Add another property to the go90 streaming service from Aniplex USA as they’ve added the recent Durarara!! X2 series there for viewers. The full thirty-six episode series is available to viewers in its English language dub form to reach a wider audience and can be found here. Of course, having this series but not the original series is a little problematic as getting into this one without the foundation of the first may not work for a lot of people.

The main staff includes Takahiro Omori directing based on scripts by Noboru Takagi and character designs by Takahiro Kishida. Animation production is being done by studio Shuka, their first production, instead of Brains Base which handled the first series.

Plot concept: A pitch-black headless motorcyclist who roams the city?! High-tension suspense and action are taking over Tokyo’s Ikebukuro District! Warped romances and friendships – and plenty of hidden secrets – lie behind these big city walls!

The fall 2017 season has some interesting shows running such as Recovery of an MMO Junkie and Crunchyroll is doing a good job in promoting it. They now have out a preview for the second episode that will arrive this Friday, October 13th, 2017, at 11:00 am ET time. Availability is a bit wider than normal as it’s open to viewers worldwide outside of China and Japan, giving Asian viewers a better chance to get in on it than they usually do. The show is coming from director Saori Den based on the series composition by Kazuyuki Fudeyasu. Senbon Umishima is handling the character designs while Signal. MD is handling the animation production for it.

The Japanese cast includes Mamiko Noto as Moriko Morioka, Takahiro Sakurai as Yuuta Sakurai, Ryouta Suzuki as Hayashi, Reina Ueda as Lily, Tomoaki Maeno as Homare Koiwai, Takuma Terashima as Kazuomi Fujimoto, Yuuichi Nakamura as Kanbe, Yuuka Aisaka as Lilac, Takanori Yagi as Himeralda, and Kazuhiro Sunseki as Pokotarou.

Megumi Nakajima is performing the opening theme song “Saturday Night Question” while Yuuka Aisaka is performing the ending theme song “Hikari, Hikari.”

The original manga from Rin Kokuyou began in 2013 and has two volumes released and is on hiatus due to the author’s health.

The series recently got its home video side detailed as the ten episode series will have an eleventh episode that arrives in a Blu-ray box set that lands on December 8th, 2017.

Plot Concept: Moriko Morioka is a 30-year-old single NEET woman. After dropping out from reality, she has taken off in search for a fulfilling life and ended up in a net game or “netoge.” In the netoge world, she began her new life as a refreshing and handsome character named Hayashi. While starting out as a beginner, a pretty character named Lily reached out to help her. Meanwhile, in the real world, awaits a shocking encounter with a good-looking elite company employee, a mysterious blue-eyed blonde.

We learned earlier this year about the anime adaptation for the “anime cross-link role-playing game” that’s part of the smartphone collaboration with Gust with Augmented Reality Girls Trinary. Toei Entertainment is handling the home video release for it and has scheduled a January 10th, 2018 debut for it priced at 21,600 yen. It’ll collect the six acts from it with extras that include the clean opening and closing, promos, and five music videos. An audio drama CD will be included as well as a booklet.

Akira Tsuchiya of Gust is overseeing the project with Itsuro Kawasaki directing it. Tsuchiya and Kazu Hyodo are handling the series composition while Tomoyuki Shitaya is handling the character design adaptation with Masakazu Yamazaki. It’s being animated at studio feel.

• Mariko Takeda as Tsubame Ōse
• Emi Hirayama as Kagura Uzuki
• Yuki Yagi as Gabriella Talinska
• Mitsuki Nakae as Ayami Kunimasa
• Ami Hagihara as Miyabi Koigasaki
• Masumi Asano
• Houko Kuwashima
• Haruna Iwasaki
• Ryohei Arai
• Atsushi Abe

Plot Concept: The story centers on five girls who fight with a special mission in the plane of existence on the other side of the screen. The setting of the story is the metropolitan area of the Japanese capital, after it was beset by a certain abnormality.

