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Zenryaku,
Well, it's been quite a while since the last one of these. I'm not sure quite how long, since I can't seem to find it in the archives, but a year or two at least. A whole lot has happened since then, so I won't be trying to provide a comprehensive guide to releases, but rather hitting the high points.
Lots of important things have happened in the last two years. Probably the most prominent is that the anime and manga markets in the US have finally hit a consolidation phase. After several years of a skyrocketing number of releases, things are finally slowing down. The licensing companies have finally realized that they can't make money by just grabbing everything that comes out and hoping it sells here. Unfortunately, this is likely to hurt the chances of some very good niche titles being licensed, but it should also reduce the amount of utter drek that gets put on the shelves. This is hitting the manga market as well, but to a lesser degree. The main victim here seems to be ADV's manga division, who had been using the same "throw a bunch out and see what sticks" method.
We've also seen a Japanese licensor, Toei, try to enter the R1 market themselves. Unfortunately, so far all they've done is to prove the old adage that, to really mess up an R1 release, takes a Japanese company. Their releases so far have suffered from pretty much every mistake the R1 dubbing companies have made over the years, including dubtitle with very poor spelling and grammar. None of their releases were titles I've been interested in, so I'm not sure what their current schedule is, but last I heard they were all pretty much on indefinite hold.
In all, hopefully the consolidation will serve as a wake up call, both to the US companies and the Japanese ones. I've been hearing about insane bidding wars for certain titles, which leads the Japanese companies to expect higher prices on the rest of their catalogues, all of which is driving the costs involved way up. Now that companies are cutting back on their licensing, hopefully this will settle down to rational levels, which at least has the possibility of bringing a more high-quality titles over.
I've found myself collecting more manga titles recently. For the most part, the market is pretty well established, and now includes Del Ray. However, there are still some problems, most notably with Viz making unannounced edits to certain of their titles. A lot of people are quite upset with them over it, but they don't seem to care, so it's unlikely to see a change any time soon. Their most-affected titles seem to be the ones running in Shounen Jump, so luckily there isn't a whole lot in Hikaru no Go for them to change (so far they've rather inexpertly replaced a cigarette with gum in one scene), the only "sports" manga I've ever seen that I like.
Dark Horse comics has made some good moves with the Oh My Goddess line. They're going to start re-releasing the volumes already out, but to do so in an un-flipped manner, and they'll be including the color pages this time around. They're even going to restore the original names on the angels where they were changed (Holy Bell instead of Blessed Bell, for instance). All future releases of the manga will be in the new format, and this time they'll be following the Japanese release page counts instead of breaking things up by story arc.
Some quick recommendations:
Fruits Basket is still going strong in both the US and Japan, and often tops both sales charts. Highly recommended. This is a great mix of comedy, drama and romance, with some great characters. Hanajima and Hatori are my two favorites. The US release for this is already past where the anime ended.
Berserk is another great one, a dark medieval-era swords and sorcery setting. The US release is getting close to where the anime series ends, and is still going strong in Japan. At around 28 volumes, the creator says he's about a quarter or a third of the way through the story.
Aria is one I'd like to recommend. It's the closest in fell to Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou that I've seen translated. Unfortunately, this title was one of the victims of ADV's strategy, so only three volumes have been released and I haven't seen anything about volume four being scheduled for release. It's set in the future on a terraformed Mars, in a city patterned on Venice. The main character is training to be an Undine (their name for gondoliers). The "science" involved in the story doesn't bear any scrutiny, but it almost never gets a look, so that's not a big deal. It's just a great slice-of-life title.
Best of the recent releases is Yotsuba&, another title from the creator of Azumanga Daioh. This involves a quite young orphaned girl named Yotsuba (four-leaf clover), who's been adopted by a Japanese man. She's... rather weird, to put it mildly, and gets up to all sorts of things. Very funny series, highly recommended.
On the anime side, the biggest news is that most of the Studio Ghibli titles are now available. This includes Pom Poko, a title I was not expecting to make it to release here, thanks to one of the rather unusual weapons the tanuki have. Unfortunately, we're still waiting on Whispers of the Heart, apparently due to a licensing problem centered on the song Country Roads, which is used prominently in a couple places in the film. The current releases are pretty much as expected of Disney, but a couple of them seem to suffer from rather odd (that is, extremely loose) interpretation choices. Nothing too horrible, but still.
