Category Archives: News

It’s Never Too Early to Talk About Spring Anime!

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Even though the winter anime season has just begun, the intertubes are already ablaze with anticipation for the upcoming spring season, fueled largely by the charts released by The Cart Driver and Cowboy Bimbop. Since anticipation makes the heart grow fonder, I’ve decided to speculate on which shows will catch my fancy this spring. Of course, since all I have to go on is a thumbnail and plot summary, everything I say here is little more than an educated guess… so don’t take it TOO seriously. I’m sure I’ll be adding and dropping shows to this list once I see the actual trailers.

My picks are below the break. Tell me yours in the comment section!

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Second Hokago no Pleiades Trailer Released

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The second trailer for the new Gainax-Subaru magical girl astronomy anime has been posted on YouTube.

I have to say, this trailer has a bit more substance than the previous “OMG CUTE GIRLS” version. I had originally written Hokago off a a cynical, moe-pandering corporate tie-in, but this trailer has lit a small spark of hope that this will be something worth watching. Gainax, I’m counting on you!

Hokago no Pleiades Trailer Released

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The trailer for the new Gainax-Subaru magical girl astronomy anime has been posted on YouTube.

Apparently, it’s going to premier on February 1st as a “High-DEF YouTube Exclusive.”

So, does this ONA have the cajones to go up against Shaft’s magical girl offering, Madoka Magica? I’m not so sure. Shaft’s show has grimdark master Shinbo behind it, whereas Gainax’s feels like MagiPoka mixed with K-ON!. And with a blatant corporate sponsership thrown into the mix, I’m betting Hokago will be another lackluster offering from the studio that brought us such turds as He Is My Master and Hanamaru Kindergarten.

Hey, not every Gainax show can be a genre-busting masterpiece. Just grit your teeth and wait for PSG season two.

Bakacast – My Motorcycle Can’t Be This Sexy

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On this episode of Bakacast, we praise yet another one of Hasbro’s new TV shows, Transformers: Prime. But before that, we all discuss the details of the content-restriction bill that the Tokyo Metropolitan Government passed recently, also known as the “anime ban.” Not because we think we think we’re breaking the news, but because we’d like to help calm down all the people positing end-of-the-anime-world scenarios.

After that, we go to our normal reviews, which contain more rants than usual thanks to Kirino’s absurd “apology,” Samurai Girl‘s hilarious thoughts on love, and Iron Man‘s writing staff proving they have no idea how a plot is supposed to work. Oh, and I guess we answer a Twitter question wherein we reveal how terrible we are at casting live-action adaptations of anime.

We cover:

  • Transformers: Prime #1-5
  • OreImo #11
  • Panty & Stocking #11
  • Iron Man #11
  • Squid Girl #10
  • Otome Youkai Zakuro #11
  • Star Driver #11

[This album art brought to you by ka-ju, who is very talented at drawing giant robots.]

Minako Kotobuki’s Sharp Galapagos Ad

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With “Irony,” the opening theme from OreImo, playing in the background. Minako Kotobuki, (Tsumugi Kotobuki in K-ON!) introduces us to the new Sharp Galapagos, a media tablet, that according to the video can be used anywhere to do just about anything. The tablet went on sale in Japan on Friday.

In this video she gives us her feedback on the device. It looks like she’s having a great time too. Now a lot of us don’t understand Japanese, but with Minako as the sales representative, I do believe the Galapagos will be a smashing hit. I wonder if there’s an English version?

Panty & Stocking OST Sneak Peek

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There is no doubt that Panty & Stocking has a great soundtrack. In my opinion, we have not been graced with such epic anime music since the halcyon days of Macross Frontier. Fans of the show have been so desperate to get their hands on this music that they’ve resorted to using Audacity to remove the voice tracks from the show’s transformation scenes, just to get their “Fly Away Now” fix.

I guess Gainax likes seeing us suffer, as they’ve decided to tantalize us with this little preview of the upcoming OST release.

Much to the chagrin of everyone, the actual soundtrack does not come out until December 29th. You can preorder it from CDJapan here.

So, any guesses as to who this mysterious Corset character is?

