Winter will soon end.

I am 3 or 4 weeks behind on almost everything I am watching for the Winter season.

Except Erased and Grimgar.  Those I watch as soon as they drop and I struggle to wait another 7 days, or 168 hours, or 10,080 minutes or 604,800 seconds...

Between these two shows this has been one of the best seasons in a long time.  They are examples of excellent direction, well paced timing and engaging stories.  The rest of the year is going to have a hard time beating these two titles.

Straight From The Heart

Straight From The Heart: Gender, Intimacy and the Cultural Production of Shojo Manga is a study of the portion of the manga industry aimed at girls and young women, the world of shojo manga.  The book was researched and written by Jennifer S. Prough and was published by the University of Hawai'i Press in 2011.

    The core of the shojo manga world, according to Prough, is ningen kankei, human relations.  Through her interviews with artists, editors and academics the term was at the center of the purpose for and driver of the industry.  From the stories with their core of characters emotional relations with each other, the cooperative creative bonds between an artist and her editor and the topical input the readers are able to apply to the industry its self.

    The book is split into five over all chapters.  The first chapter provides an over view for the topics the book discusses and the path that lead the author to do her research.  The second chapter provdes a rough overview of the history of modern manga following its genesis in the post war recovery years. She provides a more detailed history into the rise in significance of the shojo genre from being half of the industry that aimed at girls to becoming a driving force behind post recovery consummrism and product character saturation.

    The third chapter details the relationship between the reader and the magazines.  Reationships that rely in participatory dialog between both parties.  This symbiosis has become integral in the health and continuation of the manga industry by providing consummer feedback that helps determine emerging trends and desires.  It also works to instill a sense of community between the faceless publisher and the audience, fostering brand loyalty.  Finally it works as the training ground for future generations of artists through its system of amateur manga competitions with the possibility of becoming an artists for that magazine.

    The fourth chapter delves into the mechanics of the industry its self and the reasons people enter it in the first place on the corporate side of things.  This chapter details the gender disparity that permeates Japan's businesses as a whole but see's a unique reality in shojo manga.  The reality that the ultimate decisions for the tone of the industry are dictated by middle aged men that rely on a revolving force of young women to help bridge the gap with their readers.  The women, typically unable to pursue managerial career paths, are anticipated and expected to remain with the company for a number of years before marrying and rearing children.

    The final chapter touches on the rise of sexualization in shojo manga.  It examines if the manga its self is a product of cultural changes or a catalyst.  Sexualization that emerged in the 1990's with the advent of enjo kosai, compensated dating, in which girls were renting themselves off too older men for dates, dinner or sex in order to fulfill their materialistic desires.  Beyond the increase of sexuality in shojo manga, could it also be considered pat of the increased materialism that helped to spawn enjo kosai through its continued exposure of consumerism to its readers?

    This was a well thought out and interesting read into the rise and modernity of shojo manga.  At close to 150 pages worth of information it doesn't dictate a detailed history of the industry.  It touches on key points in the shojo industry and manga over all.  Instead it focuses on the concept of ningen kankei. The efforts that drive the industry to connect on a personal level with its audience as a way to attract their attention and to determine how they will evolve.  The book focuses on the view point of the industry almost exclusively from the corporate side of things, with little information about the lives of the artists.  It focuses on how the industry works to increase its readers, develop the next generation of artists and plot its course for the future, predicting what will be popular in six months.

    That said at times the author became repetitive, constantly circling back to the original thesis and base idea's, working hard to underline them through all of her research and interviews.  The point was driven home quite thoroughly but it would have been nice to see some expansion on other aspects of the industry.  It would have been nice to have gone into the process of expanding a popular manga into a wider media mix of drama, anime, games, etc.  More details of interviews with artists would be nice as well, but she stated early on that it was difficult for her to have much meaningful contact with them.  Due in part to many of them having incredibly busy schedules and the active roll of editors in restricting public access to them.

    The biggest thing I came away from in the book was how the entire manga industry is a colossal enterprise with essentially one goal in mind, profit.  It has established creative and unique ways of fostering its continued viability and at the same time seemingly locking itself into ritual stagnation.  The industry as the whole seems to be unique in how it approaches and relies on direct interaction with and feedback from its audience, partially allowing the audience to determine its direction.  After decades of following the same procedures though, are the readers really determining the direction or are they acting based upon the patterns that have been established over the years?

Cat Soup

Cat Soup (ねこぢる草) is a surreal OAV based on the work of Nekojiru.  The film by Sato Tatsuo was originally released in 2001.