I'm not sure how many other titles to mention here. Paranoia Agent is out in full in the US now. CPM has finally finished releasing Patlabor TV, and will have Patlabor New Files out in a full set (mostly subtitles only) this year. Twelve Kingdoms is now completely out, and is supposed to be getting box sets soon. Texhnolyze and Read or Die the TV are completely released.
On the upcoming side, the first disc of Hare+Guu has been pushed back towards the end of the year. This seems to be at least partly due to one of the extras that will be included with the disc-one-with-box set, a chest-hair/afro wig. The reason for the inclusion of this item will become obvious only after you've seen a few episodes. This is probably the main comedy release I'm looking forward to.
Ah My Goddess TV is set to be released here soon. It's a very popular franchise, both here and in Japan, so I expect there will be more than one season to this, as there's lots and lots of manga stories left to go.
Banner of the Stars III is out in Japan, and has been licensed for US release, probably due next year. This is a very short two-episode OVA which mostly covers Jinto taking a sabattial from the Star Forces to go home and deal with Hyde system now that it's back under Abh control.
Genshiken is a recently started US release that's likely to appeal only to hard core anime fans. It's kind of the TV version of Otaku no Video, and covers an anime/manga/figure/cosplay club in a Japanese college. If you're in or near the center of anime fandom you'll get a kick out of this.
The characters in the show are particularly obsessed with an anime series called Kujibiki Unbalanced. As an extra, the DVDs are including three episodes of the fictional series (1, 25, and 26, I think).
Viz will finally be releasing the Hikaru no Go anime starting this year. The concept doesn't sound very exciting to watch, but it's definitely the best sports anime I've seen. The characters very much make the story work, and they manage to impart a good drama to what they have of go matches.
One of the never-thought-it'd-happen titles that have made it over recently is Kodocha (short for Kodomo no Omocha, Child's Toy). All sorts of rights issues have tangled up this title for years, but Funimation finally got it. Well, mostly; the first opening had to be replaced, and a scene in the first episode had to be altered a little to excise the song and a reference to its singer. Other than that a pretty solid, and very much anticipated, release.
Princess Tutu is a title that's suffered a major delay. ADV has had to completely change the release schedule and plan for this one. Unfortunately shoujo anime are still not doing well in the US (as oppossed to shoujo manga, which are doing extremely well), no matter how good they are.
The main new anime to hit TV is One Piece on Cartoon Network. Unfortunately, it has greatly suffered from edits. From the typical opening/ending replacements, to all sorts of poorly done overlays (replacing "Marines" with "Navy" or placing slingshots over guns, and so on), to entire story arcs being completely dropped and other episodes being spliced together. Out of the first 100 episodes, they seem to have eliminated over 40 episodes worth of material, at least in the airing. The DVDs are supposed to start coming out this year, so we'll see how poorly they get treated. It's another direct Toei release, so they're likely to be a complete mess.
Not to say those are all the good titles that have come out, but it's a pretty decent highlights list. Moving on to Japanese releases, thing are in a similar state. Although there have been a number of good titles, there haven't been that many truly exceptional stand-out titles, so this segment will be pretty short.
My top pick recently is definitely Kamichu (~Kamisama wa chuugakusei~). This translates roughly to "goddess is a middle school student". It's about a middle school girl, Yurie, who one night suddenly becomes a goddess, in the Shinto style. Unfortunately, she has no idea what she's actually the goddess of, much less what her powers are or how to use them. She ends up teaming up with her best friend and another girl named Matsuri, who's a shinto priestess at a local shrine, to try and figure things out. Great comedy in this one, from the over the top puns to subtle comedy.
The best drama series I've seen recently was Victorian Romance Emma. It was a bit short, only 13 episodes, and didn't cover anywhere near the full manga, but it did come to an end a reasonable story arc ending. This one is set in Victorian era England, and gets an amazing amount of details correct. it involves a maid and member of the gentry falling in love, which of course is against the social mores of the time. I doubt this one will ever get licensed for US release, although the manga might.
Other than that, a series called Honey and Clover has my attention. It's a mix of over-the-top comedy and drama, with plenty of romance mixed in. It's set in an art college, and centers on the students. It starts with the introduction of a new student, the incredibly short but incredibly talented girl Hagumi, who's work is already in major demand at the galleries. I've heard the manga is even better, so that's probably going to be something I'll have to check out sooner or later, and I hope one or the other gets licensed.
Well, I think that finally covers the most important points. Feel free to to ask questions or make recommendations, and so on. If discussion gets going, I'll probably start the thread up regularly again.
Wraith
"Curse you, Boxerman!"