Nichijou Episode 0 Trailer Revealed

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A PV for Kyoani’s newest project Nichijou (Everyday in English) has been released. This trailer is for “Episode 0,” an OAD that will be bundled with the sixth volume of the manga which goes on sale in March. A full television series directed by the prolific Tatsuya Ishihara is scheduled for some undisclosed point in the future.

As I suspected earlier, this anime looks a lot like Azumanga Diaoh mixed with Lucky Star. Under Kyoani’s tutelage, this odd combination just might prove to be a successful one.

Nichijou’s plot sypnopsis:

While the title suggests a story of simple, everyday school life, the content is more the opposite. The setting is a strange school where you may see the principal wrestle a deer or a robot’s arm hide a rollcake. However there are still normal stories, like making a card castle or taking a test you didn’t study for. The art style is cute but mixes with extreme expressions and action sequences for surprising comedy bits.

Via Moetron

Bakacast – Live From Cybertron

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In this robot-tastic episode of Bakacast, me and my team of podcasters-in-disguise bring back the news segment to praise Ken Akamatsu’s new online manga initiative and express our concerns for its viability. Then we move our convoy on to the reviews, where the good shows are suddenly bad, the bad shows are suddenly really good, and Squid Girl continues to be the most consistently fun show of the season.

Go figure.

Oh, yeah, and I guess there are some Twitter questions where I admit to writing Final Fantasy fanfiction, Jon accidentally encourages me to imagine myself as part of an incestuous relationship between video game characters, and we unanimously decide that Evangeline A.K. McDowell is awesome.

The anime we cover are:

  • OreImo #7
  • Panty & Stocking #7
  • Otome Youkai Zakuro #7
  • Samurai Girls #7
  • Iron Man #6 & 7
  • Squid Girl #6
  • Star Driver #7

The ending song for this episode is brought to you by JAM Project being awesome.

Obligatory Links
Larry’s Fanfiction
Mor3ndo’s Blog

Video Game Sequel to “Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya” Announced

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Don’t you think it’s been a while now since we had some real Haruhi news? I mean REAL NEWS, not like the odd fart about how some random cinema in Hawaii or California will be showing The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya months after Japan forgot about it. Since I’m not in Hawaii or California, that kind of drivel has no appeal to me whatsoever. The fact that I’m endlessly waiting on someone to give us a DVD release date for Disappearance is beginning to destroy what little interest I have remaining in the Haruhi series. Now I see on ANN that the production team behind the Disappearance movie are making a PSP and PS3 “wandering adventure” game oh-so-typically named The Reminiscence of Haruhi Suzumiya. It’s set immediately after the ending of the movie, and features all the original seiyuus. Hello? What about the DVD?

This annoys me. Us English-speaking folk haven’t even seen the movie yet and already there are sequels appearing on the horizon. All we know is that the Disappearance movie will be released on DVD sometime in the spring of 2011, probably AFTER the game comes out.

*sigh*

I guess I could go on and on about how the people controlling the Haruhi franchise have repeatedly, in my opinion, pushed the limits of the fanbase, but I know its just a waste of time. Besides, its all been said before.

So if you are a Haruhi fan, can read and speak Japanese, and have already seen The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, then you may rejoice; you will have a new game to play sometime next year. I’ll be the one probably still waiting to watch the damn movie.

Bakacast – My Little Sister Isn’t On This Podcast

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Don’t be alarmed by our avant-garde intro! Do not attempt to adjust your iPod! We control the vertical and the horizontal! We will take you on a journey to–

Okay, not really. We just wanted to have a little fun, possibly at the expense of our audience’s sanity.

Anyway, we finish up our first impressions of the new season’s anime on this episode: the longest one in Bakacast history! Which means that, yes, we don’t get around to Twitter questions for the second week in a row. But we do squeeze in a discussion about ANN’s suspiciously vague reporting on their OreImo simulcast gaffe, we cover a lot of anime:

We didn’t get around to Star Driver (not everyone was able to fit it into their viewing schedule), but rest assured that we’ll still be covering it.

[Music used in this episode is “Voyager Theme Chipmix” by ko0x.]