    As with Nekojiru Gekijou, the story follows cat sibling Nyako and Nyatta.  Nyako die's from a fever but Nyatta, who almost drowns in the bathtub, chases her spirit down and is able to retrieve a portion of it.  The spirit enters her corpse, reviving her to a semi brain dead state.  Nyatta goes on a journey through various realities in order to revive his sister completely.  They travel through realms of beauty and horror, encountering begins both malevolent, benevolent and indifferent to their existence and plight.

    The artwork in this short is amazing and very art house in style.  The story is all told through the visual content with the only dialog occurring in a handful of word bubbles.  It is an existential journey through horror and wonder that has no direction.  The siblings continue pushing forward through their strange and sometimes uncomfortable encounters, searching for an end to their dilemma.  Teeming with allegories and symbolism this isn't for everyone but I very much appreciate that it exists.  Particularly when compared to the horrible TV series that proceeded it.

    This isn't for everyone and enjoying it can mark you as an elitist.  But honestly it was a really enjoyable journey.  A strange combination of Pinocchio and the tale of Persephone.  It was made available in North America in 2003, but is out of print and difficult to come by these days.  If you can get your hands on it I highly recommend at least viewing it.  There's not much like it and its worth seeing.

Winter 2016 - Keep and Drop List

As its 5 weeks into the 2016 Winter season its time to go over which shows are sticking around and which have gotten dropped.

Keep List:

    Erased: This one goes with out saying.  It is the best anime of the season, excellent artwork, excellent direction with engaging story and character development.  This is one of those rare gems that keeps me searching for more anime of this caliber.

    Ajin: I'm up to date with the manga and I want to see how Polygon Studio unfolds this short run series.  It's only supposed to be 13 episodes long so I am very interested in how they end it.  It's an interesting mature story that swims deeply in the tried and true stories of super beings and ultra violence.  There isn't much substance but its visually excellent and Sato is one of the best villains in the world of manga.

    Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash: this one was a surprise for me, as I generally dislike fantasy and really despise the current trend of dropping people suddenly into MMORPG's.  But this one has a more natural and humanistic approach to it that is well done and enjoyable.  The characters are being developed slowly through time and the mild amount of fan service can be over looked for the realistic approach of learning how to survive in a new reality.

    Please Tell Me Galko-chan: Its crass, over the top and something about the perverted and immature topics are actually entertaining.  I like to think of this one as the female counter to Colorful.  Its entertaining and silly while being dirty and perverted.  Aside from Galko looking like an ecchi doujin rendition of  Tsukino Usagi the fan-service is actually non existent.  It's just a series of conversations typical of teenagers.

    Durarara x2 part 3: With out a doubt, what appears to be the final arc for this excellent example of how to tell an entertaining tale that's driven by an immense ensemble cast.

    Dimension W: This one is still on the fence.  It has moments of quality that remind me of both Cowboy Bebop and Riding Bean, but other moments of annoyance that remind me of countless other shows I skip.  The 4th episode was the weakest so far given that I dislike when shows emulate the Hounds of Baskerville in any fashion.

Drop List:

    Active Raid: Episode 5 confirmed that this show was pointless.  The type cast characters did nothing for me, the serial story telling served little purpose and the background over all plot seemed too generic to interest me.  The 5th episode with the poker card face of battle...put all the nails in the coffin for this one.  I should just re-watch Patlabor and be done with it.

    Ooya-san wa Shishuki: This series offers nothing beyond a repetitive joke about misunderstanding a single mans reactions to his underage landlord.

    Oji-san and Marshmellow: Its hard to tell what the point of this short series is.  Is it an expose of a young women with a middle aged man feeder fetish?  Or is a story of a pathetic and semi-coherent man that we are supposed to pity?

    Dagashi Kashi: This is one of the highly applauded series' for the season.  It did absolute nothing for me.  I don't think it has anything to do with my lacking nostalgia for dagashi.  It has to do with rote and uninteresting characters and a plot device that doesn't entertain me.  The main protagonist resembles too closely the character Anna from Shimoneta to cause revulsion for the pointless fan service lurking at the edges.

    Bubuki Buranki:  This was the biggest disappointment.  The first half of the first episode was really good, interesting Ghibli like post apocalypse world in which a small family works to contain weapons of a long lost war.  Then it turns into a pop cyber punk magical kids vs. enemies who only exist for cosplayers to emulate and a story that could have come from some fan made authoritarian volcaloid series they wiped up.  It had some real potential to be an interesting futuristic fantasy story but devolved into a bad mash up of Hamatora and Mekaku City Actors with some other shows of lower quality thrown in.

Carryover titles from the Fall/Beyond:

    Osomatsu-san: This revisit of a classic anime/manga continues to be hilarious mixed with episodes of boredom and some retrospection.  Its become insanely popular in Japan and hopefully it continues to renew for a few more seasons.

