Netflix, anime and me: a follow-up

First: about me

*Looks at his last few posts and sighs*. Yeah, that whole "going youtube-thing" isn't going to work out, eh? Let's face it: Doing youtube videos for a perfectionist like me (who can't ad-lib) was way too much work, while I have way too little time to properly edit all the footage I have. And unlike your average youtube editor, I can't afford to stay awake until 4 in the morning; I still have a day job.

And since I can't do ad-libs properly (I go off-topic and start rambling waaaay too often), I had to write the script beforehand completely. The moment I came to the conclusion that I was writing the entire script like I would write my blog posts, I caved in. This had no point, other than exhausting me.

So I took a break for some retrospective thoughts. In the meantime I've been writing a Dutch blog (about my travels in Japan). But since the last post is planned to be released in the next week, I wanted to shift my focus on anime again.

But I want to change my writing according to my current viewing habits and not the other way around (which was a mistake I have made in the past). And my viewing habit has become that of a casual anime fan: watching one or two of the current seasonal anime, but then watch whatever pops up on Netflix.

Let's face it: Crunchyroll may have the biggest selection of anime, most people watching it are the seasonal anime fans. And those viewers aren't blog readers (there are some, but they're a minority). People that visit this blog (or most anime blogs for that matter) are those who are looking for reviews of an entire series that just popped up on their radar (e.g. via Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, etc). They read whether or not it's good and start binge-watching.

Long story short: The plan is that I'm going to be writing reviews for anime on Netflix.

Anime on Netflix - the follow-up

Since I'm talking about Netflix, let's first do a follow-up post on my post of last August about anime on Netflix; just to see what has happened and what has changed ever since.

For the original post, check this link: https://thevproject.blogspot.com/2017/08/a-talk-about-anime-netflix-funimation.html

What has been released since my post in 2017:

• Little Witch Academia: Both (short) movies and both seasons have been released. The only thing missing is Netflix linking them all together chronologically for convenient watching experience (seriously, Netflix. Get to it!)
• Fate / Apocrypha: Season 1 was added this past winter, season 2 was added March 31st and is thus complete.
• Devilman Crybaby: Has been added January 5th 2018 and was one of the most talked about series of the past winter season.
• Kakegurui: I have no idea why this anime took SO long. But it's been added since February 1st. Oh, and the live action adaptation followed soon after.
• ID-0: I always thought this was an Amazon exclusive. I now realize it was a Netflix exclusive... it's a bad series, but it's been added.
• Godzilla Monster Planet: Has been added January 17th. The second movie will be added from July 18th! There will be more Godzilla animated movies released in the coming years and they will all come to Netflix after their respective theater run has completed.
• B the Beginning: Season 1 has been added March 2nd, season 2 has been announced for later this year.
• A.I.C.O. Incarnation: Has been released, March 9th 2018
• Children of the whale: Sneaked its way in below the radar, but yes: it's on Netflix since March 13th 2018.
• Sword Gai: Yup, it's been added since March 23rd. Season 2 will be added at the end of July
• Violet Evergarden: First anime to be released on a weekly basis in the west (except in the US, who got everything afterwards in one go, on April 5th).
• Aggretsuko: Released April 20th. This is without a doubt the best anime of spring 2018! - Update: Confirmed on July 6th: Will receive a second season in 2019!
• Mob Psycho 100: Oh how big the disappointment was when we noticed it was the Live-action adaptation instead of the anime.
• The disastrous life of Saiki K Season 2 (first half): Added June 26th. The first season was added to the catalog only this spring, so I was pretty amazed we got the second season so soon afterwards... until I saw we got only half of it (booh!).
• Fate/EXTRA Last Encore: Most recent addition: June 30th. Season 2 to be added later on.

Other series have been added where I live, but I noticed that's more due to local licenses from MangaUK (like One Punch Man & Saiki K) and French licensing, rather than being "Netflix originals" or netflix-sponsored shows.

