really stands out heavily. It takes things in a more serious manner than most but it’s one that feels oddly unbalanced. The drama side of it gets the most attention which means the magical girl side gets short changed and it impacts it badly. The Djinn and Ichika’s use of them are mostly inconsequential and pointless, where it’s not something you can imagine any fourteen-year-old doing. Utakata has some neat visuals to it and I liked the variety to the Djinn and her costumes but the story itself kept pushing me away and made me feel like I was very much on the outside of it and it didn’t want to let me in on what it was really about until the end.

Features:
Japanese 2.0 Language, English Subtitles, Clean Opening, Clean Closing, Uta-kata specials, Piracy and copyright warnings, On-air previews

Content Grade: C
Audio Grade: B
Video Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: A-
Menu Grade: B
Extras Grade: B

Released By: Sentai Filmworks
Release Date: November 2nd, 2010
MSRP: $49.98
Running Time: 325 Minutes
Video Encoding: 480i/p MPEG-2
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Anamorphic Widescreen

Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray player via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.

After simulcasting the first six season of Teekyu, the news would be that Crunchyroll is not streaming the seventh. But they are streaming it and have now formalized that news with the reveal that it’ll kick off tomorrow at 1:35pm ET for its users on the service. THe series has the same kind of streaming availability that we’ve seen before with it being open to members in the USA, Canada, Latin America, United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden.

We expect that they’ll be involved with the upcoming spinoff series Usakame as well.

Plot concept: The zany and wacky adventures of the girls in the Kameido High School Tennis Club continue in season 6 of Teekyu! It’s questionable really how much tennis they actually play, but when the girls speak faster than chipmunks and jokes and references thrown out at the speed of light, maybe that doesn’t really matter.

After a live action drama series aired this time last year and a short-form anime series this summer, Wakako-Zako is returning with a second live-action series. The show already premiered in Japan back on January 8th, but Crunchyroll doesn’t have its setup yet in terms of when it will debut – but they wanted fans to know it was coming. Availability for it is pretty fantastic though as it’s open to members worldwide excluding China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea. Based on the manga by Chie Shinkyu, it’ll bring back the same cast with Rina Takeda, Yoshihiro Nozoe and Kenta Kamakari to star.

Check out our thoughts on the first half and second half of the anime.

Plot concept: Murasaki Wakako, who is 26 years old, loves going out alone to enjoy eating and drinking, especially when something unpleasant happens at work. This anime follows Wakako through many solitary outings, where she enjoys different combinations of food and drink!

Brothers Conflict

With about two months until the DVD/BD combo edition arrives from FUNimation, the distributor has announced the English language dub cast for the series. There was some uncertainty as to whether this would get a dub since the show had been pushed back a bit and UK distributor Anime Limited picked it up in October 2015 but hasn’t scheduled it yet either, meaning that they may have invested in it a bit to get a dub produced. The upcoming release will include the unaired episode and the two OVA episodes and has set Colleen Clinkenbeard as the ADR director. The cast includes:

• Colleen Clinkenbeard as Ema Asahina
• J. Michael Tatum as Masaomi Asahina
• Christopher R. Sabat as Ukyo Asahina
• Ian Sinclair as Kaname Asahina
• Todd Haberkorn as Hikaru Asahina
• Micah Solusod as Tsubaki Asahina
• Josh Grelle as Azusa Asahina
• Kyle Hebert as Natsume Asahina
• Jerry Jewell as Louis Asahina
• David Matranga as Subaru Asahina
• Eric Vale as Iori Asahina
• Matthew Mercer as Yusuke Asahina
• Vic Mignogna as Futo Asahina
• Bryce Papenbrook as Wataru Asahina
• Sonny Strait as Juli
• David Wald as Rintaro Hinata
• Jamie Marchi as Miwa Asahina
• Ricco Fajardo as Kazuma Sasakura
• Lindsay Seidel as Mahoko Imai

FUNimation picked up the home video rights to the TV series back in November 2014 and had planned then for a fall 2015 release, which fell through but was recently scheduled for a March 8th, 2016 debut in both regular and limited edition form. On-disc extras include some episode commentaries and the clean versions of the opening and closing sequences.