    MS Gundam Iron Blood Orphans: The most interesting and least annoying Gundam titles in a long time.  The character designs still annoy me, but the characters and the plot are well done and worthy of the title of Gundam.  An excellent apology for the mess of G Reco and the whiny garbage that was 00.

    Gintama: Can we please return to the comedy that this series does so well?

Everyone keeps talking about how amazing Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju is so I added it to the cue but have yet to watch it.  Period historical drama's tend to be hit or miss with me, but the writing for this one is supposed to be top notch.

Noblesse: Awakening

Noblesse: Awakening (노블레스) is an OAV based on the long running super natural action manhwa Noblesse by Jeho Son and Kwnagsu Lee.  The OAV was made available worldwide in February 2016 and was produced by Production I.G.

    History is filled with powerful being known as Nobles who guide humanity.  There is one among them that guides and controls the Nobles, the supremely powerful being known as Noblesse.  A powerful group known as The Organization is hunting for a coffin rumored to contain the Noblesse and retrieve it for their own purposes.  Before they are able to do so the group who found it are murdered and the person encased in it awakens.

   That person goes by the name of Cadis Etrama Di Raizel.  He searches the modern city he awakens in, having slept for centuries, looking for his loyal servant Frankenstein.  He finds him as the headmaster of a local high school.  In order to understand this drastically different world he enrolls as a new student in the school.  Doing so unknowingly endangers fellow classmates as The Organization seeks his whereabouts.  When three students are kidnapped Rai, as they call him, shows the power of the Noblesse in order to save the innocent by-standards.

    Until I saw the announcement from Crunchyroll that this existed I had been previously unaware of it.  In reality it's not my type of story.  I've never been a huge fan of vampires and this one is super shonen-ai in character design.  Interesting take on a well used supernatural story, but in the end it doesn't bring much innovation to the genre.  What is interesting to note is this is understandably a product of the past 30 years of manga and anime.  It has the feel and pace of a late 80's or 90's OAV.  The manga has run for a long time now and has a well established plot but this single OAV doesn't establish very much, nor does it really set its self up automatically for a continuation.  I doubt this will be the only thing we see of this project though and the future will probably hold more OAV's or a TV series.

    The artwork was a bit disappointing.  It didn't stick to the quality I would come to expect from Production I.G.  It was bland and lacked detail.  It looked like something that would have been made for TV ten or more years ago, not an OAV from now.  Generally OAV's are supposed to be higher quality artwork, but that wasn't the case with this one.  The art isn't bad but it just wasn't as high quality as one would expect.  While on the subject of artwork this series could easily be done as a TV drama with the whatever hot boy band is currently terring up the charts in Tokyo or Seoul.  This is very much fodder for that world.

    It was released 'worldwide' on Crunchyroll for both subscribers and non-subscribers.  The manhwa is available online for free at Webtoons as well.  So if you enjoy the OAV you can legally dig into the original product.  An earlier OAV was released by Korean producer Studio Animal in December 2015.

Kill Me Baby

Kill Me Baby (キルミーベイベー) is a 13 episode gag comedy based on the 4koma manga of the same name by Kaduho.  The anime originally aired in Japan in early 2012.

    The series follows a collection of unrelated comedic exploits of idiotic and energetic high school student Yasuna.  Her only friend or at least the person she interacts with the most, is the foreign girl Sonya, who claims to be an assassin.  Yasuna does all she can to prank Sonya while at the same time struggling for her friendship.  Sonya doesn't deal well with Yasuna's crap and routinely beats on her, foils her lame antics but generally goes along with her anyway.  Wrapping up the party of idiocy is the super stoned, super weird ninja girl Agiri.

    There is no real plot to this series that follows the time tested standards of 4koma gag comedy.  The characters have strong personalities, completely different from each other.  Part of the comedy is through the mixing of their personalities and world view on top of all of the sight gags, lame jokes and unexpected character actions.  Tried and true and honestly the series doesn't bring enough new material to this favorite genre of mine to be excited about.

    The animation works well for the series and the delivery.  J. C. Staff works well with the material and deliver a good product.  The writing is what falls flat at many times and I found myself going through the motions at some times just to get through an episode.  I didn't laugh out loud at many part either.  It just wasn't as funny as it should have been.  The only reason I even completed the series was due to its short length.  I wouldn't have continued if it were 26 episodes.  I will, however, take this any day of the week over the shonen pile of garbage that is Katekyo Hitman Reborn if I ever need an oddball assassin anime.

    The series has been licensed and made available by Sentai Filmworks and even has an English dub.  Honestly though it wasn't that good.

Fun Fact: The voice actor for Agiri, Takabe Ai, was arrested in October 2015 for possession of cocaine.  The arrest caused a flurry of commotion and all streaming services in Japan pulled Kill Me Baby, including Amazon.