One lucky shift is that more recently Netflix seems to be bothering more with Dutch subtitles, because only a few months ago half of the anime titles available on Netflix only had French subs/audio alongside the Japanese audio (which is really frustrating as a fan). Thank god, that has changed with the more recent additions.

To be released in 2018, from July onward:

Sources: ANN, Netflix itself, the official Netflix Youtube Channel and AnimeUKNews.net

Title	About	Release date
Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle	2nd of the 3 Godzilla movies. Third one is released in theaters in October '18. So Netflix release will be somewhere in spring of 2019.	July 5th
Sword Guy (season 2)	Not the best of anime, but be "excited" for the second half this month!	July 30th
Flavors of Youth (Shikioriori)	A cooperation between ComicWave Films (the studio behind most Makoto Shinkai movies) and the Chinese Haoliners Animation League comes a collection of three shorts, woven together into a movie format. Hence the name Shikioriori or Poem of Seasons Woven Together.	August 4th (worldwide)
Last Hope (Jūshinki Pandora)	Total dud (around 5,5/10 on MAL), but we're getting this anyway.	September 14 (first half), December 21 (second half)
Dragon Pilot: Hisone and Masotan	Studio Bones anime that aired in Japan this Spring season.	September 21
The disastrous life of Saiki K Season 2 (2nd half)	Not a Netflix-exclusive, but we're finally caught up now	September 21
Gundam Unicorn	Never expected a Gundam series to hit Netflix here, but it was added alongside Saiki S2.	September 21
Piano Forest TV (dubbed as Forest of Piano)	A new adaptation of this manga, this time a tv-series instead of a movie. Aired in Japan this spring season.	September 28, 2018 (first season), 2019 (second season)
Lost Song	Aired this spring in Japan. Slightly postponed from September to October 5th	October 5th 2018
Seven Deadly Sins: Revival of The Commandments	Edit: Netflix has corrected its season 2 as "Signs of the Holy War", so when the the ACTUAL season 2 comes around, you will know. Japan has had the 24-episode run past Spring. To be seen if we get all 24 episodes in one go, though.	October 15
Castlevania (Season 2)	Yeah-yeah-yeah, not an anime. F**k it, it fits in this list! Also, third season is also greenlit for 2019!	October 26th
Fate/EXTRA Last Encore: Illustrias Geocentric Theory	We finally got a release date for the "second season" of Fate Extra... The full 3 episodes	October 30
Ingress the Animation	You remember that other game from Niantic (the one that is NOT Pokémon go)? It's getting an anime adaptation in October for some weird reason. Update: Delayed with (at least) a month.	October 2018 (Japan), November 23(worldwide)
Baki	My It's going to be a 2-cours run (26 episodes) and it will start airing this summer (Japan first release). Rest of the world is in Fall	Japan: June 26th, Worldwide: December 18th (first half)
Tenrou: Sirius the Jaeger	A P.A. Works anime about vampire hunters with music instruments (err, sure?).	Japan: July '18, Worldwide: December 21st
Hi Score Girl	Another J.C. Staff anime (huh, really). This one is about a boy who encounters a girl that's a genius at gaming. Twist: it's set in the early 90s.	Japan: July 2018. Worldwide: 24 December
Back Street Girls: Gokudolls	A J.C. Staff anime about Yakuza undergoing a sex operation to become idols (wut?). Obviously a seinen series.	Japan: July 2018. Worldwide: Fall season 2018

 