Plot concept: Ema Hinata is lonely. As an only child and the daughter of a famous explorer, for most of her life her closest companion has been Juli, her talking pet squirrel. But her father is getting remarried, and her new family is…a little unorthodox. Now, she’s got 13 gorgeous guys as her stepbrothers, and they’re all after her heart! But is romance what she wants, or is it family?

Most of December has been about rearranging the positioning of the top ten titles among a few select ones and that continues through to the end of the month with the final New York Times best seller list information for the year. The holiday period hasn’t changed things at all here in terms of what titles are on it and though there is some pleasure in seeing “strong” sellers like this continually, it’s also worrying because you want to see more variety and more titles gaining exposure and positioning. But, once again, it’s Tokyo Ghoul and One-Punch Man fest as they take up seven of the ten slots while the remainder goes to Attack on Titan and Naruto.

1. Tokyo Ghoul Vol.1
2. One-Punch Man Vol.1
3. One-Punch Man Vol.3
4. One-Punch Man Vol.2
5. Tokyo Ghoul Vol.4
6. Tokyo Ghoul Vol.3
7. Tokyo Ghoul Vol.2
8. Attack on Titan Vol.17
9. Naruto Vol.72
10. Attack on Titan Vol.1

[Source: NY Times Manga Best Seller List]

VAP has put together the home video release scheduled for the new winter 2016 anime series Nurse Witch Komugi R and they’ve also revealed the cover artwork for the first volume. The twelve episode series is getting a six-volume run on Blu-ray and DVD priced at 6,800 yen and 5,800 yen respectively. It begins its release on March 23rd, 2016 with new volumes coming monthly, which you can see more details about in the chart below.

The show takes the parody portion of Soul Taker that had an OVA release in 2002 and 2004. The new series is directed by Keiichirou Kawaguchi based on overall series composition from Momoko Murakami, who did scripting alongside Kazuyuki Fudeyasu. Original character designs are from Akio Watanabe while the adaptation designs are from Takao Sano. Animated by Tatsunoko Production, Mina Oosawa and Keisuke Gotou served  as the chief animation directors.

The main cast for the series inclues Kei Tomoe as Komugi, Eir Yamazaki as Kokona, Makoto Koichi as Tsukasa and Haruko Momoi as Koharu. The supporting cast includes, Hiroyuki Yoshino as Usa-P, Daisuke Namikawa as Tanu-P, Ryouta Takeuchi as Neko-P, Yasuaki as Yuuto Tachibana, Shizuka Itou as Ai Mitaka, Kenta Miyake as Toranosuke Matsukawa, Kenji Nojima as Tomoya Yoshida, Minami Kabayama as Kotarou Yoshida, Rena Maeda as Misuzu-sensei, Ryuusei Nakao as Camera Man, Akane Kohinata as Tamako, Eriko Matsui as Rei, Meemu Tachibana as Miki and Madoka Asahina as Maki.

The Magical☆R idol unit would performed the opening song with Ready Go!!, which is made up of the three lead actresses.

Property concept: Komugi Yoshida is an energetic but clumsy middle-school student who performs as an idol. Although her popularity is lacking, Komugi lives a dual life between her two worlds, until a mysterious creature named Usa-P appears before Komugi and grants her the powers of a Legendary Girl. Now Komugi has reluctantly become Magical Nurse, and must add a third life of fighting monsters to her already crowded lifestyle.

[Source: Nurse Witch Komugi-chan R]

The second week of the new winter 2016 anime season is getting underway and it’s still a pretty crazy layout when it comes to the calendars as not everything is being updated yet. While FUNimation doesn’t have anything on tap today, Crunchyroll is rolling out three of its ongoing series with new episodes while also debuting AOKANA.

