Quality represents our dedication to sharp, honest, and entertaining commentary not only on anime, manga, and video games, but the fandoms that surround them. It also represents our strict revision process that screens all articles before they reach the eyes of readers like you.

Variety represents the range of bloggers and podcasters who make up our team of contributors. We've featured writing from an otaku comedian, a poet, a cultural anthropologist, and a few professional gaming writers. We leverage this diverse team to provide a wide variety of voices and post topics.

Unfortunately, this means our focus tends to shift depending on which writers are actively contributing, so I've made exploring the site easier for you by compiling a list of 15 of our best blog posts and podcasts. Through these posts you'll be able to get a taste for the wide range of topics we cover and the unique perspectives of our contributors.

Anime

• Ink – Poetic Propaganda: Reading Between the Cards of Chihayafuru
• Phillip O'Connor – The Trap Door: Getting In, Getting Out – Lupin III: The Secret of Mamo
• Evan Minto – Secret Santa Review: Last Exile
• Evan Minto – Con Report: Otakon 2010 and the Generational Divide
• Ink – FMA: The Brotherhood Diaries – Poetry vs. Prose
• Uncle Yo – Review: Ristorante Paradiso (Sub)

Manga

• David Estrella – Review: K-ON! (Manga)
• Evan Minto – Review: Lychee Light Club
• Elliot Page – MMF: The Immaculate Conception of Yotsuba Koiwai

Video Games

• David Estrella – Review: Fate/Extra (PSP)
• Ink – Review: Fable III (360)
• Evan Minto – Exiled Hardcode: Can SEGA Tap Nintendo's Lost Demographic?

Podcasts

• Podcast #030 – Code Geass (a.k.a. Pepperoni Hotdogs in the Pizza Crust?!)
• Podcast #028a: The Greatest Podcast on Earth, Part 1 and Part 2
• Podcast #013: The Professional

So why vote for us? Well, we've been plugging away at this blogging business for longer than a lot of other blogs in the Tourney, and we think we've honed a pretty fun, insightful way of looking at anime, manga, and games. If you agree, then head on over to the Tourney poll tomorrow! We expect a BLOODBATH OF DEMOCRACY when we check the poll again on Friday — preferably one in which we come out victorious.

Finally, regardless of which way your vote swings, I'd like to take a leaf out of Bradley C. Meek's book (have you heard him on our podcast?) and ask for as much feedback as you can give about Ani-Gamers. Is our content working for you? How's our layout? What do we do best? What could we be doing better? Don't worry about being mean — I welcome any chance to find out what our audience (or potential audience) is looking to get out of this site. So please feel free to leave a comment on this post once you've taken a look around. And most of all: Enjoy your stay!

One such mission, T35 or "Center River," uses the Fog of War mechanic, which obscures enemies a certain distance away from the player, thus making it difficult to react to the opponent's moves. Like, really difficult.

Case in point: I deployed some footsoldiers, captured a few cities, and set up a tank or two. BOOM, out of nowhere the enemy started bombarding me with rockets and artillery shells from ... somewhere in the Fog of War. Then giant "war tanks" (the most powerful land units in the game) emerged from the fog, barrelling down upon my base and supporting the infantry units that would eventually overtake my headquarters.

Every permutation of moves I tried, every strategy, met with defeat. The most frustrating times were the ones when I felt like I was about to win, only to be struck down by a surprise volley of long-range rockets and anti-tank attacks that drove me back to my base! I simply turned the game off in anger quite a few times.

I searched online for ways to beat the mission, to drive into the heart of the blue team's side of the river and take their HQ. Forum posts provided some nice tips, but my lack of Advance Wars experience made it difficult to fully implement a lot of their strategies. The parade of failures continued.

One more time. One more time. I sent troops across the river and tried to take the island in the center. I set up rockets in major cities. I pushed across the southern bridge with a tank. After dozens of attempts these sorts of things had become second nature. The enemy came at me on the island, and then I made the one important change to my strategy: I sent some decoy troops along the northern bridge, as someone had suggested in a forum post. Instantly the CPU redirected its troops to fight in the north, and my campaign to take the island in earnest had begun.