Coming to Netflix in 2019

Title	About	Release date
Kakegurui (Season 2)	Yeey, more of our favorite gambler!	Japan: Fall 2018, Worldwide: Somewhere in 2019
B the Beginning (season 2)	First season was so-so. But Netflix has renewed it for a second season. While originally scheduled for fall '18, that reference got removed later on. Now it's confirmed to be postponed to somewhere in 2019.	Postponed to 2019
Cannon Busters	Finally some more info on this LeSean Thomas project. It's been postponed to 2019. But as compensation, Boondock Saints has been added to the catalog (lol).	April 1st 2019
Rilakkuma and Kaoru	The only thing released this year is the teaser trailer (booh!). The actual release has been postponed to Spring 2019.	Spring 2019
Ultraman	An anime adaptation of the Ultraman series? Though this one is going to be based on the 2011 manga that just recently ended. Cool! Though... 3D CG series by Production I.G. has me a bit worried (they're... hit and miss).	Spring 2019
Knights of the Zodiac: Saint Seiya	The new CG incarnation of the classic Saint Seiya story. Also delayed until 2019. But similarly, we got The Lost Canvas in the catalog as a compensation price?	Somewhere in 2019
Kengan Ashura	Fresh announcement from AnimeExpo. The adaptation of this martial arts anime is slated for a 2019 release.	Somewhere in 2019
Revisions	Recently announced. Slated for a January 2019 release in Japan, no confirmation if worldwide or Japan first.	Japan: January 2019, Worldwide: Somewhere in 2019
Seis Manos	Viz recently announced they would create an original anime for Netflix, created (US side) by the people behind the Castlevania series, but no Japanese studio has been confirmed yet.	Somewhere in 2019
Aggretsuko (Season 2)	Anime of the spring season has a 2nd season greenlit for 2019! Yeey!	Somewhere in 2019
Forest of Piano (Season 2)	As originally slated	Somewhere in 2019
Baki (Second half)	As originally slated	Somewhere in 2019
Carole & Tuesday	Original anime by Studio Bones, music-based	Somewhere in 2019
Yasuke	A collab between Lesean Thomas and Studio Mappa? Feudal Japan with mechs and magic? Sign me the heck up!	No date confirmed
Seven Deadly Sins: Prisoners of the Sky (movie)	The Seven Deadly Sins movie has been confirmed to get a Netflix release.	Somewhere in 2019
Altered Carbon	An animated spin-off from the live action series	No date confirmed. Could be 2019.
Cagaster of an Insect Cage	A Gonzo anime for Netflix, based upon the manga Mushikago no Cagaster? Interesting. But full CG?...	No date confirmed

Oh, and if you want to cringe... A Sword Art Online Live Action adaptation has also been sold to Netflix. So if the anime wasn't bad enough, we can now cringe at real live actors reenacting that horrible story. I know a few anitubers that will love to tear this one apart.

Afterword

Now that Fate Last Encore is out, I'll be watching that (trainwreck) and write a review about it. Considering the score it's getting on review sites, I get the feeling I'm going to need some alcohol to finish it.

Follow-ups

July 6th-17th: Done a few additions in the past few weeks, based on AnimeExpo reveals.

July 17th: Did a retooling of the to-be-aired section, to make it easier overview.

September (gen.): A few minor tweaks as some release dates get fixed (7 Deadly sins, Saiki, Fate Extra) or postponed a bit (Piano Forest, Lost Song)

November: Added new titles, got a few delay updates.

A talk about anime, Netflix, Funimation, Sony, Aniplex and Daisuki

Wow, it's been quite a news heavy week on anime side. Usually I don't bother doing "anime news" posts, since most people know to check the ANN and CR news page from time to time. But this time around, I wanted to give a few remarks. Since there's a LOT going on which has a BIG impact on the future of how we watch anime in the future.

As usual, I first looked at this with a negative approach ("All signs of a new anime bubble!"). But after a few days of thinking this through, I realized it may not be as negative as I first thought. It's just... change. And we'll have to adapt to change, whether we like that or not.

Let's go over these news stories one by one.