• 6:30am - ACE OF THE DIAMOND SECOND SEASON - Episode 40
• 1:35pm - JK-MESHI! - Episode 15
• 1:45pm - MR. OSOMATSU - Episode 14
• 3:35pm - AOKANA: FOUR RHYTHM ACROSS THE BLUE - Episode 1

The free side brings us up to speed with last weeks episodes.

• 6:30am - ACE OF THE DIAMOND SECOND SEASON - Episode 39
• 1:35pm - JK-MESHI! - Episode 14
• 1:45pm - MR. OSOMATSU - Episode 13

And The Anime Network is bringing out a trio of shows, one of which is in a far better simulcast position than the usual 4-5 weeks behind that they usually are with Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle.

• 2:30 AM GMT – Ushio & Tora  - Details - 24 – The Fools Gather at the Banquet
• 2:30 PM GMT – Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle  - Details - 1 – The Crimson War Princess
• 6:00 PM GMT – Perfect Insider, The  - Details - 10 – Light Purple Truth

After battling cancer for the past eighteen months, David Bowie has passed away at the age of sixty-nine – just days after his latest album was released last Friday.  His social media accounts have kept things simple, reporting just that, “David Bowie died peacefully today surrounded by his family after a courageous 18-month battle with cancer.” The news was also confirmed by his son, Duncan Jones, who has had an intriguing film career himself over the last several years.

Bowie’s influence on music is without doubt and for many people the day will be spent pulling tracks and re-engaging with the artist in tribute. While there are many favorites that I have, I continually go back to his Outside album, one of those that connected with me as an adult in the 90′s.

Bowie had an eclectic acting career as well, originally starting back in 1976 with a really excellent film with The Man Who Fell to Earth. He would do a few “genre” type films over the years with the very well known 1986 film Labyrinth as well as a small role in the 1992 film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. One of my favorite roles was that of Moorecock in  the Dream On HBO TV series.

Cavendish steps up!

What They Say:
Cavendish has to make a difficult decision when the severely wounded Law begs him to be left behind. Meanwhile, seeing even his Second Gear or Third Gear attacks aren’t working against Doflamingo, Luffy decides to use his ultimate technique!

The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
One Piece has certainly ramped up a good deal recently with what it’s doing in this story, particularly around its focus on Law and Luffy going up against Doflamingo with Trebol there. Though the backstory aspect for Trebol didn’t do much for me overall, understandable as it was, the show pushed forward well with its momentum and has definitely kept me very interested in where things are going. So a skip week like we had for the holiday is both good and bad since you can lose some of that momentum. Admittedly, I liked having the holiday off to go and do a few other things, but I still had that gnawing in the back of my mind about wanting more One Piece. Gotta have my Straw Hats. But now we’re back with our first installment of 2016 and it’s great to have it once again.

While we’ve had some intense fighting going on at the top of this location, things are now starting to spread a bit more with Law being flung over the side and literally into Robin’s hands. That now draws that group into the fight as the visual of Doffy leaping over the edge to go after him is frightening, even with Luffy trying to help. What’s fantastic is that it lets Cavendish step up and protect them while also chiding Luffy for not having finished this yet and put everyone else in danger. It’s a great moment on his part to set the stage and to give Cavendish a chance to shine. I’ve liked him well enough over this arc so seeing him get more firmly involved here is definitely fun – and it makes a good impact on Robin as well as she sees him really stepping up to help out, both with what Luffy is dealing with but also with getting Law some help. Cavendish fits into the dynamic well here.

As that moves in some good directions, we also continue to get some great action moments as Luffy and Doflamingo go at it. It’s broken up a bit early on, but the visual impact and emotional resonance is fantastic with how it plays out. The power between the two is definitely well played, though it doesn’t go truly big here for a lot of it in what you might want to see. But as Luffy takes it up more and more, such as his Red Hawk move, you see how Doflamingo is absolutely loving it. There’s a high that comes from moments like this for people like him and it really comes across well since he has the confidence and ability to handle it. Doflamingo thrills to the fight and really embraces it here, though you can see that he’s still kind of playing at it to some degree as well while Luffy is trying his best to take him out but not succeeding. Of course, Doflamingo holds the upper hand with the bigger game here and his reminding Luffy of that is a really good moment since he wants to see if Luffy will step up or be crushed by it as he reminds him of what’s at stake and all those out there about to be killed.