Nekojiru Theater

Nekojiru Theater (ねこぢる劇場) is a short series based on the manga of Nekojiru.  The series, also loosly related to the surreal silent film Cat Soup, originally aired in Japan in 1999.

    The series deals with two misfit cat children, Nyako and Nyatta, who live as destitute brats in a world where anthropomorphic animals live along side humans.  The children are incredibly disrespectful, vile and murderous.  The series details short exploits of them being vile and crude to various animals and people they come into contact.  They are evil cat versions of Beavis & Butthead mixed with the worst aspects of Shinchan.  From killing their pig classmate for tonkatsu, robbing their fathers employer to stealing a truck and plowing through pedestrians with it.

    This is a very low brow and horrible series.  A pointless spectacle of abuse, disrespect and outright criminal behavior.  The artwork is quite simple, with very limited animation.  The voice acting is abysmal and the plot lines, even if they are brief are pretty horrible.  The entire series only serves to show how nasty and crude the cat children and ultimately their parents are.  This is something akin to what you would expect in the Spike and Mike Animation Festival or the worst products on Adult Swim.  I am rather surprised it actually exists and wonder what sort of audience it ever had in Japan.

    The original author, Hashiguchi Chiyomi, committed suicide for unknown reasons in 1998.   Following her death, Hijeme Yamano has continued her work under the name Nekojiru-y.

    Understandably this series does not exist in North America and most likely never will.

Kurayami Santa

Kurayami Santa (暗闇三太) is an original anime by Yoshikawa Choji.  The short series aired 13 episodes in the Summer of 2015.

    Demon lord Enma task's the demon Santa with traveling to the surface to help maintain the balance of souls sent to Hell.  He discovers Japan at the height of its post war boom, filled with a people being drastically westernized and urbanized.  The changes have caused a rift in general social awareness as more people than ever before are living in cramped and polluted cities.  He decides that he will have to understand the people more before he can be confident in judging them in these times of upheaval.  He travels the land, taking in all of the change, battling new spirits of ill intent caused by modernization and people who have lost their moral compass.

    This is an interesting and unique series in how it works diligently to recreate the feel of an anime from the 60's.  Everything about the artwork is an homage to the beginning of TV anime.  To help accentuate that it is inter-spliced and overlain on archival footage from the time period.  The content of each episode deals with a more modern view point on the struggles that society in Japan faced during the reconstruction and financial rebound after World War 2.  Issues with sacrificing and destroying objects of the past in favor of modernization and a construction industry on hyper-drive.  The issues of social positions being displaced after a few hundred years of being very narrowly defined.

    The artwork and framing is unique and enjoyable for what it accomplishes.  The stories themselves though are brief, preachy and at times difficult to follow in a concise manner.  The positive attribute for the series is how it tries to recreate a product of the pass, but the stories are lacking in real substance and originality.  It's an interesting specimen of artistic creativity and idea's, unfortunately it looses substance beyond its imagery.

    The series is not currently and probably never will see any official English version.

Bonus Fact: Santa and friends battle Godzilla in the last two episodes.  Yoshikawa has a long history of working on the Pokemon franchise which explains why 'Godzilla' looks like a legendary Pokemon.

Tabimachi Lateshow

Tabimachi Lateshow (旅街レイトショー) is a 4 episode drama series by CoMix Wave Films.  The shorts aired on TV in Japan in January of 2016.

    Each episode is a self contained story, dealing with the main characters relating to loss and the acceptance of change.  The first episode, Recipe, deals with a young aspiring chef who is moving to Europe to improve his abilities.  He has to leave the woman he studied under who he has unrequited feelings for.  The second episode, Transistor Smartphone, deals with two woman who tried to connect as friends in school.  Their personalities prevented that from happening and they muse upon what was lost years later.

    The third episode, Summer Festival, deals with a young girl learning about the meaning of Obon Festival and her chance to reconnect with a lost friend during the celebration.  The fourth episode, Clover, deals with a grade school teacher reflecting on the countless lives she has seen in one year increments over her 37 year career.

    The animation is very simplistic and very limited, the series is more a picture story book than a cartoon.  The artwork appears to be water color pieces and are beautiful in their simplicity, perfectly fitting the tone and style of each story.  The stories themselves are simple, quaint and haunting at the same time.  Each tells an easy to understand tale of the principle characters, allowing enough background to bring across the underlying point of the stories.  Each story is mainly driven by the realistic dialogue, but the subtle hints in the animation add more power to the words and unspoken understanding.