[Source: Augmented Reality Girls Trinary]

Funimation’s distributing the Mob Psycho 100 anime series on DVD/BD combo form for Crunchyroll with it set to land on December 5th, 2017. With it set for a regular edition at $64.98 and a limited edition at $84.98, the distributor has now brought out a new 30-second commercial/promotional spot for the release that explores the basics of it and gives fans a sample of the dub that was originally streamed during the simulcast run.

Extras for the set includes the Mob Psycho Shorts, Promo Video, Flipbook Video, Commercials, Textless Closing Song, and Trailers.

The series was animated by Bones and was directed by Yuzuru Tachikawa based on the series composition by Hiroshi Seko. Character designs were done by Yoshimichi Kameda with Kenji Kawai doing the music for it.

The Japanese cast includes Setsuo Ito as Shigeo Kageyama and Takahiro Sakurai as Arataka Rengei. MOB CHOIR will sing the opening “99″ while ALL OFF will handle the ending theme song “Refrain Boy.”

The manga comes from creator ONE which began back in 2012 and has fourteen volumes out at this time.

Plot concept: Shigeo Kageyama (a.k.a. “Mob”) is a 8th grader with psychic abilities. He could bend spoons and lift objects with his mind from a young age, but he slowly began to withhold from using his abilities in public due to the negative attention he received. Now, the only thing he wants is to become friends with a girl in his class, Tsubomi. With his psychic “mentor” (who has no psychic powers), he continues his daily life, attempting to realize his purpose in life.

The summer 2017 anime series Princess Principal has Bandai Visual handling the home video release for it and they’ve set a familiar schedule for it. With the second volume coming up in a couple of weeks we now have a look at the main and alternate covers for the first volume of the series. While they’re leaning more toward Blu-ray only releases, this one is getting a DVD release as well. The twelve episode series is getting a six-volume release that began on September 27th, 2017 where the DVDs are priced at 6,000 yen and the Blu-ray’s at 7,000 yen.

It was directed by Masaki Tachibana based on the series composition by Ichiro Okouchi. Yuki Akiya served as the character designer with Kimitake Nishio serving as the chief animation director. Studio 3Hz and Actus handled the animation production.

The Japanese cast includes Ayaka Imamura as Ange, Akira Sekine as Princess, You Taichi as Dorothy, Akari Kageyama as Beatrice, Nozomi Furuki as Chise, Takayuki Sugou as L, Miyuki Sawashiro as 7, Takumi Yamazaki as Colonel, Takaya Hashi as Duke Normandy, and Yuuko Iida as Gazelle.

The opening theme song is “The Other Side of the Wall” by Void_Chords feat.MARU while several of the main voice actresses will perform the ending theme song “A Page of My Story.”

Plot Concept: The stage is set during the 19th century London, in its capital where a wall divides the east and west of the Kingdom of Albion. Five high school girls, who enrolled in the prestigious Queens May Fair School, are involved in spy activities that involve disguise, infiltration, car chase, and more. These girls take advantage of their special abilities and fly around the shadow world.

Princess Principal Japanese Volume 2 Covers

Princess Principal Japanese Volume 1 Cover B

Princess Principal Japanese Volume 1 Cover A

[Source: Princess Principal]

The fall season gets further underway this week and the list grows as to what’s out there to enjoy. Crunchyroll’s topping the list there and what we know will be out today are new episodes of these series that are listed with last week’s episodes unlocked for free with:

• 6:25am - BLACK CLOVER
• 7:00am - SHONEN ASHIBE GO! GO! GOMA-CHAN
• 8:55am - THE IDOLM@STERCINDERELLA GIRLS THEATER (WEB)
• 8:55am - THE IDOLM@STERCINDERELLA GIRLS THEATER (TV)
• 11:00am - SENGOKU NIGHT BLOOD
• 11:30am - JUNI TAISEN：ZODIAC WAR
• 12:30pm - FOOD WARS! THE THIRD PLATE
• 1:00pm - LOVE IS LIKE A COCKTAIL
• 2:05pm - MAGICAL CIRCLE GURU-GURU

Funimation has two simuldubs up that are close to the end of their runs with:

HiDive doesn’t have anything on their schedule for today.