After over an hour of plugging away at this slow fight, producing units constantly to keep up with the enemy's barrage of attacks, I finally made it across the southern bridge. By redirecting the blue team back and forth with false threats of capturing cities, I managed to sneak an infantry unit into the headquarters and capture it once and for all. A week of frustration and anger and failure ended in glorious victory, and I was reminded of why I dedicated so much of my time to something so frustrating.

Winning is awesome.

Snapshots is a monthly column here at Ani-Gamers in which one of our writers describes and analyzes a particular moment from a piece of media. To read previous entries, click here.

How to describe Space Brothers? How’s this: I never bothered with the thematically similar Moonlight Mile, so when Space Brothers was announced, I wasn’t too interested. But, much to my surprise, it’s a pretty good series. Hibito is the kind of person I’d like to be: determined, energetic and fun. However, Mutta is the person I’ll probably end up being: down on his luck, unmotivated, and a killjoy. But there’s hope for Mutta. Being fired from his job means that his promise that he and Hibito made to become astronauts has suddenly become a real goal for him to strive towards, however impossible the task is. This first episode has the beginnings of a good story of the greatest of adventures happening to the most ordinary of blokes, and the deadpan humor nicely complements the serious bits. The animation isn’t particularly impressive, but at least it’s competent. I like the leads and I’m looking forward to watching them grow over the course of the series.

Hey I just realized how to describe the series! Moonlight Mile is an anime set in space for people who liked Apollo 13 as kids. Space Brothers is an anime set in space for people who liked SpaceCamp as kids. So there!

— Phillip

Mysterious Girlfriend X

Studio: Hoods Entertainment
Director: Ayumu Watanabe
Now Streaming on Crunchyroll

(EDITOR'S NOTE: That's not a typo. Watanabe and Hoods Entertainment are producing both Space Brothers AND Mysterious Girlfriend X.)

You knew we were going to have to talk about this show eventually. Akira Tsubaki is a typical teenager. He meets a weird girl, Mikoto Urabe, who transfers to his school. One day he finds her asleep at the end of school classes at her desk. After she leaves, he sticks his finger into the pile of drool she left behind on her desk and puts it in his mouth. He gets sick afterwards and she visits him at home to explain that he’s suffering from love-sickness and only her drool will cure him. So he and she become boyfriend and girlfriend.

There, I said it.

Mysterious Girlfriend X is a weird series, from its circus organ score to the insane nature of Akira and Mikoto’s relationship. I mean, she tells him that a little voice told her he would be her first sex partner! There’s a glacial pace to the first episode. Nothing happens with any kind of speed (other than the fundamental ways that Akira’s life changes once Mikoto comes into it). Akira's dream sequences are well animated and they are excellent next to the relative normality to his real life. Plus the character designs are quirky. Unlike some reviews that bash the fanbase for liking something like this, I prefer to simply marvel that something like this exists. We’re usually treated to Japanese school kids having nice, safe relationships, and this is definitely different. It’s both repellent and fascinating and I’m compelled in a strange way to see how this all falls into place. Just don’t ask me to talk about it in anything but relative terms.

— Phillip

Kids on the Slope

Studio: Tezuka Productions, Mappa
Director: Shinichiro Watanabe
Now Streaming on Crunchyroll

In 1998, director Shinichiro Watanabe created one of anime's enduring classics, the jazz-infused space western series Cowboy Bebop, and in 2004 he came back for more genre-bending antics with Samurai Champloo, a hip-hop samurai adventure. Now Watanabe returns to the director's chair for yet another musical number, but this time it's a little different. Kids on the Slope (Sakamichi no Apollon), based on a josei (women's) manga by Yuuki Kodama, isn't exactly a slice-of-life to the tune of jazz music — it's a slice-of-life about jazz music.

Kaoru has been moving from school to school for his whole life, and after years of meeting new people and getting rejected by local cliques, he's developed an acute case of what appears to be social anxiety. Despite a less-than-warm welcome from his classmates, however, within the first few hours of school Kaoru finds himself in the company of not only the pretty class representative Ritsuko, but the intimidating delinquent Sentaro. Kaoru plays classical piano and Sentaro plays jazz drums, so while their decidedly Boys Love-friendly personalities clash left and right, they're clearly destined to play some sweet jazz music together, thanks in part to some prodding from Ritsuko.

