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: Cardcaptor Sakura Movie 2: The Sealed Card, BOZEBEATS, ACT-AGE, Land of the Lustrous, One Piece Fish-Man Island and Punk Hazard arcs.
Song: Land of the Lustrous OP “Kyoumen no Nami” by YURiKA
Food for Thought: What is your favorite One Piece arc?
Topics: Top-selling 2017 US Manga, Crunchyroll Manga to No Longer Offer Catalog Chapters of Kodansha Titles, Akita Publishing, Netflix to Co-Produce Anime With Production I.G, Bones, WIT Studio, Anisong Station Simulcast.
Tokyo Tarareba Girls by Akiko Higashimura
Are you in the Olympic spirit like me? Then enjoy Tokyo Tarareba Girls! I’m sure a dramedy about single 30-somethings discussing their lives and loves isn’t the first series that seems relevant to an international athletic competition, but these women have a plan: get married before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
From the creator of Princess Jellyfish comes a hilarious and searing look into the concepts of youth, beauty, love, sex, and society’s expectations on women, especially as they age. Successful screenwriter Rinko and her friends meet-up to commiserate their “old age” and play the what-if game of continuously rehashing their past decisions and speculating on how things could have turned out differently. Their feelings about their failed relationships and their desires to find love are complex. They embrace society’s demands of them while also trying to reject those demands; it’s a tough and true place they find themselves in.
Funny, heartbreaking, a little too on the nose at times, and over the top at the right points, Tokyo Tarareba Girls speaks with authenticity about the actual experience of your 30s VS what you thought it would be like in your 20s. Just because life didn’t turn out the way you planned doesn’t make it wrong, but will Rinko learn this herself by the end?
~kate
Reverse Thieves 