TOHO has announced their plans for the fall 2017 anime series Himouto! Umaru-chan R and it’s a pretty familiar setup. The series is getting a six-volume release on DVD and Blu-ray with the DVD releases priced at 5,800 yen and the Blu-ray releases at 6,800 yen. The series begins its release on December 13th, 2017. Check the chart below for the full schedule and known extras.

The anime adaptation of SankakuHead’s manga series will be directed by Masahiko Ohta based on the scripts by Takashi Aoshima along with character designs by Aya Takano and that it’ll be done at Dogakoba. Ohta, Aoshima and sound director Yasunori Ebina all worked together on Yuruyuri and a few of them on Kotoura-san.

The main cast is set to include Aimi Tanaka as Umaru Doma, Yurina Furukawa as Sylphynford Tachibana, Haruka Shiraishi as Kirie Motoba, Akari Kageyama as Nana Ebina, Kenji Nojima as Taihei Doma, Tetsuya Kakihara as Alex, Hiroki Yasumoto as Bonba and Ami Koshimizu as Kano.

The original manga series has six volumes to its name so far. That property has been running since 2013 in Weekly Young Jump.

Plot concept: The sibling gag comedy manga centers around Umaru, Taihei’s little sister who boasts beautiful looks as well as prowess in both school and sports; however, “Himouto” (beautiful little sister) has a certain secret.

Himouto Umaru-chan R Japanese Volume 1 Cover

Himouto Umaru-chan Japanese Volume 6 Cover

Himouto Umaru-chan Japanese Volume 5 Cover

It’s a wonderful day today as it’s a new comic book day! This week sees a lot of ongoings and new books, landing, such as AfterShock with more Alters and Archie Comics delivering an Archie Halloween Special and Your Pal Archie. BOOM! Studios is pretty much all ongoings with some specials while Dark Horse delivers more Briggs Land and a teaser of Berger Books. Dynamite Entertainment sticks to ongoings and a few trades while IDW launches Wormwood, Gentleman Corpse. Image Comics is similar with a lot of ongoings but they also slide out The Family Trade and God Complex as debuts.

DC Comics keeps things moving with a lot of fun ongoings and more Dark Knights: Metal but they also have a new Ragman series launching and the debut of The Wild Storm: Michael Cray.

Marvel Comics serves up a new Falcon series this week but otherwise sticks to a mix of trades and ongoings alongside a few more Primer Pages releases.

On the Star Wars side, The Screaming Citadel gets its trade treatment while Doctor Aphra gets the latest single out.

On the manga front, Tokyopop has some Disney Manga material landing and Seven Seas has Lord Marksman and Vanadis with its latest volume.

A girl’s gotta do what it takes to make it in a man’s world!

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS – October 11th, 2017 – J-Novel Club LLC is proud to announce the acquisition of their first light novel series from Earthstar Entertainment’s Earthstar Novels line, “Walking My Second Path in Life”. The first half of volume 1 is available now at j-novel.club for Members, as well as a free ~40 page preview of the series. The E-Book for volume 1 will go on sale in December of this year. This is J-Novel Club’s first license from publisher Earthstar Novels, a part of Earthstar Entertainment, and the now the 4th publishing partner for J-Novel Club.

Walking my Second Path in Life has 2 volumes out in Japan, and is ongoing. The light novel is a print edition of the popular web novel still being posted to Syosetsu ni Narou (Let’s Be Novelists), and has gotten high praise for its great female protagonist. It’s the story of a young princess, married off into a terrible situation, and how she pretends to be a boy to train as a knight! It’s sure to put a smile on your face, and also happens to be the first series on J-Novel Club with a female main character! We hope it’s the start of many more.