In Summary:
One Piece takes a bit of time to get to where Luffy needs to be to really take it to the next level, but it is a solid and natural piece of progression that doesn’t feel forced. It’s balanced out a bit with some time with Cavendish and the others, bringing that emotional connection into it with Law and Robin, but the main focus really is on Doflamingo and Law. The visual design of this episode is certainly consistent with this part of the arc, but it’s also ramping up the intensity of what it wants to do and the results are fantastic, making for some very strong sequences and overall presentation of the action combined with the emotional investment we have in the characters along with the stakes.

Grade: B+

Streamed By: Crunchyroll

Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.

This past weekend was yet another strong once with The Force Awakens as the film did another $41.5 million, bringing it to $812 million domestic and further expanding its lead as the highest grossing domestic film. Considering the number of folks in the months before release that thought the film wouldn’t do well and certainly wouldn’t challenge any records, it’s been fun to watch that talk whither away – and remind one that it’s not really worth engaging in anyway.

This is likely the last weekend that the film will take the top spot as Ride Along 2 hits next weekend and is tracking very well on top of the success of the first one. It was a close weekend this weekend as well as The Revenant finally landed in wide release and drummed up a hefty $38 million. It’s got a way to go with a $135 million budget, but for those that just love to become absorbed in beautiful filmmaking, it won’t matter. This is a must-see film.

Rounding out the top three is Daddy’s home, which added another $15 million and has a worldwide pull of $154 million so far. With a short running time and little competition in this area combined with a presumably smaller budget, it’s a big win for Paramount.

On the new side, The Forest pulled in $13 million on its $10 million budget and will have a decent run overall, though likely not a huge one yet one that works well for horror films. Not new but adding theaters was Hateful Eight, which fell 60% this weekend to $6.3 million, making it a fast sinker for Tarantino unfortunately. Combined with a longer running time and theaters gauging interest being more elsewhere, it’s not finding a whole lot of love. Similarly, Joy added just $4.5 million this weekend while also losing 400 screens from its run, so it’s not likely to make its budget back in its domestic run at this point. It could see a bit of a boost coming up depending on how some awards material plays out, however. It’s done another $24 million overseas and could build up a bit more there.

We all just feel bad for Point Break, which falls to 11th place with a $2.1 million take. If it had been given another name and more star power it might have done better. Trying to capitalize on the original just didn’t work.

This coming Friday has the aforementioned Ride Along 2, which is landing in over 2,900 screens, as well as Norm of the North in 2,300 screens for animation fans while drama fans get 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi to try and replicate the American Sniper success.

More fun in the snow!

What They Say:
Lovely Muuuuuuuco! tells the story of the Akita dog Muco, and its glassblower owner Komatsu-san.

The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
A little downtime over the holiday for Lovely Muco wasn’t a surprise, but I’ll admit part of me wondered if the show was coming back. It doesn’t get a lot of attention and there’s not a lot of promotion for it, so tracking information on what it’s doing and how long it’s going to run just isn’t out there. So I was quite delighted to see that a new episode cropped up this weekend, giving us more time with our favorite Akita out in the winter season. And we get a fun dream sequence right at the start with a house-sized Muco dreaming and panicking over it, which is just delightfully fun to watch play out in brief. You do wonder just how animals dream and process information and what kinds of weird things it would end up coming up with. They can’t all be chasing rabbits that they’ve never seen!

Carrying that into the opening act works well because we get to see how she continues to process the whole thing with her limited logic. Bringing Komatsu into the picture brings some additional fun since he plays the straight man and really does clue her in as part of her subconscious, but that’s no surprise as she really does view Komatsu as having all the answers. The best though is when the sun begins to rise and the surreal nature of the dream really hits hard – beautifully so. The way she takes it out on Ushicou in real life afterward is priceless and getting an extended comical piece for it afterwards with shades of 2001: A Space Odyssey is just utterly delightful.