Watanabe's deft touch is already on full display in Kids on the Slope, with excellent pacing, beautiful, slightly shaky camera work, and some expertly placed musical cues. Nobuteru Yuki's character designs retain their angular charm without his conspicious noses, and the animators at Tezuka Productions make great use of soft, watercolor-esque shading to give the show a distinct painterly quality. Realistic, heartwarming, and funny (in an "awww, awkward teenagers" sort of way), Kids on the Slope should be at the top of your list of must-watch shows this season.

— Evan

We're really happy to be a part of this again. While the popularity contest format might not be the most appropriate for evaluating the wide range of anime blogs out there, the Aniblog Tourney is still a fun way to find new blogs, reach new readers, and get some constructive criticism about Ani-Gamers.

The tournament proper starts on April 15, but until then you can pore over the huge bracket graphic over at the official site. Presumably due to our win in Round 1 last year, we were automatically advanced into the second round this year, so our poll will be up on May 2. Till then, keep your eyes on Ani-Gamers for more awesome anime, manga, and video game posts!

FUNimation's Lupin III license comes on the heels of widespread fan disappointment over its unlicensed status. Lupin III is a franchise with a lot of name recognition, but fans worried that the new series' racy content could scare away North American distributors. I'm really happy to see the series, which features character designs by Redline director Takeshi Koike, get official English distribution, in part because our site policies don't let us write about it until it gets licensed. And boy oh boy, are we excited to write about it!

Thanks to Scott Green of AICN Anime for his timely tweets about the announcements, as both David and I were not at the FUNimation panel when the announcements were made.

Click here for more coverage of Anime Boston 2012.

They also reassured fans that the dub for the Persona 4 anime would maintain the English actors from the game.

As for simulcasting, Sentai also picked up Shinichiro Watanabe's Kids on the Slope (Sakamichi no Apollon) and the romantic comedy Mysterious Girlfriend X (Nazo no Kanojo). Kids on the Slope's first episode premieres on April 12. Mysterious Girlfriend X premieres on April 8.

In the question and answer session, they also mentioned that High School of the Dead is their highest selling title, since "nothing beats boobs and zombies."

Click here for more coverage of Anime Boston 2012.

Paradise Kiss follows a teenage girl's interest in the world of fashion, while Limit focuses on high school bullying. The first volume of both titles will hit stores as paperbacks in September 2012. Paradise Kiss volume 1 will cost $16.95 and Limit's first book will cost $10.95.

I'm really happy to see Vertical branching out to more shoujo and josei manga, though neither of the new titles is anything I'm particularly excited for. Their classic and seinen catalog is one of the best in the industry, but they have always been very male-centric. It'll be really interesting to see their keen sense of quality and style turned toward a whole different demographic of fans. Hopefully they'll provide a good catalyst for me to finally get into more modern shoujo manga!

Click here for more coverage of Anime Boston 2012.

Friday

• Analyzing Anime 101 (10am, Panel 202)
• I am woman! The Evolution of Female Characters in Anime (10am, Panel 208)
• The Legend of Zelda or: How I Learned to Tolerate OOT's Fandom (10am, Panel A)
• Building Mecha Model Kits: A Total Beginner's Guide (11:45am, Panel 208)
• Romance Anime: Affecting the hearts of us all (2pm, Panel 306)
• Vertical 2012 (5pm, Panel 202)
• The Meiji Era: A Japanese Industrial Revolution (6:45pm, Panel 107)
• LGBT Manga and Anime (9pm, Panel 309)
• Introduction to Japanese Fairy Tales (9:30pm, Panel 206)
• Unusual Manga Genres (18+, 10:30pm, Panel 202)
• Totally Subversive Toons (18+, 11:15pm, Panel 208)

Saturday

• Anime Happiness (10am, Panel 206)
• Sentai Filmworks (2:30pm, Panel A)
• FUNimation Industry Panel (4pm, Panel A)
• Tokusatsu: Heroes and Monsters of Japanese Television (6pm, Panel A)
• Seinen Up: Manly Manga...for Manly Men and the Manga-Reading Women that Love Them (6:45pm, Panel 306)
• Anime Hell (9:30pm, Panel 306)

Sunday

• Judaism and Anime (10am, Panel 309)
• We Con, Therefore We Are: A Critical Look at the Modern Congoer (12:45pm, Panel 206)
• Anime Forever! Movie Screening (1:30pm, Panel 302/304)*

* I'd like to point out this event in particular. Stephen is a friend of mine who has been diligently putting together this documentary for years now, and I'm really excited to see it completed. I saw a number of versions of the film as Stephen worked on it, and it's a really honest, heartfelt portrait of the modern American anime fan. If you can get to this event, please do!