Netflix announces huge anime lineup for the following year

Sources: Various, from Netflix' YT channel to various press releases on ANN, Comicbooknews and others. This week was a huge week for Netflix announcements concerning anime. Netflix had a huge press conference in Japan and announced several new series coming to Netflix in the following year and gave a few dates for expected updates. Here's the updates to already known titles:

• Little Witch Academia (second half): August 15
• Fate Apocrypha (season 1): November 2 (US/CAN), December 2 (rest of world)
• Kakegurui: 2018 (no exact date)
• Children of the Whale: Already announced earlier this month, but re-confirmed this Wednesday. The anime starts airing on Netflix Japan this coming Fall season. Rest of the world will be later.
• Godzilla: Monster Planet: Also a re-confirmation. The animated Godzilla movie will first run in Japanese theaters in November of this year. After the theater run, it will become available on Netflix Worldwide.
• A.I.C.O. Incarnation: A Studio Bones anime original for Netflix. It's 12 episodes and will air in Spring 2018 (worldwide?).
• Devilman Crybaby: It's confirmed to be 10 episodes that will air in Spring 2018. If you're unfamiliar with Devilman, Netflix currently streams the series Cyborg 009 Vs Devilman. You may want to watch that if you want to have an idea of what Devilman is about.
• Baki: I'm excited for this. I like the Baki series manga (127 volumes at this moment and still running) and has already resulted in an OVA and 2 seasons of 24 episodes back in 2001. This new anime is based on the "Baki" sub-series which ran between 1999 and 2005, and will focus on the "Most Evil Death Row Convicts" story arc, which is set after the series that have already been animated (hint). The anime will be animated by TMS Entertainment (I like their more seinen-focused direction in the last few years) and will consist of 26 episodes. The anime will air (in Japan) somewhere in 2017 (I presume in December?). No news on when it will air in the West. Somehow I hope that the other Baki series will get a Netflix release as well. May help re-vive interest in the Baki franchise.
• Cannon Busters: LeSean Thomas' comic book already had a Shortfilm anime adaptation funded via Kickstarter (cool). An now Studio Satelight is doing a 12-episode series of it. I can only say: Awesome. No specific date yet, but let's assume somewhere in 2018.
• Lost Song: An anime original series co-created by Liden Films (infamous for Berserk '16) & DWANGO (known for Mirai Nikki among others). The anime will air in Japan starting January '18 and will probably see a release in the West on a later date.
• Sword Gai: The manga created by the same guy who brought the world Kamen Rider is finally getting an anime adaptation. The production had some delay (it was originally announced back in 2014), but will finally see the light of day this coming Spring 2018... Globally! Animation will be done by Studio DLE inc. (known for Akiba's Trip amonst others).
• B: the Beginning: First announced as "Perfect Bones", but now renamed to B the Beginning (with B standing for Bones, I guess?). The story is an anime original and created by Studio I.G. And the anime will be released worldwide on Netflix in Spring 2018.
• Knights of the Zodiac: Saint Seiya: A CG remake of the original Saint Seiya fits in with the dozens of remakes of classic anime series. It was only a matter of time Saint Seiya would be handled. However: The first season of this new series will be 12 episodes and will contain the start up to the Silver Saints Story arc... which was 35 episodes in the original. I have mixed feelings about this. I realize there's a HUGE amount of filler in the original series (not to mention slow pacing), but this reduction is just ridiculous. On animation side, this is a Toei franchise, so it's animated by Toei... in full CG. Also mixed feelings on that.
• Rilakkuma: Kids anime about bears in Miffy / Hello Kitty style. No surprise, it's from the company behind Hello Kitty. Much ignored by news outlets due to it being a kiddy anime. But presumed release somewhere in 2018.
• And last but not least... Violet Evergarden: Just announced yesterday in Germany's AnimagiC 2017. Kyoto Animation's new Project already had its first episode premiered at Anime Expo a few weeks ago and did the same now at AnimagiC, with a full panel explaining further details. The show will air on Netflix Japan this upcoming January, with the rest of the world following in Spring 2018.

Lots of good news. But also lots of frustrated people due to the continuous delay of releases between East and West. Kakegurui will be released only "somewhere" in 2018? It's already the most pirated anime this season, and this announced delay is NOT going to help that (*sigh*). The few "worldwide" releases in this press conference may be a sign of changes to come in the future. Let's hope for that.