J-Novel Club Membership is only $4.50 a month for an annual membership, and gives you a new chapter a week from all 14 of our ongoing series, including “Outbreak Company”, “Clockwork Planet”, “Invaders of the Rokujouma!?”, “If It’s for My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord”, “Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest”, “Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash”, “The Faraway Paladin”, “In Another World With My Smartphone”, “Bluesteel Blasphemer”, “Mixed Bathing in Another Dimension”, “How a Realistic Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom”, “Paying to Win in a VRMMO”, “I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse”, “My Little Sister Can Read Kanji”, and “My Big Sister Lives in a Fantasy World”.

Announced Title List:

Walking My Second Path in Life by Otaku de Neet, Illustrations by Kurodeko
わたしはふたつめの人生をあるく！ Worldwide English Digital Rights

I am the first Princess of D- you know what, nevermind, you’ve probably never even heard of the place.

Apparently, my father had the amazing idea of marrying me off to King Roy, the famous “Emperor of Ice” of the great Kingdom of Orstoll.

Isn’t that great?

No, it’s not great at all!

––

Fie, first princess of Deeman, finds herself isolated and stranded in the foreign Kingdom of Orstoll all by her lonesome – effectively having been wed off as a dowry gift in accessory to her sister, Princess Fielle’s marriage.

Trapped and isolated in a small back garden that once used to be a storehouse, Fie lives her days without purpose, and eventually without food – after the only member of her entourage, the chef, resigns.

Just as Fie was about to give in to despair, she finds a pamphlet advertising a Squire’s test for the Royal Knights of Orstoll – beginning her journey of friendship, hard work, and guts, along with masquerading as a boy to walk her second path in life.

What will Fie find along the way?

Madman Entertainment has set their plans for the Genocidal Organ film as they have scheduled a January 10th, 2017 release for it in Australia. It’s getting separate DVD and Blu-ray releases that will be priced at $29.95 and $34.95 respectively. We learned recently that Clifford Chapin directed the dub for it based on the script by Deborah Crane. The cast includes:

• Josh Grelle as Clavis
• Ricco Fajardo as John Paul
• Jeannie Tirado as Lucie
• Ian Sinclair as Williams
• Christopher R. Sabat as Rockwell
• Clifford Chapin as Alex
• David Wald as Lucius
• Joel McDonald as Leland

Shuko Murase was involved in working on the script while redjuice provided the original character designs for it. EGOIST is on board to do the theme song for it. No run time has been revealed for the film yet. The production was taken over by a new studio called Geno Studio.

The cast includes Yūichi Nakamura as Clavis Shepherd, Satoshi Mikami as Williams, Yuuki Kaji as Alex, Kaito Ishikawa as Realand, Akio Ohtsuka as Rockwell, Sanae Kobayashi as Lucia and Takahiro Sakurai as John Paul.

Project Itoh is the pen name of Satoshi Ito, a 34-year-old science fiction novelist in Japan who died in 2009 but had some strong works. Some of his works are being brought to life in anime form with Genocidal Organ, Empire of Corposes and Harmony, all three of which have been released in North America by the book imprint of Viz Media, Haikasoru. Ito wrote for only two years before his death but left behind some fascinating works to be adapted.

Plot Concept: The war on terror exploded, literally, the day Sarajevo was destroyed by a homemade nuclear device. The leading democracies transformed into total surveillance states, and the developing world has drowned under a wave of genocides. The mysterious American John Paul seems to be behind the collapse of the world system, and it’s up to intelligence agent Clavis Shepherd to track John Paul across the wreckage of civilizations, and to find the true heart of darkness—a genocidal organ.

One of my favorite things back when I counted myself as a fan of the X-Men properties was when we got the spinoff book for Excalibur as it had an interesting cast and kept itself mostly separate from the rest of the ongoing stories for the mutants of the Marvel Comics world. Marvel’s looking to get the team back in action for a least a little bit with an X-Men Gold annual arriving on January 2018 written by Marc Guggenheim (X-Men Gold) and Leah Williams (Secret Empire: Brave New World) with art by Alitha E. Martinez (Black Panther: World of Wakanda.