I'm the Vice-Chair and Public Relations Coordinator of the convention, which means I'll be super-busy all weekend, but I managed to find time to run two panels: "The Changing Faces of Anime" (anime character design history) and "Fandom & Criticism" (roundtable about critical analysis with guest panelists Ink, Erin, and Noah). Erin & Noah are running four awesome panels of their own, so definitely check those out too. Finally, I'll most likely be helping run Opening and Closing Ceremonies, so come on by for those if you're up for it.

And as a final little bonus, if you stop by the video gaming room, you'll be able to play a student game that I worked on called Bullet Hell on the RPI Game Development Club arcade cabinet. Genericon XXV: More Evan than you probably ever wanted!

In case you're up for some Ani-Gamers stalking, I've included the list of our panels, with days, times, and locations included.

• Opening Ceremonies — Main Events A — Friday, 6–7pm (Genericon Staff, probably including Evan)
• Fandom & Criticism: The Art of Active Viewing — Panel 2 — Saturday, 1:30–2:30pm (Evan, Ink, Erin, and Noah)
• The Changing Faces of Anime — Panel 2 — Saturday, 5–6pm (Evan)
• Closing Ceremonies — Main Events A — Sunday, 4-5pm (Genericon Staff, probably including Evan)

How about you guys? Are you planning on attending Genericon XXV? What events are you looking forward to? Are you running any panels or events?

Frequently cited — somewhat inaccurately — as the series that sparked the entire shōjo (girls comic) style, Princess Knight is also particularly notable for being one of the many manga for girls but written by a man. At the time there were very few women in manga, so it was expected for men to write comics for girls. However, many of the female manga artists who came to prominence in the 1970s, known collectively as the Showa 24 Group, would later cite Princess Knight as one of the series that inspired them to make their own manga.

Sapphire, the protagonist of Princess Knight, is both hero and heroine, since the mischevious angel Tink accidentally gave her both a boy and a girl heart before she was born. Since she is the heir apparent to the kingdom of Silverland, Sapphire's gender is quite important; women can't inherit the throne! To prevent the nasty Duke Duralumin's idiot son from becoming prince, her family raises Sapphire as both boy and girl, and she spends part of the day fencing and fighting, and another part picking flowers and talking to woodland creatures. God sends Tink down to Earth to fix his mistake and get back Sapphire's boy heart.

Meanwhile, beneath the facade of her princely life, Sapphire longs to fully embrace her girl side, and even wears a blonde wig to a carnival, wherein she meets the dashing Prince Franz Charming. But things go awry when Charming and Sapphire engage in a tournament as princes, and the nasty Duke Duralumin poisons Charming's sword in an attempt to kill Sapphire. A few hijinks later and the king is dead, Charming is accused of murder, and Sapphire's identity is revealed. She loses not only the throne, but her freedom as well: she and her mother find themselves locked in jail by their own people. For the remainder of these two thick volumes, we follow Sapphire's journey to regain the throne, win the love of Prince Charming, and escape the wiles of not only Duke Duralumin, but also Madame Hell, an appropriately named devil woman who wants to steal Sapphire's girl heart and give it to her own daughter.

Some critics have celebrated Princess Knight for its subversion of traditional gender roles, but ironically this is precisely where the manga fails to connect. Perhaps by the most liberal definition of the term, Vertical could claim that this is Tezuka's "proto-feminist" masterpiece (as they do on the back cover), but it hardly applies to a story in which Sapphire's girl heart gives her the ability to pick flowers and her boy heart gives her the ability to swordfight. I fact, in many cases she loses one heart or the other, and Tezuka makes it very clear that without the boy heart, she loses all of her strength and will to fight. (Get ready for gripping lines like "Oh no, I feel weak all of a sudden. I feel like my boy heart's been sucked right out of me! Oh, I'm so scared!")