-- Yotsuba ("Yotsuba&")
Well, it's been quite a while since the last one of these. I'm not sure quite how long, since I can't seem to find it in the archives, but a year or two at least. A whole lot has happened since then, so I won't be trying to provide a comprehensive guide to releases, but rather hitting the high points.
Lots of important things have happened in the last two years. Probably the most prominent is that the anime and manga markets in the US have finally hit a consolidation phase. After several years of a skyrocketing number of releases, things are finally slowing down. The licensing companies have finally realized that they can't make money by just grabbing everything that comes out and hoping it sells here. Unfortunately, this is likely to hurt the chances of some very good niche titles being licensed, but it should also reduce the amount of utter drek that gets put on the shelves. This is hitting the manga market as well, but to a lesser degree. The main victim here seems to be ADV's manga division, who had been using the same "throw a bunch out and see what sticks" method.
We've also seen a Japanese licensor, Toei, try to enter the R1 market themselves. Unfortunately, so far all they've done is to prove the old adage that, to really mess up an R1 release, takes a Japanese company. Their releases so far have suffered from pretty much every mistake the R1 dubbing companies have made over the years, including dubtitle with very poor spelling and grammar. None of their releases were titles I've been interested in, so I'm not sure what their current schedule is, but last I heard they were all pretty much on indefinite hold.
In all, hopefully the consolidation will serve as a wake up call, both to the US companies and the Japanese ones. I've been hearing about insane bidding wars for certain titles, which leads the Japanese companies to expect higher prices on the rest of their catalogues, all of which is driving the costs involved way up. Now that companies are cutting back on their licensing, hopefully this will settle down to rational levels, which at least has the possibility of bringing a more high-quality titles over.
I've found myself collecting more manga titles recently. For the most part, the market is pretty well established, and now includes Del Ray. However, there are still some problems, most notably with Viz making unannounced edits to certain of their titles. A lot of people are quite upset with them over it, but they don't seem to care, so it's unlikely to see a change any time soon. Their most-affected titles seem to be the ones running in Shounen Jump, so luckily there isn't a whole lot in Hikaru no Go for them to change (so far they've rather inexpertly replaced a cigarette with gum in one scene), the only "sports" manga I've ever seen that I like.
Dark Horse comics has made some good moves with the Oh My Goddess line. They're going to start re-releasing the volumes already out, but to do so in an un-flipped manner, and they'll be including the color pages this time around. They're even going to restore the original names on the angels where they were changed (Holy Bell instead of Blessed Bell, for instance). All future releases of the manga will be in the new format, and this time they'll be following the Japanese release page counts instead of breaking things up by story arc.
Some quick recommendations:
Fruits Basket is still going strong in both the US and Japan, and often tops both sales charts. Highly recommended. This is a great mix of comedy, drama and romance, with some great characters. Hanajima and Hatori are my two favorites. The US release for this is already past where the anime ended.
Berserk is another great one, a dark medieval-era swords and sorcery setting. The US release is getting close to where the anime series ends, and is still going strong in Japan. At around 28 volumes, the creator says he's about a quarter or a third of the way through the story.
Aria is one I'd like to recommend. It's the closest in fell to Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou that I've seen translated. Unfortunately, this title was one of the victims of ADV's strategy, so only three volumes have been released and I haven't seen anything about volume four being scheduled for release. It's set in the future on a terraformed Mars, in a city patterned on Venice. The main character is training to be an Undine (their name for gondoliers). The "science" involved in the story doesn't bear any scrutiny, but it almost never gets a look, so that's not a big deal. It's just a great slice-of-life title.
Best of the recent releases is Yotsuba&, another title from the creator of Azumanga Daioh. This involves a quite young orphaned girl named Yotsuba (four-leaf clover), who's been adopted by a Japanese man. She's... rather weird, to put it mildly, and gets up to all sorts of things. Very funny series, highly recommended.
On the anime side, the biggest news is that most of the Studio Ghibli titles are now available. This includes Pom Poko, a title I was not expecting to make it to release here, thanks to one of the rather unusual weapons the tanuki have. Unfortunately, we're still waiting on Whispers of the Heart, apparently due to a licensing problem centered on the song Country Roads, which is used prominently in a couple places in the film. The current releases are pretty much as expected of Disney, but a couple of them seem to suffer from rather odd (that is, extremely loose) interpretation choices. Nothing too horrible, but still.
I'm not sure how many other titles to mention here. Paranoia Agent is out in full in the US now. CPM has finally finished releasing Patlabor TV, and will have Patlabor New Files out in a full set (mostly subtitles only) this year. Twelve Kingdoms is now completely out, and is supposed to be getting box sets soon. Texhnolyze and Read or Die the TV are completely released.