“Since the launch of ResurrXtion, fans have been wondering when the classic Excalibur team would come together again,” said series editor Chris Robinson. “With this Annual, Marc, Leah, and Alitha have painstakingly put together a love letter to them and the classic series we’re all still talking about!”

The release will come with a cover by Excalibur co-creator Alan Davis which is just the icing on the cake.

Plot Concept: The original Excalibur team will reunite for an exciting adventure that both long-time fans and new fans can enjoy. But getting the gang back together proves to have its own challenges…and who is the new Braddock bundle of joy?

After having it on the schedule a couple of years ago before pulling it, Media Blasters has lined up a November 20th, 2017 release date for the uncut version of Kite on Blu-ray. As we’re now getting closer to that they’ve revealed the cover artwork for it that uses the familiar and fairly iconic key visual for it. The 51-minute OVA will be a bilingual release that comes with a cell art gallery and storyboards as extras.

Plot concept: She may be cute. She may be young. She may seem innocent and naive, but don’t be fooled. She’s a cold-blooded killer, and if you’re on the wrong side of the law, you may be her next target.

After being orphaned at a young age, her parents victims of a brutal double murder, Sawa was taken in by the detective assigned to her case. Not content to just watch as the imperfect justice system let more and more criminals go loose every day, he’s decided to train her to be his instrument of justice. After all, who’d suspect a pretty college student of being a deadly vigilante?

We learned a couple of weeks ago that Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi is in some level of talks with Warner Bros. about taking on the Akira project for the studio as they’re really intent on making this happen after years of development and work across the Pacific.  What this round of talks has revealed is that they’re still looking to do it as a two-film project with the original six-volume omnibus run of the manga being split roughly in half as needed.

Waititi has now talked about it a bit with the folks at IGN that he has been approached to do the project and had a few things to say about it.  The director hasn’t confirmed taking on the position by any means and the dialogue was a little cagey as one would expect. When asked about his thoughts on the property and how he would want to adapt it if he does take it on:

“I actually love the books. Love the movie, but I would not do a remake of the movie. I would do an adaptation of the books,” Waititi said.

When asked about the fairly regular rumors about how casting would be done with it as we’ve seen a whole lot of names attached over the years that completely changes the original narrative, he replied saying, “Yeah. actually Asian teenagers would be the way to do it for me and probably no, not, like no name, I mean sort of unfound, untapped talent. Yeah, I’d probably want to take it a bit back more towards the books.”

Plot Concept: The lives of two streetwise teenage friends, Tetsuo and Kaneda, change forever when dormant paranormal abilities begin to waken in Tetsuo, who becomes a target for a shadowy government operation, a group who will stop at nothing to prevent another catastrophe like that which leveled Tokyo.

© Ken Akamatsu / Kodansha / UQ Production Committee

With the manga for Ken Akamatsu’s series UQ Holder! moving right along and the anime adaptation out, Kodansha Japan has put out a new promo to highlight the new series as well as a reminder about the manga and how much there is of that. Yousuke Suzuki directing it based on the series composition by Ken Akatsu and Shogo Yasutagawa. Masahiro Fujii is on board with character designs while JC Staff will be handling the animation.

The Japanese cast includes Yuka Takakura as Touta Konoe, Yuki Matsuoka as Yukihime, Yūki Hirose as Kurōmaru Tokisaka, Rina Satou as Negi Springfield, Ai Kayano as Kirie Sakurame, Yui Ogura as Karin, Sayaka Harada as Shinobu Yūki, and Akari Kitō as Mizore Yukihiro.

Plot Concept: Negi Springfield, the boy wizard of the hit manga Negima!, fought and won many battles. Now it is decades later and Negi’s grandson(!), a little boy named Touta, dreams of leaving his quiet village and heading to the City. But first he must defeat his teacher… the immortal vampire, Evangeline! Witness the dramatic beginning of a futuristic battle fantasy

© Oku Hiroya · Kodansha / Inuyashiki Production Committee

The plans for an adaptation of the Inuyashiki manga from Hiroya Oku of Gantz fame have been moving along for some time and as the show is now just about to premiere, Kodansha Japan has brought out a new and final promo for the series that also highlights the origins. The series will stream exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in Japan and through Anime Strike overseas. Qaijiff will be singing the ending theme song for it with “Ai wo Ishiete Kureta Kimi e.”