The second volume features a bit more criticism of traditional gender roles, portrayed with classic Tezuka bluntness via a group of women who lock themselves in a castle and fight off the men in order to protect Sapphire. The most striking moment of this scene is when Sapphire — equipped only with a sword and her girl heart — fights off a villain she could only defeat previously when she had both hearts. Here it seems that Tezuka is making a more direct correlation between her fighting ability and Sapphire herself (rather than her gender), but it's such a long time coming and it comes from so far out of left field that it seems almost accidental.

The gender commentary isn't the only place where the presentation and pacing leave their marks, though. The entire manga runs at a breakneck pace, and major developments occur at such a striking speed that it can be difficult to keep up. Futhermore, when introducing characters, Tezuka wastes no time in explaining straight to your face exactly how they feel about everything, without the slightest hint of subtlety. For instance, within the first few pages of Sapphire meeting the pirate captain Blood, not only has he professed his instantaneous love for her, but she has introduced herself with the brilliant line "I promise I'm not a shady person."

Despite a whirlwind of events surrounding her, watching the eponymous Princess Knight can be downright boring. She's certainly not a passive Dinsey princess, but generally things happen to Sapphire, and she rarely does anything herself, making her little more than an object for the plot to bounce off of. Indeed, at one point near the climax she is bedridden, waiting for other characters to bring her the help she needs. Madame Hell's daughter Hecate, a hip, rebellious young devil girl who opposes her mother's plan to marry her off to Prince Charming, is a much more interesting heroine, and suffice it to say that a character named "Prince Charming" hardly ranks among Tezuka's most layered protagonists.

The comedy is the one aspect of Tezuka's style that remains consistently on-point in Princess Knight. There are lots of one- or two-panel visual gags that punctuate the action just long enough to induce a chuckle before he gets back into the main story, and they have the same sort of non-sequiter, anachronistic charm that we've come to expect from the author. None of this is all that surprising, since in the early 1960s Tezuka was still largely writing for children, and was still known for his gag antics.

This, of course, extends equally to the art, which falls much closer to Astro Boy (1952) than later works like Ode to Kirihito (1966), which makes sense considering that Princess Knight's original run was concurrent with Astro Boy (Tezuka reworked the series for a 1963 rerelease, the version used for the Vertical edition). While its overall tone is reminiscent of Astro Boy, it achieves an appropriately fairy-tale aesthetic through the use of super-clean lines, simple, bubbly shapes, and generally lighter tones. Readers may also notice that, in addition to the overwhelming Disney influence on the designs of the characters and backgrounds, Tezuka also takes cues from early shojo adventure comics like Katsuji Matsumoto's The Mysterious Clover (1934).

Princess Knight is, quite frankly, a baffling read. It seems to fly by even faster than Astro Boy, but unlike the richly established world and characters of that series, this feels more like a clumsy pastiche of Disney fantasy-adventure films. What's more, the gender commentary is bluntly feminist at best and downright sexist at worst, and the entire work feels largely purposeless. It pains me to say this, but I can't recommend Princess Knight unless, like me, you feel the need to plumb the depths of Osamu Tezuka's English-language catalog. Perhaps in its time Princess Knight may have captivated its young audience, but today it serves as a reminder that even a god makes mistakes every once in a while.

Here Tezuka begins to experiment with full black page backgrounds and a cinematic zoom effect, with each successive panel getting smaller and smaller (or larger and larger) to simulate a film camera. After one such zoom out and another zoom in, we have moved in both time and space to Lyon, France. The year is 1939, and Lamp has sold his father-in-law's scientific research to the Nazis. As if Acetelyne Lamp's typecast villany isn't established enough, Tezuka has now convinced us that he is not a man to be trusted. His wife is heartbroken.

Zoom! Cut! It is now seven years earlier, and Zephyrus is introducing her boyfriend, Lamp, to her father amid a field of flowers. He would like to marry her, and her father happily acquieces. Zoom in on butterflies, cut to two arms in a bedroom, the lights dimmed. They are in Nice, in the winter of the same year. For two pages here Tezuka shows us the intimacy of these two lovers with nothing more than a series of horizontal panels, framing their arms as they talk. Lamp is having financial difficulty and wants to sell Zephyrus's father's research. Her arm shrinks away from his.

