Category: Anime

Ongoing Investigations: Case #181

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As a fan of Kenjiro Hata I am always interested in the older works. In fact I did a whole article about the evolution of this style two years ago. I got the Japanese release of Heroes of the Sea Lifesavers when it was reissued due to Hata’s popularity with Hayate. But sadly when I searched for any translations of Heroes of the Sea Lifesavers there were none to be found. But there was a short one shot also included in the book called God’s Rocket Punch. It as clearly a pre-Hayate work as you can tell that Hata’s style is still very crude. But unlike the longer part of the book this has a fan translation.

Tasuke discovers that he grandfather used the last years of his life to trade a goddess for a most unusual wish that by happenstance is passed down to him. Now Tasuke and his friend Kazuya are conscripted by the goddess to fight for justice now that he has a mecha styled rocket punching right hand. Needless to say this does not go well.

Wow. Even more than Heroes of the Sea Lifesavers you can tell that God’s Rocket Punch comes off of Hata working for Koji Kumeta. As I mentioned before when Kenjiro Hata started on his own you can heavily see the work of his mentor in all his art. Kazuya feels like an early prototype for Wataru especially with his snarky personality. But character design wise he looks more like Koji Kumeta’s fan art of Wataru. But the shading, page layout, and reaction shots, and overall art are still highly influenced by Hata’s old mentor. It would not be until a few books into Hayate that he would find his own style.

But even more than that Hata’s comedic beats are still much more Koji Kumeta stylized. Kazuya’s personality makes him a very at home in Katte ni Kaizo. While the idiot trio can be rambunctious they don’t have that same sort of mildly psychotic air that Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei characters have. Also a bit of the deadpan delivery and slightly absurdest moments are half way between still being an assistant and having their own voice.

I think this was clearly a pilot that just never got enough steam to get off the ground. It ends with a clear lead into the next part of the plot. It is a nifty little idea but sadly one never got a chance to shine. Such is the fate of a manga artists first chapters. If nothing else Orumuzuto Nadja continues to make appearances in the omake for the Hayate manga.

I would like to read Thunder Goddess Sofia and the early draft of Hayate where Hinagiku and Yukiji are the main characters. But I have seen hide nor hair of either. Oh well. I guess I will just have to wait for someone to translate Heroes of the Sea Lifesavers until then.

Olympos is a one book manga from Yen Press following Ganymede’s captivity in Zeus’s miniature garden. While this gives the prince immortality, he can’t leave, and so his days are spent whiling away the time as amusement for the Gods (mostly Apollo).

A lot of  questions about “life” are brought up in these pages. The Gods immortality has made them callous as well as bored and relating to humans is a foreign concept well put in this story. There are also some interesting looks at how humanity took the idea of Gods and ran with it.

As for an overarching plot, the book fumbles around a lot. It starts with a chapter featuring an early 20th century guy being asked to rescue Ganymede, but that is quickly over. Then there is a lot involving a plot to take down Zeus by other Gods but comes to naught. In between those things is an in-depth look at Apollo’s first interaction with humans which is probably the best done of any. But while it makes why Apollo treats Ganymede the way he does more clear, it doesn’t feel like it comes to anything in the end.

I gotta admit, even after being a manga reader for a long time, I thought that Apollo and Ganymede were females in this story at first. The art has a light touch making it flowy and delicate. The color pages are a real treat, too.

While I thought the art was beautiful in Olympos, the story just wanders along for a while then ends without much resolution making it a rather uneventful read.

The Ongoing Investigations are little peeks into what we are watching and reading outside of our main posts on the blog. We each pick three things that we were interested in a week and talk a bit about them. There is often not much rhyme or reason to what we pick. They are just the most interesting things we saw since the last Ongoing Investigation.

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The July Line-Up

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Goodness me the announcements stacked up this month! And quite of few them were unexpected delights from new anime of classic shows like Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon to the many licenses for the U.S. Con season is coming to a close with plenty to cheer about.

Convention season craziness leads this to be probably one of the most information packed Line-Ups you will see this year. There are some real surprises in the line up. Everything from old classics getting a new lease on life to unlikely pick ups most people would not have causally guessed. I suppose that is just con season for you.

The Line-Up is a monthly rundown of newly licensed in the U.S., newly streaming in the U.S., and newly announced anime and manga projects.

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Viki a Small Wonder

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When anime companies finally started embracing streaming their shows on-line there is a definite transition period as they tried to figure out what worked. They knew they had to move toward digital distribution but how they would do that was anyone’s guess.  Would people pay per episode? Would they buy season passes? Would people watch commercials? How much would they pay for digital downloads? Which titles were worth streaming? What titles would still sell on physical media after being streamed? While most streaming sites focused on licensing the latest and greatest shows a few companies like Toei tried putting out older shows like Captain Harlock and Fist of the North Star on various streaming sites. While these titles hardly set the world on fire in term of streaming they were all picked up by Discotek proving there is an audience for older titles. You just have to handle your classic titles correctly. And you must have realistic expectations.

And now it seems that Viki.com has caught on to that principle as well. There is a market for streaming older titles. You just have to be clever with how you put them out and know your limits. If you expect them to get the number of hits that a Naruto or even a Kuroko’s Basketball will pull you are sadly mistaken. But if you keep your overhead low and your licenses smart there is potential for a business model.

The Viki model is two-fold. The first part is to mostly get older shows with some prestige titles like some of  more under the radar Tezuka anime and a few other rather obscure titles that you are certainly not going to get into a bidding war over. The second part is have all the subtitling done by crowdsourcing. That means that all the subs you see are done by fans. For better or for worse.

It is certainly an interesting model. There are some distinct problems that can crop up with such as system as well as some unique opportunities that a conventional system like Crunchyroll would not be able to take advantage of. The question is how does this system turn out in the end. How much does Viki capitalize on its strengths and how much does it show its weaknesses?

Viki is a site that popped up on my radar unexpectedly but I haven’t heard a lot of talk about it since then. Their model is different than other streaming sites as it looks to the fans to contribute their time and knowledge to getting a translation available for all to enjoy. But Viki goes through the process of licensing the title from Japan for streaming legally.

The site boasts a collection of mostly older, older anime titles which as far as I’m concerned is its claim to fame. These are the titles I want to see streaming because it is doubtful an actual release would work for it and that’s okay. We get so little anime from eras past that any way seems better than none at all. And Viki’s site, while not perfect, is far from the worst way to see these shows.

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