    These shorts aren't for everyone, the animation is far from the standards people expect in today's TV anime, but what the series brings that is hard to come by is excellent story telling.  Powerful story telling within a limited amount of time.  Something that stands in stark contrast to hundred episode juggernauts, something to be deeply appreciated, something that showcases anime as a legitimate medium for story telling for mature audiences.

    I have little hope for this series seeing any sort of disc release in North America, but for now it is available streaming on Crunchyroll and is well worth the 25 or so minutes it will take to watch the entire thing.

Understanding TV Anime Release Schedules

Each year close to 150 new anime hit the airwaves in Japan between normal terrestrial stations, cable networks and satellite.  For the most part these releases follow an established schedule.  Here's a breakdown of how that works and the efforts the companies behind the shows go through to make sure it's viewers are aware of when to tune in.

    Japanese broadcast TV is split into quarterly portions called cours.  The word is directly taken from French for 'course'.  While this system is not universal it is the standard for anime.  A cours is a maximum of 13 weeks in length, equaling to 4 cours in the year.  Starting at the beginning of the year is the Winter cours, which begins the first week of January.  This is followed by the Spring cours which begins the first week of April.  The Summer cours begins the first week of July and is typically the least important one.  The year wraps up with the Fall cours, beginning the first week of October. 

    To begin a show outside of the first two weeks of the beginning of a cours can and will cause major scheduling problems for consecutive cours.  Generally a series will do everything it can to fit as many episodes as possible in a cours.  If a series will only take up a portion of it there will be a similar series waiting to fill in the slot, to run out the rest of the 13 week schedule (see Tabimachi Lateshow for a current example).  If the production of an anime is falling behind schedule the studio will piece together an episode mostly comprised of material already shown, typically a recap, to buy more time.  This can lead to a later episode unable to air on TV.  These are then typically packaged as bonus disc's on up coming video or manga releases.  So, if you see a recap episode odds are the artists or something else is falling behind schedule.

    Each anime airs one episode per week in a set time slot, as much of normal broadcast television does.  The time of day and even what day a show is broadcast in determines the target audience.  For any show that is looking to pick up as many viewers in the general public as possible the coveted air time is Sunday in the early evening hours.  Traditionally this is the one time each week that will have the highest viewership in the nation.  The longest running scripted television show in the world, the slice of life anime Sazae-san, has aired regularly at 6:30PM on Sundays since 1969.

    Shows aimed at children will typically air in the early morning hours and the adult orientated shows will air in what is known as the shinya time block.  This occurs between 1130PM and 430AM, when content restrictions are significantly loosened by the governmental censorship standards.  Prior to the mid 90's it was rare and deemed wasteful to have an anime air during the shinya block due to the minuscule viewership.  Neon Genesis Evangelion, released in 1995, proved that an anime shown in the middle of the night could be incredibly successful.  With the advent of programmable digital recording devices the time a show airs became less of a roadblock.  Currently a large portion of the anime aired on terrestrial TV is specifically crafted to be shinya anime.

    As anime is used as part of a larger package to generate revenue tied to someones creation the companies behind the shows do as much as they can to promote them.  Leading up to the start of a show the production committees will release commercials, publicly announce what voice actors and musical acts are involved and promote when and where everyone can view it, building hype.  They don't keep secret the details that are used as ways to boost interest in their product and fire up the per-existing fan base.  During the broadcast, sometimes even with in the first episode, the release dates for the pending disc volumes will be announced, to make sure the viewers know when they can purchase copies of the show for repeated home viewing.  They do every thing they can to promote the show through out its life span.

    And it works, rather well in some cases.  Typically DVD and blu-ray releases will see their highest sales numbers in the first week of availability.  The most eager fans, already aware of the release date due to constant reminder during the show and in related advertising, will line up to buy the volume as soon as its available.  Sales will be significantly slower in the weeks following its release until it drops off to a trickle and is no longer tracked by Oricon.  There is a great English resource that historically tracks anime DVD and blu-ray sales as reported by Oricon as well.

    So how does one keep on the same footing as the Japanese fans when the production committee's are solely focused on informing their home turf fan base?  The single greatest English language resource that exists is Anime News Network.  Generally if a press release or a news brief comes out in Japan, the staff at ANN will have it disseminated in English later that day.  The website has one of, if not THE, most in depth and voluminous encyclopedia for anime and manga around.  I have yet to find something comparable in Japanese.  Odd's are if the information does not exist on ANN its not true.  There are other fantastic English resources for news and release information as well such as Tokyo Otaku Mode and Otakureview.net.

    As for Japanese language resources, they are plentiful but here are a few that I use.  Otakomu.jp, otanew.jp and yusaani.com.  Though for both English and Japanese one of the greatest and easiest way's to say on top of the news about anime, manga and everything related is via Twitter.  Almost every production, distribution and animation company has active accounts that are more than willing to blast info to people who follow them.  Artists and other producers of manga and anime are also prevalent and easy to find.  This a typical morning on my Twitter feed.