The second half works through a few different things, giving us some familiar downtime for Muco as she relaxes or plays, always enjoying tearing apart towels, until things take a different turn when she goes outside to see Ushicou only to see that he’s been “turned into a snowman.” Playing tricks on animals always has its level of fun and Ushicou really runs with it hilariously here with the snowballs. It’s also fun to see the way things change so easily in Muco being all friendly with Ushicou afterwards – but not that snowman pile, for obvious reasons. A whole lot of the charm here is just Muco being so outgoing and enjoying everything, a regular part of most episodes, and the enjoyment of her in the snow raises it a few more notches. There’s no depth here but damn if it isn’t utterly adorable and charming.

In Summary:
Lovely Muco gets its first episode of 2016 underway and it’s solid if unexceptional overall if only because it doesn’t work any bigger themes. The idea here is simply to have fun and it does just that without problem. With a great dream sequence and some real fun with Ushicou that just delights, the show made me grin throughout the whole thing and enjoy the nature of watching a very happy animal enjoy life to its fullest. Here’s to a great winter season for this show.

Grade: B

Streamed By: Crunchyroll

Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.

The December rankings of what’s sold in terms of graphic novels into the direct market isn’t too much of a surprise as it’s more holiday oriented and geared towards evergreen and mainstream books. This month saw the three Walking Dead compendium releases all in the top ten, giving the series its continued strong performance in this segment. DC Comics gets two books in there with The Killing Joke truly being evergreen while the Vertigo imprint gives us something new with the release of The Sandman: Overture in deluxe form. On the manga side, the top ten has One-Punch Man and Tokyo Ghoul earning spots there, though Tokyo Ghoul with its fourth volume has the honor of being the only new title to enter the top twenty overall for the month, and that at 9th place.

The Star Wars books continue to do well as we can see and those are likely to find some evergreen status in the next few years.

[Source: ICv2]

Crunchyroll is kicking off the week with some new anime simulcast announcements, the first of which is the pickup of Mahou Shoujou Nante Mouiidesukara. The series is slated to premiere today at 1:40pm ET for its users and appear weekly from then on at the same day and time. The show has some solid availability as it’s open to viewers in the USA, Canada, Latin America (Central and South America including Caribbean), United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden.

The series was directed by Kazuhiro Yoneda while the scripts and composition were done by Fudeyasu, who received script assists from Momoko Murakami. Character designs were done by Kazuaki Shimada who also served as the chief animation director.  The anime project was handled by Pinejam. The opening theme song will be performed by Earth Star Dream.

The cast includes Akane Fujita as Yuzuka Hanami, Yūki Wakai as Miton, Miku Itō as Mafuyu Shinoki, Asuka Nishi as Pochi, Minami Tanaka as Daiya and Nichika Omori as Chiya Sakagami.

The manga comes from Sui Futami that began back in March of 2015.

Plot concept: The story follows Yuzuka Hanami, a young girl who has few friends but who can do anything. One day, Yuzuka gets accosted by a strange creature named Miton who is digging through a trash dump. Miton tells Yuzuka, “you have the makings of a magical girl” and seems extremely suspicious. When Yuzuka is suddenly transformed into a magical girl, she’s wearing a bathing suit

A middle schooler as a mangaer?! Hello, anime!

What They Say:
Ooya-san wa Shishunki! follows the antics of Chie Satonaka, a middle schooler who is a landlord. Though she appears a little girl, at times, she behaves more like a grandmother, doing all the cleaning, cooking and housework around the apartment. Despite her responsibilities, she still enjoys a normal middle school life with her friends.

