Happy 4th Anniversary, Reverse Thieves!

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Here we are once again celebrating a milestone. While technically the birth of Reverse Thieves is July 15th, we generally just celebrate sometime in July, and heck it is July 4th for the 4th anniversary so how much more fitting can you get? As always we use anniversary as a time to look at what we have improved about the site, what we plan to do in the upcoming year, and give out some nifty prizes as a reverse birthday gift.

In the last year, we’ve reinstated the Manga of the Month; began the No Case Too Small and Otaku NYC series; our new Sunday links series All Points Bulletin premiered yesterday; we made our first attempt at episode blogging with Gosick; we started participating in Bonus Rounds on Anime3000; and we even started having guests on the Speakeasy.

Perhaps the biggest change in the last year was the upping of the monthly post count average thanks to the implementation of shorter solo posts in between our main stays on Mondays and Fridays. Since August we haven’t fallen below 18 posts a month, most hitting 20 or more! Also since then, and probably because of it, we’ve been averaging 10,000 hits a month for a consistent year.

In the upcoming year we also have some big plans. We are still trying to find a way to but together a Manga Secret Santa project that does not cause too many headaches for everyone involved. When we find a viable method we will let you know. We’re also going to start our next big project as was chosen by the readers: A look at woman in fandom. This project will probably be several smaller questionnaires that will each focus on a different aspect as opposed to mammoth survey that accompanied the Otaku Diaries. This will let women participate on in the sections that are applicable to them. All of this is just the tip of the ice burg. We can’t wait to see what surprises lie in wait in the future.

So of course we are giving away a great big box of goodies to celebrate this anniversary! Just leave a comment telling us what your favorite Reverse Thieves article has been this year.

Entries are due by Sunday, July 17th. The winner will be notified by Friday, July 22th.

*U.S. residents only please. Sorry our abroad buddies we just can’t afford it.

All Points Bulletin: Batman and Kaneda Investigate the Legend of the Galactic Ponies at AnimeNEXT

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All Points Bulletin is our newest little article series to yet again increase the amount of content we bring to our readers. Every Sunday (barring conventions and vacations) we will both post up to six interesting articles, podcasts, or assorted nonsense from the web you might have missed.  These will often be items not worth writing a whole post about but are still worth your time. If you have any suggestions for what to highlight on an APB drop us a line via email or twitter.

Hisui’s picks:

Narutaki’s picks:

We decided to move the picture of the week here. This week we prove the power of imagination. Someone can make women from Jojo’s look cute:

July’s Manga of the Month: Steel Angel Kurumi

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Steel Angel Kurumi (鋼鉄天使くるみ) by Kaishaku

If you listened to the 18th episode of the Speakeasy about Kekkaishi you might remember the Interrogation Room question about what were titles the Reverse Thieves disagreed on. A manga like Steel Angel Kurumi is a perfect example of the sort of trash I like but Narutaki would never willingly read in million years. Steel Angel Kurumi is hardly high literature. In fact high literature weeps when in the same room with Steel Angel Kurumi. But it starts off as a fantastical historical piece in the Taisho era which makes it different than your normal shonen romance and slowly starts to go all over the place.  It is a surprisingly fun little series with a decent amount of heart (and even more boobs and bum.)

Nakahito Kagura is a powerful mystic but a frail boy. So when he is being bullied by some boys from school he accidentally gets shoved into a seemly abandoned lab where he accidentally kisses a life sized doll. Due to his magical power his kiss awakens the android with an angel heart named Kurumi. Soon Nakahito meets Kurumi’s two other sisters Saki and Karinka who make things more complicated. At first they are on the run from the Japanese military but when other nations are revealed to have their own Steel Angels the story gets more complicated. Soon demons, curses, secret organizations, and time travel to the distant year of 2011 are added to the mix.

I’m not going to lie and say that Steel Angel Kurumi is a manga for everyone. It is filled with flaws. The plot despise its initial historical setting is hardly original. Also everything is very clearly being made up as the story goes along. The characters are all archetypical. And there is boobs (with nipples) and panty shots galore. But despite all of that the manga has manic energy and joy. While the story never has a clear focus it is always moving to a new fun idea and never letting a plot line drag on for too long. Boom. Their running from the military. Boom. They are participating in the Steel Fight. Boom. They travel to the future. Boom. They are fighting hidden demons. Never a dull moment. Also while the characters are extremely archetypical they are also pretty fun. I particularly like Karinka’s spunky attitude. The humor can be hit or miss. Some of the jokes are pieces of lazy harem humor but they really hit it out of the park sometimes. You also have to like that most of the random Steel Angles are actually reader submitted like it was Kinnikuman. I always felt like Kaishaku were having fun while making Steel Angel Kurumi and that is a powerful plus. Sadly this was an ADV manga title so they only ever published 9 out of 11 books. Maybe one day I will see where they finally ended this fun little manga.