Category: Editorials

The Rose of Versailles Giveaway and The Case of the Missing Interview

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It still feels a little unreal to have The Rose of Versailles legally on DVD as well as streaming online in English. It was one of the last big White Whale titles still out there. As a seminal work in shojo, as well as anime in general, it is an important title for anyone interested in the history of the medium. It has shaped countless titles since its release and become a fixture in consciousness of fandom. If you aren’t interested in the history of the medium, it is still a damn good show.

For the poor uneducated and unfortunate souls who have not watched this series yet, we have a chance for them to correct that error. All you have to do is answer a simple question for a chance to win.

But first, a minor point of modern history.

The Case of the Missing Interview

You may remember a while back we posted the questions we’d love to ask Riyoko Ikeda. At that time, Right Stuf along with Anime News Network were asking for submissions for a special bonus feature to be included with the U.S. release of The Rose of Versailles on DVD. What a rare opportunity indeed! Apparently, it was too good to be true.

Perhaps they were hoping we’d all be too overjoyed to receive our copies of The Rose of Versailles to notice this missing piece. And believe us, if we hadn’t written a post about that very interview, we probably wouldn’t have chalked it up to wishful thinking on our parts. But the internet remembers (unless it is in its best interest not to)!

Indeed, this does not sully the wondrous beauty that is this release of The Rose of Versailles, but we can’t deny having just a smidgen of disappointment to not have those burning questions (even if they didn’t pick any of ours) answered.

GIVEAWAY

We have both boxsets of The Rose of Versailles looking for a good home.

Just leave us a comment telling us your favorite historical setting for stories!

Entries are due by Saturday, August 3rd. The winner will be notified on Sunday, August 4th. U.S. residents only.

Every Witch Way but Loose

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hisui_icon_4040 I am hardly a person unfamiliar with pessimism. As I always joke that some people see the glass half filled, some people see it half empty, but I see it close to empty and probably filled with poison. But at times I have to wonder what dark pool of empty dread like the stare of the Great Old Ones must people be drawing their fears from to get so fatalistically morbid. There is a world of difference between being slightly cynically cautious and unhealthly fatalistic.

Oddly enough Masaaki Yuasa’s “Kick-Heart” Kickstarter seemed to draw out a lot of this negative aura. What should have been a moment of triumph had the feeling of a Pyrrhic victory. It invoked a scene were in the village was technically saved but as the heroes survey the ruins of their home they wonder if they paid a higher price than it was worth. But in many ways the recent smashing success of Time of Eve and Little Witch Academia proves that maybe people were worried over nothing.

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After more than a decade, I have a comic book pull list again.

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narutaki_icon_4040 Growing up on the Southside of Indianapolis in the 90s, I actually had a better comic selection than you might imagine with three different comic book stores within reach. They didn’t carry much independent stuff, but at the time superheroes were my poison. Thanks to my dad’s dedication to letting me be as nerdy as I wanted, we were in visiting these local stores at least once a week. The employees knew our names and each week we’d chat a little before plopping down our latest purchases.

Then at some point, I don’t really remember when, my dad and I started having a pull list at our favorite of the stores. (A pull list, for those scratching their heads, is just what it sounds like: a pre-reservation system for your favorite comics that the store holds for you as they come out each month.) And the amount of comics I read grew. When the stores started carrying manga, I jumped in. Then I found myself skimming the Previews catalog for new titles or the staff would set aside new stuff my dad and I might like.

Right before my last year of high school, I stopped buying comics monthly and that mighty pull list was no more. Fast forward a year or so later to me moving to NYC, where one can gorge on comic books, and still no pull list materialized. For the ten years thereafter, I hadn’t thought about why I had stopped using the pull list system, but in the last month I really started to mull it over.

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