Anime
Dear Funimation,
Abandoning the streaming rights to the Japanese version of a recent show while keeping the dub version online is not interesting to me. I just removed half a dozen recent shows from my watchlist because of that. I can still watch them on Crunchyroll, but your FireTV client actually works. If only you two were partners or something; oh, wait.
The Saga Continues...
Stop digging up dead idol singers and start stocking up on dried squid, because Zombieland Saga Revenge is coming!
Cop Craft episode 4
The OP and ED songs have been stuck in my head all week. I’ve rewatched episodes 1-3. I lightly skimmed the first light novel to see how faithful the anime is. I watched episode 4 when it came out this morning, then read the epilogue to see what they changed (mostly same events, different actions and implications; Tirana’s outfit was not described in the book…).
As expected, they finished off book 1. Unexpectedly, they finished it early and went right into book 2. All the other books are about 20% shorter than the first one, though, which means they’re either going to try to get all the way through book 4, or spend extra time on 2 and 3; not sure how either plan would work out based on how they handled this one.
It has some flaws (including the animation budget), but I like it.
Not a pick-up line (2)
Unrelated to this picture, the DanMemo mobile game is currently running bonus drama vignettes related to each episode of season 2 as they air.
Some of the many side stories in the game are focused around the waitresses at Bell’s favorite pub. They might collectively be called, “Is It Wrong To Force Level 4 Adventurers To Wait Tables In A Dungeon Town Restaurant?”.
Pro tip: grabass == permadeath.
Service Elf
Pet peeve: romanizations from the Japanese creator that don’t match their own text. For instance, the heroine of Cop Craft is named ティラナ, which is pronounced Tilana or Tirana, and that’s how everyone in the anime cast says it. But in the color art supplied with book one, it was written “Tilarna”, which makes that The Official Name.
I bought the Kindle edition of the novels on Amazon Japan, grabbed the
latest version of DeDRM and KindleUnpack, and dusted off my
Yomitori scripts (last updated
in 2013…) to extract the pictures and make the text easier to read. To
my surprise, the scripts mostly still worked, except for the one that
uses dviasm.py to optimize the furigana, a tool that no longer
handles uplatex output correctly (looks like I’ll have to switch to
dv2dt/dt2dv to molest DVI files now).
After the jump, the magic words are: “She’s 26 In Elf Years!”
Cop Craft
He’s a jaded chain-smoking detective out to avenge his partner.
She’s a loli knight elf with a chip on her shoulder.
THEY FIGHT CRIME.
From the author of FullMetal Panic! and Amagi Brilliant Park, with character designs by Range Murata (who also illustrated the light novels). The first two episodes were better than I expected, so I watched the third as soon as it was released on Funimation. There’s nothing terribly new here if you’ve heard of Alien Nation or Bright, but so far the execution looks solid, if a bit rushed. I doubt it will get as lively as the OP animation, however.
They’ve got 6 light novels of source material to work with for 12 episodes, so they shouldn’t run out. Just in case, though, the credits promise loli-elf-service, and episode 3 delivers a bit of it. Caveat: there are some gaps in the storytelling that feel like they were a little too focused on making sure they only spend four episodes per book.
On that note, it looks like book 7 is timed for mid-season, after a three-year hiatus.
Short clip after the jump.