    Its pretty easy to find out when and where stuff will be available.  Next time someone post's something online about a show you're eagerly awaiting check it out on the resources above to see if its legit or just horrible trolling.

Oda Nobunaga

The name Nobunaga filters through various anime and manga titles, mostly in a historical drama context.  Who is Nobunaga and why does the name appear in so many stories?

    Oda Nobunaga is one of the most important historical figures in Japan.  He was a feudal lord in the middle of the 16th century who almost unified all of the various portions of Japan under his control.  He succeeded in gaining political and military control over the largest landmass in the nation but was betrayed and died before he could see the end of his goal.  Two of his allies took up his efforts, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu.  The later established the hereditary Tokugawa Shogunate, which ruled the unified nation for over 250 years.

   Nobunaga's efforts and accomplishments were monumental and altered the fabric of the nation for centuries to come.  His rise and legacy signaled the end of the bloody feudal warring period known as the Sengoku Era.  During this 150 year period of almost constant warfare between the various lords the power of the Emperor, seated in Kyoto, was virtually ceremonial.  Instead the various clan leaders battled each other over resources and influence.  The constant fighting led to great suffering for the lower caste's who would attempt revolts from time to time.  In general it was a dangerous and chaotic period.

    Whether through tactics, luck, timing or all three, Nobunaga, the eldest son of a small clad leader, was able to stage a decades long effort to reign in the chaos, instilling allegiance to his power faction.  He did so through successful battles, strategic negotiations and his growing prestige, which had a hard time faltering even when he lost military campaigns.  Under his command numerous clans that opposed his power grab were defeated and subjugated.  In the end one of his generals, Akechi Mitsuhide, betrayed him as a new military campaign was underway, leading to his death.  Mitsuhide claimed control following the betrayal but was killed by Hideyoshi with in a month.

    Hideyoshi had risen, to be one of Nobunaga's most trusted generals, from a lowly beginning as a peasant.  In striking contrast Hideyoshi established the samurai law that would prohibit non-samurai from carrying swords and cement the title of samurai being hereditary only.  This maneuver established a block on social mobility in the country, preventing others from taking the same path he had taken.  The law would remain in effect until the dissolution of the samurai caste in the 1860's.

    Hideyoshi succeeded in unifying Japan, though the unification wasn't guaranteed.  He directed his attention to China, to continue Nobunaga's goals and to increase his own renown as he neared the end of his life.  His forces failed twice to push through Korea enroute to China and the Hideyoshi clan was left in a weaked position, making its control of the nation difficult.  Following his death Tokugawa stepped into the power vacuum to cement his own ambitions to rule the nation.  Establishing the Tokugawa Shogunate, setting up his seat of power in the small fishing village of Edo which would become Tokyo.  The Tokugawa clan ruled the unified country until pro-Emperor forces would over throw it during the 1860's Boshin War.  This change in power would also open the country completely to foreign influence for the first time in over two centuries.

    Aside from his roll in shaping modern Japan, Nobunaga is known to have cultivated a number of things that are now intrinsic in Japanese culture, such as the tea ceremony and kabuki.  But his place in history is not without controversy.  He is viewed by many to have been a harsh dictator and generaly unpleasant person.  Part of this negative light is due to the siege and eventual slaughter of a mountain fortress for anti-samurai monks, priests and peasants.  After years of besieging the fortress following a defeat by the warrior monks with in, the entire place was burned to the ground and all of its inhabitants slaughtered, including women and children.  There existed a rule that prohibited soldiers from attacking monks and priests. Nobunaga believed that if they choose to participate in war as soldiers they were exempt from this rule.

    While the subject of many history books in Japan, it is unfortunate that very little is available in English about the historical Oda Nobunaga.  The few books that do focus on him in depth are of the prohibitively expensive academic sort.  The best source for the casual reader interested in more detailed information on him would be A History of Japan, 1334-1615 by George Samson.

The Power of Promotion, The Cost of Anime

Much of the anime produced over the decades has had the dubious role of seeming to exist solely to boost sales of the original source material.  It's no secret that some of the most popular anime is derived from successful manga.  From the very beginning with Tetsuwan Atom.  The popularity of the TV anime saw a surge of interest in the original manga content, validating the risk of the new medium.

    In the modern industry, run by semi-official multi-corporation agreements known as production committee's, the most important thing seems to be using an anime as an extended commercial.  The purpose being to make the manga more profitable and to expand peripheral goods sales.  At the most cynical conclusion this is very true indeed.  It's hard to dismiss this idea for even the most pessimistic of view points on a portion of the TV anime that exists currently.  But how successful is it really?