The previously announced Japanese cast includes Fumiyo Kohinata as Ichirō Inuyashiki, Nijirō Murakami as Hiro Shishigami, Sumire Uesaka as Mari Inuyashiki, and Sumire Moroboshi as Shion Watanabe.

The property is getting both a live-action film and an anime TV series. The project previously set Keiichi Satou as the chief director with Shuhei Yabuta serving as the hands-on director at MAPPA. Hiroshi Seko is on board for the series composition and Naoyuki Onda is going to handle the character design.

Kodansha Comics is releasing the manga in print and digital form with Crunchyroll also doing some simulpub work on it. There are currently seven volumes published as of this fall in Japan with Oku indicating that he has it set for a ten-volume run total.

Plot Concept: Ichiro Inuyashiki is down on his luck. While only 58 years old, his geriatric looks often have him written off as a pathetic old man by the world around him and he’s constantly ignored and disrespected by his family despite all that he’s done to support them. On top of everything else, his doctor has revealed that he has cancer and it appears that he has little time left in this world. But just when it seems things couldn’t get any worse, a blinding light in the night sky strikes the earth where Ichiro stands. He later wakes up to find himself unscathed, but he soon starts to notice that there’s something…different about himself.

Manipulations from afar.

Creative Staff:
Story: Brian Wood
Art: Werther Dell’Edera
Colors: Lee Roughridge
Letterer: Nate Piekos of Blambot

What They Say:
When local cops arrive and shut off power and water to the Land, Grace knows its not a problem with the bribe money–it’s her husband Jim orchestrating her downfall.

Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The Lone Wolves run of the Briggs Land series has been pretty good in getting us new views of how the place works and the people involved. Brian Wood excels at these kinds of stories, not going deep in a way but cutting to the core with few words and actions to show who they are. With this issue we get the next arc underway and it’s one that brings in Werther Dell’Edera on the art duties. It does feel very weird not to have Mack Chater’s artwork here but Dell’Edera won me over recently elsewhere and his style fits in perfectly here to give us that kind of rough and angular style that just feels like it speaks to what the subject matter is. Having Lee Roughridge continuing on with color work definitely helps to give it continuity and that goes a long way here.

While we’ve seen what Grace has had to deal with since taking control of the place from Jim, Jim’s role has been fairly well reduced after the initial impact of it all. She’s had plenty to deal with but now that things have gotten even more public with the hikers’ situation and shots fired, he’s intent on reclaiming things as it’s likely going to impede his own release from prison. That has him working with his childhood friend of Laird to work things so that Briggs Land is really starting to suffer under Grace’s leadership. With some well-placed bribes thanks to new funding while in prison, the power and water are cut from the place and that sets tensions high. There’s some amusement to be had in that they were basically bribing police and others to look the other way for years as they siphoned onto outside sources but you know they worked it out in their heads that it was their’s for the taking anyway.

What becomes instructive with this installment is that we see how Jim ended up in prison, or least the setup for it. Stepping back some twenty years in time, he and a young Noah are in DC where the President will be giving a speech outside near the National Mall. That has him setting up to take a shot at him and he’s using Noah to ensure that they can get a good look at things, Noah unknowing about it. It doesn’t go well to be sure but seeing how that impacted Noah over the years – and his having to walk back home from DC by himself, certainly changed his views to some degree. It’s interesting seeing the younger Jim in this form and how he approaches what he’s doing and while I hope we get a few more blanks filled in on this I suspect it’s going to be left to the reader’s imagination as to the why and details of what Jim was hoping to accomplish and for what reason.