On the upcoming side, the first disc of Hare+Guu has been pushed back towards the end of the year. This seems to be at least partly due to one of the extras that will be included with the disc-one-with-box set, a chest-hair/afro wig. The reason for the inclusion of this item will become obvious only after you've seen a few episodes. This is probably the main comedy release I'm looking forward to.
Ah My Goddess TV is set to be released here soon. It's a very popular franchise, both here and in Japan, so I expect there will be more than one season to this, as there's lots and lots of manga stories left to go.
Banner of the Stars III is out in Japan, and has been licensed for US release, probably due next year. This is a very short two-episode OVA which mostly covers Jinto taking a sabattial from the Star Forces to go home and deal with Hyde system now that it's back under Abh control.
Genshiken is a recently started US release that's likely to appeal only to hard core anime fans. It's kind of the TV version of Otaku no Video, and covers an anime/manga/figure/cosplay club in a Japanese college. If you're in or near the center of anime fandom you'll get a kick out of this.
The characters in the show are particularly obsessed with an anime series called Kujibiki Unbalanced. As an extra, the DVDs are including three episodes of the fictional series (1, 25, and 26, I think).
Viz will finally be releasing the Hikaru no Go anime starting this year. The concept doesn't sound very exciting to watch, but it's definitely the best sports anime I've seen. The characters very much make the story work, and they manage to impart a good drama to what they have of go matches.
One of the never-thought-it'd-happen titles that have made it over recently is Kodocha (short for Kodomo no Omocha, Child's Toy). All sorts of rights issues have tangled up this title for years, but Funimation finally got it. Well, mostly; the first opening had to be replaced, and a scene in the first episode had to be altered a little to excise the song and a reference to its singer. Other than that a pretty solid, and very much anticipated, release.
Princess Tutu is a title that's suffered a major delay. ADV has had to completely change the release schedule and plan for this one. Unfortunately shoujo anime are still not doing well in the US (as oppossed to shoujo manga, which are doing extremely well), no matter how good they are.
The main new anime to hit TV is One Piece on Cartoon Network. Unfortunately, it has greatly suffered from edits. From the typical opening/ending replacements, to all sorts of poorly done overlays (replacing "Marines" with "Navy" or placing slingshots over guns, and so on), to entire story arcs being completely dropped and other episodes being spliced together. Out of the first 100 episodes, they seem to have eliminated over 40 episodes worth of material, at least in the airing. The DVDs are supposed to start coming out this year, so we'll see how poorly they get treated. It's another direct Toei release, so they're likely to be a complete mess.
Not to say those are all the good titles that have come out, but it's a pretty decent highlights list. Moving on to Japanese releases, thing are in a similar state. Although there have been a number of good titles, there haven't been that many truly exceptional stand-out titles, so this segment will be pretty short.
My top pick recently is definitely Kamichu (~Kamisama wa chuugakusei~). This translates roughly to "goddess is a middle school student". It's about a middle school girl, Yurie, who one night suddenly becomes a goddess, in the Shinto style. Unfortunately, she has no idea what she's actually the goddess of, much less what her powers are or how to use them. She ends up teaming up with her best friend and another girl named Matsuri, who's a shinto priestess at a local shrine, to try and figure things out. Great comedy in this one, from the over the top puns to subtle comedy.
The best drama series I've seen recently was Victorian Romance Emma. It was a bit short, only 13 episodes, and didn't cover anywhere near the full manga, but it did come to an end a reasonable story arc ending. This one is set in Victorian era England, and gets an amazing amount of details correct. it involves a maid and member of the gentry falling in love, which of course is against the social mores of the time. I doubt this one will ever get licensed for US release, although the manga might.
Other than that, a series called Honey and Clover has my attention. It's a mix of over-the-top comedy and drama, with plenty of romance mixed in. It's set in an art college, and centers on the students. It starts with the introduction of a new student, the incredibly short but incredibly talented girl Hagumi, who's work is already in major demand at the galleries. I've heard the manga is even better, so that's probably going to be something I'll have to check out sooner or later, and I hope one or the other gets licensed.
Well, I think that finally covers the most important points. Feel free to to ask questions or make recommendations, and so on. If discussion gets going, I'll probably start the thread up regularly again.
Wraith
"Curse you, Boxerman!"
-- Yotsuba ("Yotsuba&")
I'll probably buy the second manga collection.
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