    This article talks about the seemingly correlated affect of One Piece author Oda Eiichiro praising the manga Your Lie in April on a podcast late December.  Almost overnight sales of the existing copies of the manga surged, requiring a new edition to be printed.  That's a sales pitch with some serious clout behind it, akin to Oprah Winfrey recommending a book.  The week following the broadcast of the final episode of the anime, March 2015, saw the newest volume of the manga hit 15th on the weekly Oricon sales chart.  As of January 11th, 2016 the first volume of the manga was 10th in the weekly sales rankings.  The series though, as a whole ranked, 23rd on the 2015 year in manga sales ranking with 1.2 million units sold.  It did not crack the top 30 best selling list for 2014, which would suggest some correlation in its raise in sales with the progression of the TV anime.  Which begs the question, does anime work well enough to boost the sales of its source material to offset the cost and energy it takes to produce?

    Anime can ignite interest in a manga, that is without doubt.  Yet most anime never see's more than 5% viewership on a weekly basis and disc releases see paltry sales, usually spiking on the week of release and sharply declining in consecutive weeks.  Many are lucky to sell more than 10,000 units per disc.  In 2015 the top selling anime blu ray ranked number 11 over all, the 7th volume of Love Live Season 2.  The disc sold over 70,000 copies alone.  That is around 80% of all Your Lie in April blu ray volume sales, which ranked 10th for total sales of an anime series over all that year, selling around 90,000 copies between all of its available volumes.  The top selling anime series on blu ray over all for the year was Uta no Prince-sama, moving over 214,000 copies of its available volumes.

    Anime blu ray sales tend to go to collectors and fans as opposed to the general populace, which still buys more DVD's.  The top selling DVD of 2015 was that years Yokai Watch film.  Over 133,000 copies were sold making it 8th top selling DVD of the year.  The runner up in DVD sales was The Last Naruto Movie, which sold 33,000 copies.  The Last Naruto Movie sold just under 32,000 blu ray copies.

    Lets do some generic and not entirely accurate math, but it can give a vary basic look at how much an anime can be worth by comparing the cost of production against disc and manga sales related tied to the shows broadcast.

    By estimates the average cost to produce one episode of a TV anime can be $1 million.  A full cours series would then cost roughly $13 million to produce.  Lets say that series generates 6 volumes for both dvd and blu ray.  Each volume of the DVD costs $35 and 15,000 copies of each volume are sold, equaling 90,000 total, generating a gross revenue of $3,150,000.  Then lets assume the blu ray does better.  It moves 20,000 copies for each volume at a cost of $50 per volume.  That would generate $6,000,000 in gross revenue.  Disc sales alone would account for $9,150,000 of gross sales in this example.  $4 million short of breaking even with the cost to produce the anime in the first place.  In order for the manga to pick up the slack, over 900,000 single copies, selling for $4 each, would have to be sold.  Your Lie in April moved 1.2 million manga volumes in 2015.

    This is not really a realistic example but more of an easy draft to simply express the value of the anime product against the needed market return for goods sales.  This example takes liberties in using what may be an average cost per episode for the top production series' instead of the true average.  Those numbers are incredibly difficult to come by as the industry keeps a close lid on its profit and loss.  The other snag in this example which, realistically, would drastically reduce the revenue return, is how much profit the production committee actually makes on the sales of the discs and manga.  They obviously do not receive 100% of the sales.  Very likely they don't see 50% of the gross sales revenue.

    With this crude and somewhat unrealistic example we can see that anime has a difficult task of overcoming its production cost through the sales of peripheral items it generates.  it is difficult for the anime it's self to be the sole source of revenue generation.  This is the reasoning behind production committee's pursuing successful and already established franchises to turn into anime.  The risks appear to be lower based on historical data for them so in theory the increased awareness and interest in the title should result in further sales across different media types.  In this rare example of an impressed peer in the industry, who has the most successful manga in history, only needs to be impressed in order to propel sales of a different manga.  Praise that essentially cost nothing to produce, nothing but creativity and admiration.  I wonder how well sales of the novel Ichigo Domei, which inspired the manga, would fare if Oda had mentioned that instead?

    In conclusion this should serve as a wake up call to the anime industry that needs to examine its business model at a time when some of its most respected members question how long it can sustain its self as a whole.  Perhaps it needs to pull back a bit and focus on incubating creativity more and focusing on selling products less.  Perhaps we will see another original series appear that surpasses everyone's expectations and becomes a powerful brand all in its own right.

Special mention to onepiecepodcast.com which initially lead me to the article about Oda's comments and the boost in sales.