In Summary:
Events are moving quickly with Jim pulling the strings with a bit of help and seeing how fast it does escalate is intriguing. There are a lot of wheels in motion to keep a place like this going and Jim and others are able to knock on it quickly and easily while Grace is going to struggle with it because of recent events. Wood’s script keeps things moving right along and I really enjoyed what Dell’Edera brought to the page as it fits with what Mack Chater has done but still retains his own style and quirks that drew me to his material. This arc could shape up to be my favorite of the run if it capitalizes on a lot of things that it can draw on so I’m pretty hopeful with it.

Grade: B+

Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: October 11th, 2017
MSRP: $3.99

The latest ratings have come in for original cable shows this past Saturday night and we’re not seeing a lot of movement in most areas, though a surprise or two along the way. Dragon Ball Z continues to be the big granddaddy of this all but it was bested this week with Dragon Ball Super leaping ahead with an 80,000 viewer increase to keep it well ahead of the former. Most of the other shows are in similar ranges to last week with Jojo’s moving from 613,000 to 638,000 and Lupin going fro 522,000 to 513,000 viewers. Gundam holds up well at 12:30 with 576,000 viewers as well so the majority of the chart is fairly steady with some mild variant outside of the super Super performance.

Top 25 original cable shows among adults 18-49 for Saturday, Oct. 7, 2017

Source: The Nielsen Company

The power of belief.

Creative Staff:
Story: Mark Evanier
Art: Sergio Aragones
Colors: John Ercek, Tom Luth
Letterer: Stan Sakai

What They Say:
Groo finds himself the unwitting pawn in a game that involves a newly-found land filled with gold. There are those who think, ”How do we convert their gold to our gold?” and also ”How do we convert their gods to our gods?” How does Groo figure into all of this and, more importantly, how does he create doom and destruction for all? It’s brought to you (as usual) by the award-winning team of Sergio Aragones and Mark Evanier, with the help of Stan Sakai and Tom Luth.

Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With this issue the Groo: Play of the Gods arc ends and hopefully everything related to the gods for a while. Though there’s been fun bits along the way the parallel arcs have gotten a bit overbearing as so much of it just felt drawn out. Mark Evanier certain skewers in the way he always does and that makes for some fun to be sure but the back and forth nature just didn’t click for me this time around. What helped, as always, is that even if the story doesn’t totally grab you, you still have some great layouts and artwork to check out as Sergio Aragones has always delivered. There are so many fun little details to dive into with each issue to see in the backgrounds that it’s simply a delight from that alone.

The finale works with the concept that everyone is essentially stranded at this point, though technically not Groo and obviously not the natives. This leads to some amusement as they find him to be very wise and engaging and end up believing that “his” god in Diothos is worthy of attention, so they get on a mad dash to build a temple to him. Groo, for his part, is oblivious to much of this and is just enjoying himself, such as playing games or reveling in the way that the locals have discovered how to make cheese dip for him in order to honor and please him. While you know Groo will ruin everything here eventually if he stays, this is one of those rare times where he seems to have worked things out well enough to be able to not cause too much trouble and make out well. At least until his desire to fight surfaces again

A lot of the fun is in watching how Ahax and the others try to figure out things to their advantage. While the priests are distracted by the temple building (and lack of torture to get it accomplish), Ahax has his ship getting closer while the rest have discovered where he got the gold from. The coming together of a plan is a given and while Ahax does do his damndest to ensure that Groo won’t be a part of things in the wrong way it doesn’t work. It will almost never work. That’s almost a surety. But it’s delightful to watch how simple miscalculations undoes what Ahax and the others are doing. I do like how things wrap up in relation to the gods as well since it’s totally appropriate in that we get the introduction of a Groo-like god. I wish it had actually happened earlier in the run so that we could see the fallout from it here and now because I really don’t want to see the gods in Groo books for a good long time to come.