The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Based on the manga by Ruruu Minase, which has four volumes out so far, this kind of show is the real challenge for viewers in a way simply because of its two minute running time. There’s a lot you can do with that amount in making some really fun moments and even some really sweet material, but you have to capitalize on the characters quickly and in an engaging way. Playing with a middle school girl named Chie who doubles as a landlord and has a personality all over the place while still being a kid? There’s some good material to mine there.

Chie is a touch on the younger side but she thankfully doesn’t go completely tiny in appearance, though she retains a lot of the familiar aspects of being in middle school. She has some fun with a new tenant in making sure he realizes he shouldn’t take advantage of her, but he also sees potential in some really nice moments by living here with a young landlord. His life gets even better when he meets another tenant named Reiko who is older and definitely more maturely beautiful. Though not a lot happens here, the show establishes itself well with the first three of the main cast and lets us get to know the dynamic and the location well enough.

In Summary:
A two-minute show has its own problems to navigate but there are some shows that can pull it off if you basically think of it is a more fleshed out daily comic strip done up weekly. This show has some potential for cute fun as the characters all comes across nicely and likeable and it has some really nice design elements to it with the animation. There’s a good bit of material out there to work with as well so there are a lot of things they can pick and choose from to work with. The show likely isn’t going to be a huge one among the short-form fan segment, but I can see this being an enjoyable little diversion each week, which is what I look for out of these kinds of shows.

Grade:

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Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.

Media Factory revealed their plans for the winter 2016 anime series Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle, aka Saijaku Muhai no Bahamut, with the home video information recently. Now that the series has premiered, they’re making sure that fans know about it and are getting their preorders in as they’ve brought out the first home video promo spot for it. The twelve episode series will get a six-volume release that begins on March 23rd, 2016 and will be priced at 6,000 yen for the DVDs and 7,000 yen for the Blu-ray releases. Each release omes with a character CD, a booklet and audio commentary material from the production/cast side. More extras will be revealed over the course of the release schedule, which you can find in full below.

The series was directed by Masaomi Ando based on scripts by Yuuko Kakihara and character designs by Keiko Kurosawa. It was animated at studio Lerche.

The cast includes Mutsumi Tamura as Lux Acadia, Lynn as Lizsharte Atismata, Yukiyo Fujii as Krulcifer Einfolk, Yurika Kubo as Philphie Aingram, Risa Taneda as Celestia Ralgris and Ari Ozawa as Airi Acadia. TRUE will be performing the opening theme song while nano.RIPE will be handling the ending theme song for it.

Plot concept: Lux, a former prince of an empire named Arcadia that was overthrown via a rebellion five years earlier. Lux accidentally trespasses in a female dormitory’s bathing area, sees the kingdom’s new princess Lisesharte naked, and incurs her wrath. Lisesharte then challenges Lux to a Drag-Ride duel. Drag-Rides are ancient armored mechanical weapons that have been excavated from ruins all around the world. Lux used to be called the strongest Drag-Knight, but now he’s known as the “undefeated weakest” Drag-Knight because he will absolutely not attack in battle. After his duel with Lisesharte, Lux ends up attending the female-only academy that trains royals to be Drag-Knights.: Lux, a former prince of an empire named Arcadia that was overthrown via a rebellion five years earlier. Lux accidentally trespasses in a female dormitory’s bathing area, sees the kingdom’s new princess Lisesharte naked, and incurs her wrath. Lisesharte then challenges Lux to a Drag-Ride duel. Drag-Rides are ancient armored mechanical weapons that have been excavated from ruins all around the world. Lux used to be called the strongest Drag-Knight, but now he’s known as the “undefeated weakest” Drag-Knight because he will absolutely not attack in battle. After his duel with Lisesharte, Lux ends up attending the female-only academy that trains royals to be Drag-Knights.

[Source: Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle (Saijaku Muhai no Bahamut)]

The folks at Right Stuf have taken to social media briefly to reveal they’ve successfully completed their year-end physical inventory. It’s a small piece but you have to really enjoy taking in the sheer scale of the partial bit of the warehouse that we get to see and how all of this works. Sometimes it’s easy to forget what’s involved in how the anime, manga, and all the fun stuff gets to you and it’s definitely worth taking a moment to scope it out and really appreciate it all.