More black panels bring us to Lyon in 1940, where Lamp informs his father-in-law that, on the Nazi's orders, he is sending him to work for them. In a page exclusively composed of vertical panels, Lamp moves from the bottom of the panel to the top, and we see him speaking down not only to Zephyrus's handicapped father, but to her as well. He is an ambitious, ruthless man, completely in control of the situation.

Another cacophonous black page takes us from Zephyrus's father's suicide to the birth of a baby to Locarno again, in 1940. Canted shots of trains show Zephyrus's frantic flight.

Finally, we come to rest in 1943, on a small island near Guadalcanal. A caretaker rushes back to Zephyrus's bedside, watching as she relays her final words to her daughters. They must destroy money, law, and men in order to get revenge on the father who destroyed their lives. Zephyrus passes, and we zoom away from her crying children and finish the story on one final black panel.

In just 24 pages, we see the beginning, middle, and end of a marriage, with time and space jumbled up in the subjectivity of memory. In the hands of a clumsier manga artist, such temporal and aesthetic changes would surely be confusing, but it is a testament to his genius that Tezuka is able to tie it all up into a fast-paced, digestible, and entertaining package.

This post is a part of the Osamu Tezuka Manga Moveable Feast (MMF), a week-long celebration of the manga work of Osamu Tezuka, hosted by The Manga Critic. Check out the extensive archive for this week's MMF at The Manga Critic.

While the TV series wasn't quite perfect, it was a great proof of concept for Kamiyama as an original storyteller, and I was excited to see how he would finish the epic story that the series started. Unfortunately, the first Eden of the East movie, subtitled The King of Eden, stands as proof that getting an original story right takes a lot more than some slick directorial work and clever scripting.

It's been six months since the events of Eden of the East. The "Noblesse Oblige" game, in which 12 unwitting victims (called Seleção) have been burdened with ten billion yen, a concierge that uses that money to carry out their every whim, and an obligation to "save Japan," is still in progress. The remaining Seleção, those who were not killed or otherwised removed from the game during the series, are still trying to track down the "Supporter," the one player among them who supposedly kills each Seleção when their funds run out. Takizawa, the quirky young man who served as our protagonist for the TV series, has gone missing, and his records show that he gave an order to his concierge to turn him into the "King of Japan," an order that apparently involved wiping his memory and giving him a new name (again).

Our story opens with Saki, a recent college graduate whose budding romance with Takizawa flung her into danger during the Eden TV series, trying to track him down in New York City. From the get-go, I was stunned by Kamiyama's attention to detail. New York looks spot-on, from the EZ-Pass toll booths to the NYC Taxi logos to the diffused lights in the windows of apartment buildings. Yusuke Takeda's (Giant Robo, Ghost in the Shell: Stand-Alone Complex, Gankutsuou) art direction strikes a delicate balance, creating scenes that are believable, but not so photorealistic that they're distracting.

It's that sort of delicacy that characterized Kamiyama's work on the TV series as well, and it follows through to the film. Takeda's backgrounds mesh perfectly with Kamiyama's screenplay and Satoru Nakamura's (Ghost in the Shell: Stand-Alone Complex) animation direction, which focus on a sort of slightly cartoonish realism. City streets look like real city streets, characters talk about taxes and politics like real people, and technology works the way real technology works (with some exceptions). There is comedy to be had among the drama, however, and this adds that splash of silliness that keeps the film from going too deep down the rabbit hole.

He may have the execution perfectly mastered, but a flawless genius Kenji Kamiyama is not. While each piece of the story is compelling in its own right, they never really mesh into a cohesive whole. Furthermore, the central conflict is never clear, since the most threatening villains are either off doing things unrelated to the main characters, are shown to be harmless fools, or are turned into good guys! In the end, there's not much to actually be worried about, since the protagonists are never in any real danger.

Look at this! I've gotten six paragraphs into this review without mentioning that amnesia is the most lazy way to start a follow-up to a popular TV series. Once they meet back up, Saki and Takizawa's relationship ends up being essentially the same as it was at the end of the show, so amnesia doesn't even seem to be a way out of some inescapable plot cul-de-sac. Building on the existing character relationships and simply moving ahead with new challenges would have made for a much more interesting film, and I don't really understand why Kamiyama didn't go down that route.