Kings Game Origin

Kings Game Origin (王様ゲーム 起源) is a horror manga prequel of the cellphone novel Kings Game by Kanazawa Nobuaki.  The manga was written by Kanazawa and drawn by J-Ta Yamada (Asatte no Houkou).  The 30 issue story began serialization in Japan in 2013.

    One day a mysterious note arrives in the remote mountain village of Kazunari.  The note says that everyone in the village is now part of the Kings Game.  Every child in the village must touch a corpse before the end of the day.  No one can quit the game and those who refuse or are unable to complete the challenge will die.  Most of the children in the small village participate, with only one refusing and another left out, thinking nothing of it.  In the morning the two children who did not complete the challenge are found dead.  When the shocked children find a second Kings note they continue keep it a secret from the adults and go about meeting its demands with seriousness fearing its punishment as being real.

  In the following morning more villagers are found dead and when the kids wonder what went wrong they discover their participation in the previous Kings Game challenge was incomplete.  Convinced of the power and reality of the Kings Game they bring it to the attention of the village adults.  This time the note that appears includes everyone.  When those that are unable to complete the challenge die exactly as the note detailed the following day the entire village is convinced of the authenticity and threat of the game.  Their only choice now is to keep playing, hoping for a solution that will save the village.

    Prior to starting this manga I was mildly aware of the original source material which was a successful enough novel to get a live action film treatment.  I only knew a little bit of the premise but dove into the manga when it became available on Crunchyroll due to needing more manga and J-Ta Yamada's involvement.  The artwork is decent, and somewhat similar to Asatte no Houkou.  The detailed visceral deaths of the villagers are the real selling point of this story of savagery.

  The plot was easy to understand and the 'reveal' was rather obvious, what was painfully stupid though was the government version of what was causing everything to happen, which was then molded into a more interesting super natural aspect that could have been more powerful.  While the actual driver of the Kings Game was rather weak and absurd in comparison to what it could have been, the dissolution of the characters personalities was pretty good.  Between the ever present specter of doom, feelings of helplessness and the constant gory obliteration of your closest friends and family, everyone in the village starts to lose their humanity.  Some of the characters were more believable than others and in the end the writing was marginal.  The best part of the story was the dark and sinister things each round of the Kings Game made the villagers do.  Once the round was in place the participants followed a script that has been done time and time again in stories that pit humanity against survival.

    In the end it was an OK series, nothing too spectacular but it did have some entertaining moments.  The end seemed to be rushed a bit and was ultimately not very climactic.  The best parts were once the entire village began to participate in the game.  But after a while, as the numbers were severely dwindled it turned into a few personalities using the game as a struggle for control and domination instead of survival.  The series is currently available on Crunchyroll with no word on a print edition in the future.

Nichijou: My Ordinary Life

Nichijou: My Ordinary Life (日常) is a 26 episode gag comedy series based on the manga of the same name by Arawai Keiichi.  The series originally aired in Japan in 2011.

    A collection of semi-related shorts focusing on a few off color characters in a small town, Nichijou takes classical gag comedy and applies it seamlessly to moe cuteness.  The main characters are 3 school girl friends, Yuko, Mai, Mio and their banal yet exceptional exploits.  The other main characters are the child genius inventor Professor and her robot caretaker Nano.  Beyond these 5 characters is a small cast of recurring secondary ones, mostly from the girls' school.  There is little in the way of plot progression in the show, focusing on series' of random shorts.  The shorts at times relate to each other or reference prior shorts but show very little progression of time.


    Absurd situation comedy mixed with unrealistic character responses at its best, this series is full of oddity, sight gags and bizarre humor.  It's like merging Azumanga Daioh with Gyagu Manga Biyori, inspired by Golden Age Loony Tunes.  Nonsensical, irrational at times and entirely humorous.  The series is at its best when the unexpected takes place, from the random gadgets mysteriously built into Nano, an obsession with daifuku, the scheming principle and the random pacing of a show aimed at toddlers.

    Art wise this may very well be Kyoto Animations best piece; the delivery and composition are impeccable and add so much to the over all delivery of the humor.  Simplistic, thick outlined characters that move with a fluidity KyoAni does so well.  While not having read the original manga, its hard to imagine the impact of the comedy not being so hard hitting with out the animation.  Though it wouldn't be as funny as it is with out the source material which rages from mundane inane to surreal psychosis.  The series tackles pressing subjects such as a teacher ineffective in her role as a moral leader, the young girls embarrassment in her BL manga obsession and a talking cat who is unable to instill elder respect when needed.

    Sadly, the license for North American distribution for My Ordinary Life expired when Bandai pulled out of the market.  There has been no word of anyone renewing it and the series' disc releases in Japan did pitifully bad in sales...shame, real damn shame.  For those of us that relish gag comedy this is one of the best out there.