It’s hard to be in love when you have friends like these.

What They Say:
Natsuki is a hopeless romantic who, just after being dumped by his girlfriend, falls in love with a girl handing out tissues while dressed in a Santa costume. Will Natsuki reconnect with his dream girl?

The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Based on the manga by Minami Mizuno, Rainbow Days is a new half-length series that has garnered a lot of attention prior to its broadcast. It’s also a show that’s making out well by having the other half of its runtime given over the a live-action piece, though that’s not something that I’m covering. The popularity of voice actors and idols has been around for a long time and shows no signs of abating, so it’s smart marketing to do something like that and I’m really glad to see Funimation continuing to go after this kind of project and the live-action side to diversify things a bit and draw in new fans that might otherwise not be served. That can make some lifelong fans.

This series introduces us to the lead character of Natsuki at a difficult time of the year and in his life because of the nature of holidays and because he’s just been dumped. That’s just a hard time to exist in. What salvages things for him in his mind is while sitting on a bench feeling terrible he’s handed a package of tissues from a cute girl dressed up in a Santa costume for a promotion. Sometimes it’s a small moment that can turn your life around, but there’s also that moment where you wonder if the character you’re watching is just that needy for a relationship. We don’t know a ton about Natsuki at the start, but the ease through which he shifts gears is something that’s always a bit worrisome since it often paints a picture of someone that’s not confident enough about themselves.

What’s amusing is that he doesn’t get the chance to do anything then but then discovers later that she’s actually in his school. That has him going to his friends quickly to tell them about it, which really makes the relationship dynamic clear since they’re kind of almost paternal about it in smiling and just kind of patting him on the head about it even as he gets more and more excited. It’s definitely cute in how they all interact with each other and the way he’s so overly romantic towards her without even truly meeting her yet. Though everyone is almost a little deadpan in dealing with him, they’re also definitely up for helping him since they want Natsuki to be happy, which is what counts in the end. At least when it doesn’t involve schoolwork.

As luck would have it, however, he ends up helping out the teacher that in turn is keeping an eye on the girl of his dreams now as she wasn’t feeling too well. But does he say anything? Of course now. He at least learns that her name is Kobayakawa and that puts him firmly on the path of pursuit. The fun is in the coincidences that happens to put this together as not only did he first meet her in the park and then in the doctor’s office, but she also works at the karaoke place. He’s totally smitten with her and sees her in a way that others aren’t, which we see from the way that she barely registers with them as she’s so calm and low-key while serving them initially. It’s the kind of simple silliness that works combined with how they end up encouraging him to go after her – including a moment where he’s told to man up and protect her. It hits a very good tone, especially with the mild twist to it, and it won me over just in seeing how his friends reacted to all of this.

In Summary:
Rainbow Days is definitely going to be a charmer of a show. This first episode gives us some very appealing material with the four friends and how they interact with each other and hang out along with the small jabs and tormenting moments. Kobayakawa isn’t’ all that well defined yet, but that’s to be expected with the design of the show. I really like the pacing of it and the way it plays out with Natsuki since there’s potential for the character in a lot of ways, though a lot of it will never be realized. Working with a thirteen-minute runtime also means that this doesn’t feel overly drawn out or overdone, which makes me all the more engaged with it as it avoids excessive fluff. Definitely a show I’m excited to see more of.

Grade:

Streamed By:

Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.

Quite possibly the most shocking news of the year, Love Live! Sunshine!! is getting a TV series. After the rousing success of the film this past year in Japan along with over 200,000 units sold on home video at the end of the year, the property will hit a TV adaptation this summer. There aren’t a ton of details at the moment, though the cast will return from the feature, and Kazuo Sakai is set to direct it while Yuuhei Murota is on board to work on the character designs.

