Category: Editorials

The August Line-Up

1 Comment

Not a ton of stuff caught my attention this month. That being said, there were still plenty of new announcements from Japan! And with summer con season over it isn’t surprising to hear license news dip a bit. But of course we can expect next month to have plenty of streaming news with the new season about to start.

After the last two months that have been a flurry of announcements due to convention season August seems down right tranquil. Everyone but Discotek and Digital Manga Publishing seem to be taking a breather and working on all the things they just announced. But don’t worry. The falls season starts soon enough and that means more announcements indeed.

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.

Continue reading →

The Speakeasy #032: Happy Ending, Atropos and Anime Endings

5 Comments

Drink #032: Happy Ending,
Atropos and Anime Endings

All things must come to an end. Even anime. Although Sazae-san and Golgo 13 might easily make you think otherwise. Despite that, this month we tackle one of the oldest ideas in the anime fandom: if there is one thing anime cannot do, it is stick a landing. The question is why does anime have such a bad reputation for horrible endings? How much of it is legitimately founded and how much of it is cynical whining? What makes a good ending, what makes a bad ending, and are those elements mutually exclusive?

But we also talk about some of the best and strangest anime endings we have seen. Chime in with your favorite and most hated anime endings of all time.

As a warning, the first part is spoiler free. It is all theory so anyone can listen. But after the break we drive the bus into Spoiler Country USA so if you have not seen the following shows you might want to be careful:  Neon Genesis Evangelion, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, Mahoromatic, Kare Kano, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, The King of Braves GaoGaiGar, Gunbuster, Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, Hellsing, Last Exile, Kaleido Star, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Mawaru Penguindrum, Cowboy Bebop, Macross Frontier, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Le Chevalier d’Eon, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Turn A Gundam, Mobile Suit Gundam, Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack, The Irresponsible Captain Tylor, Redline, Maison Ikkoku, Voices of a Distant Star, Higurashi: When They Cry, Umineko: When They Cry, Battle Athletes Victory, Berserk, Mobile Suit Gundam 00: A Wakening of the Trailblazer, The Vision of Escaflowne, Macross 7.

RSS Feed     –     iTunes Feed

(Listen)

And now your helpful bartenders at The Speakeasy present your drink:

Happy Ending

  • 2 oz Absolut Mandrin vodka
  • 4 oz club soda
  • 2 splashes cranberry juice
  • cocktail glass
Add 2 shots vodka to approx. 4 oz. of club soda. Mix in a splash of cranberry juice. Squeeze 1 lime wedge and enjoy!

From Rags to Riches, From Pilot to Series

Leave a comment

The first chapter of any manga we see rarely anything close to the preliminary draft of the same manga concept. You usually only get one chance to make a first impression so manga artists and their editors tweak, refine, trim their initial ideas that start rather rough around the edges until they are lean, mean, long-term series generating machines. The rougher drafts of existing work are often lost to the sea of time and then mostly only mentioned off handily in interviews. But on occasion we get to see behind the curtain when one-shots are published either to test the waters on a series or as a special treat for an existing series (or to fill some space in a tankobon).

There are three published version of Romance Dawn which eventually we go on to be the series we know as One Piece today. While the overall premise is instantly recognizable you can see the slow evolution of the concepts that would eventually become the finished product that is one of the best-selling comics ever. While Luffy and his pirate adventures are a constant not much else is. Main elements of the world are changed or dropped as the series is refined. Elements like witchcarft are removed and the quest for title of King of the Pirates is added. Almost all the chapters have a Nami like character who is absent in the final first chapter and introduced later on in the series. The progression from the initial idea to the polished work is quite intriguing even when we don’t see all the steps involved.

You can see a similar pattern when looking at the initial one-shot release of manga. Often times a popular one-shot manga will be spun off into a full series if the audience is receptive to the idea. That is often the reason to publish many one-shot manga in the first place. This phenomenon is often a good way to see the formative process of an initial concept to a finished product in an in-between stage. Even stories like Rumiko Takahashi’s Those Self Selfish Aliens or Fire Tripper give interesting insights into the full works that would become Urusei Yatsura and Inuyasha. In this post I will be examining two manga and how they evolve from their initial one-shot premiere to their final initial debut as a full-fledged story.

Continue reading →