FUNimation's dub is a little overacted at times, as was the case for the original Eden of the East, but some of the more subdued roles, like Saki (Leah Clark), Takizawa (Jason Liebrecht), Hirasawa (J. Michael Tatum), and the sultry concierge Juiz (Stephanie Young) convey the tone of the story quite well. Unfortunately, the occasional odd deliveries mean it's going to be tough for non-anime fan types to take this seriously, despite the very Hollywood-style premise of the series.

The true finale comes in the second movie, so I will reserve my judgment on the entire series until I see it. However, The King of Eden is a weak follow-up to the already somewhat unsatisfying TV series ending. While it continues to prove that Kenji Kamiyama is a competent director who can construct beautiful ambiance and believable character relationships, the movie also seems to pull away the curtain on his seeming inability to tie up a complex, original narrative. Unless you're someone who really loved the TV series, this film's not for you.

[00:00] Evan introduces this super-old podcast.

[01:08] Intro: "Kill Me" by Lame Drivers

[01:23] Let's meet our guests!

[01:53] The review begins with a summary of the setting and characters of Spice & Wolf, and some of our general impressions.

[11:17] We start by talking about the sly wolf goddess Holo.

[16:27] Next up is our straight-man protagonist, the trader Kraft Craft Lawrence.

[29:35] Evan gets super-angry about Nora, the shy shepherd girl.

[30:22] Season one spoilers start here.

[31:27] Evan likes to see people die. Also, more spoilers.

[37:27] Incredibly mild spoilers about the final scene in season one.

[37:24] The spoilers are over now. You can uncover your ears, you babies.

[39:16] We talk about the animation, background art, and some of the music in Spice & Wolf.

[44:09] Final thoughts

[48:08] "The awkward ending." Twitter: @AniGamers, @VamptVo, @AnimatedInk (Ink has split his accounts between poetry and anime since this podcast was recorded), and @BradleyCMeek.

[51:10] Outro: "Kill Me" by Lame Drivers

[51:37] We read food nicknames from Parks & Recreation's Tom Haverford.

Giving at least $25 to the Kickstarter will net you a copy of the book if and when it is released, giving over $35 gets you the book plus a digital companion with "bonus art and commentary," and DMP has thrown in a bunch of other nice extras as the pledge amounts get higher. (The top prize, for pledging $145 or more, is a copy of Barbara signed by Tezuka scholar Frederik L. Schodt, your name at the top of the credits in the book, and a tour of the DMP offices, among other things.) And the way Kickstarter works, your money only goes through if the campaign is successful, so there's no risk.

As anime scholar Helen McCarthy points out in a blog post, this new strategy of financing publishing based on customers fronting the cost is certainly unusual. However, a changing industry environment requires changing business practices, and I think this is a really cool way to get fans involved and ensure that releases are actually going to be profitable. Plus, DMP is getting more Tezuka manga out there, and that's all I can ask for.

For more information on Barbara, check out the great profile of the manga over at TezukaInEnglish, and make sure you pledge to the Kickstarter right here!

Lychee Light Club is a one-shot graphic novel from cult favorite Usamaru Furuya, based on the Tokyo Grand Guignol theatre troupe's tragic 1985 play of the same name. It follows the rapid degeneration of this tightly controlled boyhood hierarchy, perpetuated by the successful activation of their robot, "Lychee," and his successful capture of a beautiful girl named Kanon. Amidst growing paranoia in the club, Kanon forms a strange connection with her robot captor, who has been programmed to believe that he, too, is human.

Lychee's greatest strength is its brevity; the one-shot format allows Furuya to tell a complete story with a surprisingly satisfying arc, all while driving home some biting social commentary. My first impression was that Furuya is commenting on Japanese sexual seclusion, most clearly evidenced by the boys' idolatrous view of girls. One says "I kinda can't believe it: a girl, right in front of me," and the dictatorial leader of the group, Zera, declares that "you must never look at her as an object of lust!" Intentional or not, it calls to mind otaku culture's "sexualization of innocence," as evidenced by moé anime and teenage idol culture.

Grand Guignol-style theatre is known for its gruesome violence, and this manga adaptation pulls no punches. A female history teacher who chances upon the Light Club is stripped and then evicerated for her crime, and a fellow student who makes the same mistake has his eyes burned out after a morbidly funny scene in which the boys brainstorm ways to punish their unfortunate captive.

