Brief News: Media Blasters Grabs Bakuman

It’s about time. I was wondering if it was ever going to get licensed. Bakuman is one of my favorite anime and manga as of late. If licensing one season isn’t good enough, both seasons of Bakuman have been licensed by Media Blasters. Hopefully the second season lives up to the first season unlike Letter Bee’s second season which fell short. The second season won’t be airing in Japan until the fall season, but I can definitely say that I’m sure it will succeed. Now I just have to wait for the first DVD of Bakuman to be released in November. Watching an anime about two people creating a manga in hopes of it becoming an anime is a great combo of serious and funny.

Brief News: Yami no Matsuei to Continue

A few weeks ago, there was news of Yoko Matsushita creating a special chapter for her manga Yami no Matsuei according to Anime News Network.  More recently, she decided that she was going to be continuing the manga series itself. It’s been so long since we’ve seen the 11^th volume here in America, that I’m really excited to see where she is going to go with the series. I have always had a soft spot for the series whether it has been the manga, itself, or the anime. Hisoka, Tsuzuki and the rest of the ministry will finally be telling their story and fixing whatever problems they have come across while they’ve been gone. 

An Adventure in Ikebukuro Reaches Adult Swim

An anime about a colorless gang, a headless horseman, a strong man, an informant along with other bizarre characters aired its first episode on Adult Swim last night. Durarara!! is about a boy named Mikado Ryuugamine who moves to Ikebukuro. He moves to get away from the normalcy of his hometown and ends up meeting dangerous people in Ikebukuro who could possibly destroy or strengthen the link that ties Mikado and his two friends, Masaomi Kida and Anri Sonohara, together. Originally, I was not sure if I wanted to watch the dubbed Durarara!!. I loved the subbed version when it first streamed on Crunchyroll. My curiosity ended up getting the better of me.

 I didn’t hate the dubbed version, but I didn’t love it either. The first major problem was during the opening song. In the sub, they gave the names of the characters in English along with the Japanese, but the dub decided to just leave it in Japanese. I always found it a nice reminder to what the characters’ names were since there are so many characters in the anime. I guess they didn’t feel the same way. I was also surprised by the chatroom. They left it all in Japanese and just had the characters tell us what was written in English. It makes me wonder whether they were too lazy to do anything about it or didn’t have the budget for it. My last big problem with it was that Mikado’s and Kida’s voices didn’t always seem to match the emotion they were trying to convey.

Overall, the dub wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be. I enjoyed listening to the opening and ending songs again. They were definitely a plus to the show. I also enjoyed most of the other characters’ voices, such as Simon’s and Izaya’s.  Mikado’s and Kida’s voices worked well most of the time.  And Kida’s opening joke carried over well in the dub, which made me laugh by how lame it sounds in English. And I just couldn’t help but laugh at the station censoring the swear words that were said by the kidnappers.  

Brief News: A Court Game Becomes Live Action

With the recent news of the of the upcoming Phoenix Wright Live Action movie, my inner fangirl has risen up. I’m just so excited that the Phoenix Wright series will be able to expand from the games and the manga that it already has. Especially after having played all the games, including the Apollo Justice and Miles Edgeworth ones, I cannot wait for the movie to come out.  Personally, I was expecting an anime for Phoenix Wright before ever thinking of a live action movie, but this is just as great. The Phoenix Wright line deserves a movie and I’ll definitely watch it as soon as I can. Before that, I’ll be keeping up with the data coming up so stay tuned for more parts on the upcoming movie.

Moshidora: Managing Meets Baseball

Recently, I finally was able to sit down and watch Moshidora. All of the 10 episodes were out, and I was grateful for that. The anime exceeded my original expectations, and kept me watching episode after episode. It is a show about a baseball team. It focuses on a female named Minami Kawashima who hates baseball, but she decides to be the manager for her school’s team in place of her friend who is in the hospital. She buys a book called Management by Peter Drucker in order to help the team make it to the Nationals tournament.

Moshidora not only focuses on how Minami uses the techniques in Management, but also pays close attention to Minami’s relationship with her friend, Yuuki Miyata, in the hospital. The two find ways to mend the team’s lack of trust in each other. They help some of the team members such as the pitcher and even the coach.  Yuuki is the glue that holds Minami and the rest of the team together. But as they make it closer and closer to the Nationals, things start to fall apart for Minami and the team.

The downside of the show is that there are too many characters in the show. They are not able to delve into the problems of each character. But with the ones they do bring our attention to, they seem real. Most of the baseball team has a chance in the spotlight to show who they are instead of just focusing on two or three of them. With just 10 episodes, I would definitely recommend watching Moshidora.