In Summary:
Groo: Play of the Gods ends like just about all Groo books do and there’s comfort in that. Well, technically they all end in a Rufferto one-page but you know what I mean. The gods side of this arc has its moments and certainly it’s comedy as we got to know all the local gods but it was almost filler in a lot of ways. Having that feeling on top of seeing the way that the main story with Groo and all those that sailed over interacted with a lot of repetition just made it less interesting as it progressed. There’s good material within it, just not consistently. I had fun with aspects of it but it’s almost something that feels like it might have worked better at two or maybe three issues with more judicious editing than four issues, or with more variety within it to get it to work at four issues. Most Groo fans will be pleased and we’ll definitely be looking forward to more adventures with our favorite cheese dip connoisseur.

Grade: B

Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: October 11th, 2017
MSRP: $3.99

Crunchyroll has another series added to their lineup this week that will be more on track next week with Onyankopon. The first episode of the series has gone live with new episodes coming out every Monday on the service at 1:05 pm ET for their members. Availability for it is strong as it’s available worldwide outside of Asia.

The series is directed by Sota Sugahara based on the scripts by Takeshi Onaka. Hikaru Suemasa handled the character designs.

Plot Concept: “I dance, therefore I am” West African sky-god Onyankopon saves high school girls with song and dance! Long ago, West African sky-god Onyankopon watched over humanity in their midst. But one day, as an elderly woman had been beating yam potatoes in a mortar, she accidentally hits whacks Onyankopon with the mallet, leaving her traumatized from the pain. Though she is now more wary of people, with the help of her underling spirits, whom she calls “Angels,” she continues to help humanity solve its problems.

Enter the latest twist.

Creative Staff:
Story: Lights
Art: Lights
Colors: Lights
Letterer: Lights

What They Say:
Despite the thrill and renewed sense of freedom she is feeling under the influence of her new and mysterious companion, En is forced to discover a dark truth about her ex-lover, Priest. It seems the boundaries of spirituality and her world as she knows it are beginning to blur.

Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
As we cross the halfway mark of this six issue series with this issue I still have no real idea what Skin & Earth is supposed to be about. Lights has presented an intriguing world but one that doesn’t have the foundations to hold it together. I like the designs and want to know the why and how of much of it because it is interesting but the lack of that combined with less than a well defined narrative has this kind of just floating from issue to issue where you’re somewhat lost on it. En’s time with Mitsuki shook things up the last time around but in this issue we again get burned by the lack of a firm world in trying to grasp what’s going on as Mitsuki brings En to new places.

With plans for a bit of revenge on Priest for the way that he’s destroyed En’s heart so totally and fully, that has Mitsuki working with her to enact it. To En’s surprise, however, that has them using the bypass tunnel to get outside. There’s curious aspects to this but what I like is that Mitsuki knows of a smuggler’s path that allows them to sneak into the pinks area to see how they live their lives. This has En talking about how Priest used to emulate them jokingly by draping his body over things with them always being so passed out but the reality is that when they do get into their pill popping modes they’re out for days because of it. It’s a surreal experience seeing them all passed out while wearing masks but it also doesn’t land because the world building is so bad combined with the uncertainty of who Mitsuki sees there that spooks her so much.

When we do get Mitsuki and En out in the wilds where we revisit where she and Priest used to go there are some decent moments as En laments the way she had so many good times here previously. Mitsuki and En have a decent enough time with the swimming, though the sudden bloody knee just feels weird (knee hats!) and then leading into the discovery of a gravestone while exploring the woods a bit and finding a path. This reveals things that… I don’t know. I mean, you can imagine that it means that En has discovered things of herself, that she may not be real, that this may all be a dream, or she’s some sort of clone or something, when they find a series of buried boxes in front of the marker. The book has done such a poor job structurally in connecting us to this world and how it operates that it just becomes a mess.

In Summary:
With two more issues to go after this I’m still feeling fairly lost with what it’s trying to accomplish. The series has some interesting things floating throughout it and I like Lights’ design work with the characters and visuals for the world but it’s not landing as a whole. Perhaps it’ll work better when read in full but it also has to function in monthly installments and it really is struggling there. The interesting moments can’t sustain it and instead just points out the weaknesses even more. Which just makes it all the more frustrating.

Grade: C-

Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: October 11th, 2017
MSRP: $3.99