These moments of quirky, black comedy are rare, but they are deftly incorporated into the story, such as a sequence in which Lychee brings back a series of inanimate objects and ugly people in a failed attempt to pinpoint what "beautiful girl" means. There's a fascinating (and horrifying) cognitive dissonance in laughing during a scene involving human beings who have been needlessly kidnapped to fulfill the sexual urges of a cabal of disturbed teenagers.

The two rays of light in this story are Kanon and Lychee himself, who, in working as a tool for the Light Club members' dark desires, becomes more human than they could ever be. By the end of the story, the friendship (and perhaps romance?) between Kanon and Lychee becomes a strong driving force, and manages to leave the reader with a satisfying conclusion despite the horrific events throughout the book.

Furuya's art is a perfect match for the subject, mixing super-high contrast shadows and highlights with intentionally ugly, androgynous character designs. He seems to delight in drawing hair and cloth in particular, usually depicting them as all-black with white highlights.

There's a lot going on in Furuya's macabre epic, from subdued commentary on industrialization (told through background art but never explicitly mentioned) to homoerotic experimentation (the boys fulfill each others sexual desires in absence of a female presence). If you can accept that all of Furuya's absurd violence, including people being flattened from the head-down, burned alive, snapped in half, and raped, is there for the sake of commentary and (in some cases) catharsis, not titillation, you will find Lychee Light Club to be a wholly satisfying, even ... fruitful experience.

12-year-old Asuna is living alone with her workaholic mother following her father's untimely death, but despite a healthy school life she spends most of her time up on the nearby mountain, listening to whatever radio signals she can pick out on her crude ham radio. However, a dangerous run-in with a giant monster in the woods results in a friendship with a mysterious boy named Shun. Thus begins Asuna's adventure into the ruined underground world of Agartha.

You might already be sensing a bit of an influence here, and no, you're not mistaken. Makoto Shinkai has openly expressed his admiration for the works of Studio Ghilbi, particularly Laputa (Castle in the Sky), which made a big impression on him when he saw it as a boy. And while imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Shinkai — almost certainly accidentally — leaves the realm of homage and heads straight into the no-man's land of full-on copying. Oh look, there's the Forest King from Princess Mononoke, the cave shelter from Grave of the Fireflies, the fox-squirrel from Nausicaa, the architectural style of Castle in the Sky!

Shinkai's touch is definitely there, and one need only pay attention to the director's masterful use of watercolor-esque lighting and color to understand that this is not straight-up imitation, but I still feel like there's a little bit too much Miyazaki and not enough Shinkai in the film. His trademark brooding, silent moments are still there, but they are interspersed with action scenes and fast-paced plot developments.

And boy oh boy, those action scenes! I was sure surprised to find that a director whose last outing was characterized by long stretches of waiting silently on a train can create such lightning-fast, exciting action sequences. The film's moments of gunfire and hand-to-hand combat have a sort of whipping speed and kineticism that I've seen only in some of the best action anime directors (and of course, Mr. Miyazaki). Shinkai claims his team studied both Ghilbi movies and the Rurouni Kenshin anime in order to figure out how to animate the scenes.

Children hits all the emotional points that you might expect from the director of Voices of a Distant Star, The Place Promised in Our Early Days, and 5 Centimeters Per Second, but one too many deus ex machinas and a few too many different set pieces bog down the pacing to what feels like a crawl. Shinkai has got to learn to edit if he's going to attempt another movie in this vein.

But let's make this clear: I would love for Shinkai to try another movie like this. It's a distinct break from his previous work, and while it's more of a so-so Ghilbi film than a great Shinkai film, it is enough of a proof of concept to hook me for the rest of his work. As long as he learns from his mistakes and doesn't get stuck in the rut of re-making this exact movie over and over, this director could really go places. He's got emotional expression down better than basically anybody else in the business, and now has proven his mettle in the realm of action scenes. A little bit more editorial oversight will probably do wonders for honing his style.

Is he still the Green Day of anime? Yeah, probably. Is he "the next Miyazaki?" That still remains to be seen, but Children is certainly a fine down payment towards the title.

[Recommended]

This review is based on the Otakon 2011 premiere screening. The reviewer was given a complimentary press pass for the convention.

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