The Line-Up is a monthly rundown of new anime, manga, novel, and artbook licenses for the U.S. It also lists new streaming/broadcasting announcements and posted crowdfunding projects available to U.S. residents. And finally, it includes anime/manga projects and live-action anime/manga adaptation announcements from Japan.
Ongoing Investigations: Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Return from Netflix, Rudolf the Black Cat from OLM Digital and Sprite Animation Studios, Hayate the Combat Butler (finale) by Kenjiro Hata, Robot x Laserbeam (Ch. 1-3) by Tadatoshi Fujimaki, Your Name from Comix Wave Films.
Song: “Nandemonaiya” (movie version) from Your Name by RADWIMPS
Food for Thought: Which type of ending has the most emotional impact to you–happy, sad, or ambiguous? Why?
Topics: Leiji Matsumoto Writing Work that Connects His Universe, Japanese Digital Manga Market grows 27.5%, Rumiko Takahashi Has 200 Million Copies in Print, Blazing Transfer Student Live-action Netflix Series, New TV Anime Block.
This post is four reviews for the price of one. You can’t beat value like that. Mind you this site is free but I still think the economical nature of this post is undeniable.
I decided that I would review all three Kizumonogatari movies as well as the original novel in one post. While I was given a copy of the Kizumonogatari novel right after I saw the first movie I decided that I would wait to read it until after I watched all three movies. It is a well-known phenomenon that visual adaptations tend to get much harsher reviews if the critic has read the source material first. I wanted to give both versions as fair as shake as I can so that is why I am bundling all four reviews into one review.
As this is a Nisio Isin series that focuses on vampires there is absolutely no chance of Kate participating in this review. Much like crosses and vampires, I’m fairly certain that Kizumonogatari actually acts as a ward against Kate and possibly does 2d6 damage under the right circumstances.
I also wanted to mention that these Kizumonogatari movies have been in a bit of limbo for a while. The films were originally announced all the way back in July 2010. After several delays and the release of later books as TV series, the release of Kizumonogatari became a bit of a running joke among fans of the series as it was trapped in development hell. In fact, Shaft released 2 multi-part seasons of different parts of the Monogatari series before they released these three movies. More and more points of the anime referenced the plot in Kizumonogatari with the assumption that people had read the book so anyone who only watched the anime just had to piece what happened in the third book by inference. That too became a bit of a running joke with English-speaking fans.
I don’t really know why the movies got delayed as long as they did. It is certainly not a Duke Nukem Forever train wreck despite being delayed so long. In fact, it is on par with everything else that has come before it with a bit more theatrical polish. I mostly wanted to mention that as a bit of history especially if anyone reads this post years after the movies come out it would be very easy to not ever realize how much later these movies came out then it was originally scheduled.
Reverse Thieves 