Oh, and on a side-note: The Live-action Death Note Netflix movie/flop(?) will be available from August 29. That'll be fun times for movie reviewers. I'm going to tune in as well then. Wish me luck.

Financial report states Netflix is in billion-dollar deep debt

Source: L.A. Times

Next to the big fun announcements, Netflix tried to make people forget about this earlier news report. Netflix apparently has a billion dollar debt... but it's normal, according to their investors? That's about the only positive thing I can say about this, but let's just say I'm a bit worried about the continued existence of Netflix.

The L.A. Times has created a report stating that Netflix has a debt of several BILLIONS of dollars (not millions but billions). And while the initial report was wrong, it's still a big red number. The correction?: L.A. Times originally stated the debt was 15.7 billion, while Netflix corrected that to 4.8. Okay, that's less than 10% of initially stated, so a correction was necessary. But 4.8 billion dollar is still a huge debt!

And yes, everybody invested in Netflix finds this apparently pretty normal since Netflix has always worked with debts in order to finance their business. And the financial "game plan" that Netflix has layed-out to its investors has them content with their plans for the future.

I'm no financial expert, so I personally can't say if this is a normal way of working for a streaming service or TV-station. And their financial plan may indeed succeed and bring them many years of success (god, I hope so). But I'm worried, because constant debts aren't healthy for any company. And I'm honestly not alone in this way of thinking. Industry experts are already warning for a "Netflix Bubble". Let's cross fingers and hope this isn't going to be a repeat of the anime bubble from a decade ago...

Funimation is bought by Sony Pictures

Source: Variety

The big surprise early this week was the bomb that Funimation has been bought by Sony Pictures Television Networks (that IS the full name of the TV-series sub branch of Sony) for the sum of $143 million. And yes, while it had been reported earlier this year that "multiple partners" were looking to purchase Funimation, it still feels like a surprise to anime fans in general.

And this should be good news, right? While Funimation is thé standard for licensing and dubbing anime in the US for the past two decades, it's still a relatively small player in the TV and movie business overall (don't forget, anime IS still considered a niche product in the entirety of entertainment). So having a big company like Sony behind its shoulders, should put them in a real solid foundation, and may push anime towards mainstream acceptation, right?

Yes, in theory. But it's having many people worry about the future of anime in America, not to mention the deal with Crunchyroll to share their streaming libraries. Sony Pictures isn't exactly been known for their "great business decisions" in the past few years (putting it nicely here).

There's also the fear that Funimation may close its streaming service all together to have everything move to Sony's online service "Crackle". And if you've never heard of that, neither did I until this week. That's how well known this service is in the world of streaming.

And while I think the dubbing division of Funi is in no risk of any change (in fact, Sony may take use of it), the current distribution partnerships (both of movie releases as physical releases) may have to merge with whatever Sony currently has.

Another good thing is that Funimation will have a hold of all Sony anime movies (like the Cowboy Bebop movie, Satoshi Kon's movies and others). Bad thing is that Funi may have to focus their dubbing efforts in Sony/Aniplex projects (read as: anything A1 Pictures spits out, whether it's "good" or horribly bad) and less on other projects.

But a lot of these questions are still up in the air. ANN's Answerman has tried to answer some questions. But for other effects, we'll have to see what announcements are going to be made in the coming weeks/months.

Although, while talking about Aniplex projects...

Daisuki officially ends on October 31

Source: Daisuki itself

One of the bigger Streaming Services of legal anime is Daisuki. I have been praising the service as one of the alternative streaming services. This service was part of Bandai-Namco and held most of its titles (availability depended on licenses).

And yes, It has quite a few anime series on its site, like Eromanga Sensei, a LOT of Gundam series including Iron-Blooded Orphans, Tales of Zesteria the X, One Punch Man and several others. Yes, even here in Belgium.

But people were aware that things had "slowed down" on the site recently. Several of its licenses were either ending or became available on other streaming sites (like the Gundam series becoming available on Crunchyroll) and no real new titles were added this summer season (that I'm aware of). They were also absent from recent anime conventions where they usually took part in.

