Apparently the number one problem with the show was that there wasn’t enough fan-service in the opening and end credits.

They fixed that.

[Update: speaking of fan-service, Nova, Lore, Elza, and Lam are not in the novels. Lore is anime-original, and the other three were added in the manga. Actually, it looks like there are two different manga running, one a straight adaptation of the novels, and the other with extra service. Airi’s bunny-suit is straight from the books, though, and “somehow” Fino and Sara both end up in them as well.]

Via the never-safe-for-work Sankaku Complex. It would be nice if they could skip the jarring tone shifts of the first one. Our Hero deserves a break, and his new home could use some more exploring. If they pick up after the end of the first series, I suspect they’ll try for something like Watt-Evans’ The Wizard and the War Machine.

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

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

(…poor man’s spoiler-hiding ahead…)

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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.

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

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

“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.]

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”.