Plot concept: Love Live! Sunshine!! follows the nine-member school idol group Aqours (pronounced “aqua”) at Uranohoshi Girls’ Academy in Numazu, Shizuoka Prefecture. Chika Takami, who is a fan of the Otonokizaka Academy’s μ’s school idol group, similarly forms Aqours in order to save her school from being closed down.

Garakowa -Restore the World- debuted this weekend in Japan and we’ve got limited theatrical run in North America next month as well as the home video plans for Japan revealed. With all of that out there, an additional push to get you to check out the film or just buy it outright has arrived with a new eight minute preview of the film. This gives us a very good look at the film and its style, though obviously it’s not subtitled so you work more from the mood and atmosphere it creates.  Pony Canyon Japan has scheduled a February 17th, 2016 debut for the film in a premium edition at 8,880 yen, a regular edition at 5,800 yen and a DVD edition at 4,800 yen. The premium edition comes with a 400 page book, a CD and more to be revealed.

Pony Canyon Japan has scheduled a February 17th, 2016 debut for the film in a premium edition at 8,880 yen, a regular edition at 5,800 yen and a DVD edition at 4,800 yen. The premium edition comes with a 400 page book, a CD and more to be revealed.

The project is based on the D.Backup scenario that was put together by a group called Physics Unit as part of the first Anime Adaptation Prize contest back in 2013 that Pony Canyon ran. It’s now going into a bigger direction here with this adaptation that looks to have a pretty solid production team behind it.

The film was directed by Masashi Ishihama, who worked recently on the anime adaptation of From the New World, working off of the screenplay by Fumihiko Shimo, whose works are well ranged from Air and Clannad to Golden Time and Amagi Brilliant Park. It was animated at A-1 Pictures with Kantoku handling the character designs.

The main cast includes Yumiri Hanamoras Rimo, Ayane Sakura as Dorothy and Risa Taneda as Dual.

Plot concept: A floating space without gravity where an infinite number of lights shine in different colors: The “Box of Wisdom.” Inside of this box, there are multiple worlds, multiple timelines, and there used to be many different people. This is where Dual and Dorothy were fighting with enemies called “Viruses.” Worlds infected by viruses must be erased. That is the duty, the job of these girls. However, one day, Dual and Dorothy feel the presence of a new Virus. Arriving at the scene, they see a girl being attacked by Viruses. After saving the girl, the duo wait for her to awaken so they can ask who she is, where she came from, and where she is going. Finally, when the girl opened her eyes, she gave her name, Rimo, and whispered only one sentence… “I must return to the flower patch…”:

Glass no Hana to Kowasu Sekai 8-min Promo by pKjd

click for larger

While there’s still potential for this show to be picked up along the way, it’s interesting that just as the Reikenzan anime series premieres this past weekend that we finally get our first promotional video for it. Studio Deen hasn’t exactly been selling the show in a big way as there’s been very little out there, resulting in almost no attention towards it nor any real enthusiasm. Will this promo help to change that? Clocking in at just under ninety seconds, it’s our first real look at it and it’s hard to say, though we can see it gaining some enthusiastic fans because of the period and material itself.

The show is based on the Chinese online fantasy novel Congqian You Zuo Ling Jian Shan, which translates as Once Upon A Time There Was A Spirit Sword Mountain. That work has thirteen volumes so far. The series was directed by Iku Suzuki with character designs by Makoto Iino. Yumiko Ishii served as the chief animation director.

The cast includes Tsubasa Yonaga as Wang Lu, Yuriko Yamaguchi as Ōbu, Daiki Kobayashi as Ōchū, Masakazu Nishida as Kaiunho, Kenichirou Matsuda as Iemoto and Nako Eguchi.

The opening theme song is performed by Niconico artists Soraru and Mafumafu, while the ending theme song is performed by Niconico artist Kakichoco.

Plot concept: Since its founding in the year 4233 of the Nine Provinces calendar, the spirit sword clan has been producing first-class martial arts talent. Two thousand years later, the clan, which adheres to the principles of peace and spiritual development, seeks to find new disciples by holding a grand tournament. One of these candidates is 12-year-old Wang Lu.