Anime

Sato's Marika avatar


While checking up on Mouretsu Pirates movie news, I happened to spot director Sato’s twitter profile pic.

Kaizoku no jikan da!

Gatchaman Crowds: Katze's fatal mistake


I hereby predict that the unbeatable Berg-Katze will be undone by…

(…poor man’s spoiler-hiding ahead…)

more...

Pretty sure it's a hit...


The Gatchaman Crowds Blu-ray box set is currently the best-selling anime on Amazon Japan, and the ninth best-seller in all genres. Four months before it comes out.

Interestingly, the only merchandise available besides the music CDs are cosplay school uniforms and wigs. You too can be Hajime or Sugane, or have hair like Joe. A “design works” book is coming in October, but the usual quick tie-in merchandise is missing.

Gatchaman Crowds question...


Will more cosplayers choose LOAD-kun or Utsutsu-chan?

Gloomy and Trap

(setting aside the issue of being arrested for faithful Utsutsu-chan cosplay…)

Name that warrior...


“If it weren’t for her plump breasts, most opponents would probably mistake her for a man. Therefore she dressed daringly, exposing most of her flesh. Her skin was swarthy, with a strange design inked on her left cheek. An informed observer would recognize the design as a warding spell of the Arido hill tribes.”

That settles the question of why competent women in fantasy show so much skin: they’re feminist pioneers, working twice as hard to prove they’re just as good as men!

[this message brought to you by my attempt to figure out the word 呪払い, which apparently should be read as “noroibarai”; it’s not explained anywhere, but is in common use in the online fantasy community to refer to warding magic. See also here.]

Girls and guns


So, in addition to Preferential Measure Organization Stella Women’s Academy High School Division Class C3 (which apparently flopped as a manga, but is one of the few watchable anime this season), there’s at least one other schoolgirl survival-game manga running, this one successfully: Survival Game Club.

I had happened to pick up a volume of this one when I was Osaka, and while the general idea is the same, this one opens a bit differently, with New Girl At School getting her introduction to the world of survival games by being rescued from a train molester by a stylishly-dressed but mildly insane blonde schoolgirl carrying what looks like a Beretta 9mm pistol. …who is promptly hauled off by the station employees, to her loud protests. Of course, this is the beginning of a new life for Our Heroine, in more of a wacky-antics universe than C3.

I was reminded of this series when I happened to click the Google translate button while looking at reviews of C3, and saw a more hilarious than usual mistranslation. The official title of Survival Game Club is さばげぶっ! (saba-ge-bu). Google helpfully translated this as “Sabage Bukkake!”. I can only be grateful that they didn’t go with “savage”.

Oh, good, I wasn't imagining that


Separated at birth: Pinion and Louie

Not just the same seiyuu, pretty much the same personality as well.

Popular sizes...


Interesting that the Golden Ghost Ship makes an appearance in this size comparison (part of announcing the 1/40000-scale model of the ship), right up there with the Enterprise, the Yamato, Laputa, a Star Destroyer, etc.

The way this season’s going, though, I’m surprised it doesn’t include Gargantia. :-)

“Need a clue, take a clue,
 got a clue, leave a clue”