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[Update: the Amazon Japan Bakuon!! Store, which not only includes anime/manga merchandise, but also the actual helmets the girls wear, parts for their bikes, toolkits, etc.]

It only took six years or so, but there’s now a Bluray release of the Otoko-tachi no Yamato movie; I rather liked it, so it’ll be in my next order from Amazon Japan.

Hopefully the soft-subs I found for the DVD still line up with the new release. I don’t see anything about changes to the film.

This photo shoot of 20-year-old Yuzu Matsumoto stands out because it doesn’t rely on any of the common glamour-photography tropes, or any of the common fetishes. She’s just a fully-dressed, extremely pretty young woman, in a little “daily life” sketch.

(most of the other shoots in this series from Weekly Georgia fall into the “ideal girlfriend” category, of course)

I presume the back of her skirt has a giant “A” on it…

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Hey, at least it’s not a tattoo.

It reads 冷奴, hiyayakko, which means “cold tofu”.

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(source, via The Kimono Gallery)

So far Bakuon!! is a lot of fun, and seems to be the only thing worth watching this season (streaming on Crunchyroll). Perhaps the best part is that the motorcycle manufacturers are on board, allowing them to use actual make and model names rather than resorting to the time-honored art of “making shit up” (although I think the misreading of Ducati as Zucchini should be treated as canon).

The characters are bright, cheerful, and generously drawn, the art and animation are well-done, and the music is stuck in my head. Very promising.

I hope the writers don’t reveal too much of the mystery behind the senior member of the Bike Club, Lime Kawasaki (“The Stig”), who of course rides a lime-colored Kawasaki. Ghost? Kami? Middle-aged woman who’s really kept her figure? Doesn’t matter; she’s still cool. Sadly, the only girl&bike figures announced so far are Hane and Rin; here’s hoping the whole set is on the way. I could line them up next to the scale model of my bike…