So Tuesday came the announcement that the streaming service is officially ending at the end of October and in December everything that was connected to Daisuki will be removed from the internet.

Has this something to do with the Funimation deal? Yes, definitely! Aniplex (subsidiary of Sony) is one of the five studios who was partnered with Daisuki and had 13.4% of its shares. So yes, there IS a connection between the two cases.

Is this bad or good? THAT all depends on what the four other anime studios backing Daisuki are going to do. Aniplex obviously is going to use Funimation and/or Sony's streaming services for their anime. But are they going to "involve" the other animation studios behind Daisuki as well into their new plans (like Toei and TMS), or did Aniplex bail this "team-up" all together? The coming months will probably provide us with more answers.

Afterthoughts

There have been some questions about the financial gains of streaming sites in general, not to mention anime streaming sites (which, once again, is a niche). But all these news messages in this post are a sign that the anime industry is changing in general. If anything, I think this may push anime into actual mainstream and out of its niche.

I'll be following the anime industry related news more closely now. And it's bound to follow.

Until next time, V out.

Spring season of anime is over. I should be writing more about it. But I've been trying to find a way to write about anime, rather than just giving the synopsis and characters; especially in the case where there's not much to talk about the backstory (*scratches head* - Let's call that a work in progress).

Today I'm talking about Atom the Beginning, and why it doesn't work as intended. The short answer: Filler. Yeah, filler! And if that seem strange for a 1-season anime, that's because IT IS!

But let's start from the beginning about...

Why nobody talks about Atom the Beginning

What IS Atom the Beginning?

Atom the Beginning is a monthly manga created by Tetsuro Kasahara that works both as a re-imagining of, as well as a prequel to the legendary Tetsuwan Atom, better known in the west as Astro Boy. And if you don't know who Astro Boy or Atom is, then shame on you as an anime fan! It is thé creation from the godfather of manga and anime: Osamu Tezuka. Astro Boy is to Japan what characters like Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny are to America.

And while Astro Boy has been remade several times ever since its first appearance in the early 60s, this is the first of a set of "re-imaginings" that actually reaches the screen (with Urasawa's Pluto following somewhere in the following year).

Atom the Beginning tells the story of the two scientists (Umatarō Tenma and Hiroshi Ochanomizu) that were behind the creation of Atom (or its code name A1011 if you catch the inside reference) and tells us how these two originally met in university and how their first creations went. And more specifically, it tells the story of the prototype that predates Atom, codenamed A106 (A-Ten-Six). And yes, that is as intriguing as it sounds. Both Tenma and Ochanomizu (neither of them is "doctor" yet, but still a univ student) are shown to care about each other and their creations, even if their personalities often clash with each other. The over-caring Ochanomizu can't always agree with the often erratic Tenma.

And if you know anything about Atom-lore, you know that this is an interesting premise for an Atom-prequel and "what-if" story. And similar to other "Atom" spin-offs, this as well got input from Makoto Tezuka, the daughter of Osamu Tezuka (and also from Masami Yuki for some reason). And from what I've read from the 10 chapters that have been fan-translated, it IS a good manga.

But if that is true, what went wrong with the anime?

Amazon Anime Strike, late air date and lack of promotion

First, let's talk about a few factors that may have been an influence on why not that many people talk about the series in general.

The anime series is exclusive to Amazon's Anime Strike, where anime goes to die. It's a bad joke that bears repeating. anime exclusive to Amazon will reach a smaller audience because of exclusivity to America and a high combined monthly subscription fee (though that may change in the future).

Then there's the air date for the first episode, which was the fourth week of April (if you include the first weekend). That may seem trivial to you, but when the seasonal anime watchers (the trend setters of the community) are trying to pick their series for the new season, it's the series that start airing in the first week of the new season that will receive a larger coverage. It's a marketing strategy, really. The later on in the season you start your series, the less coverage and buzz you will receive. And in a season where you're competing with Attack on Titan, My Hero Academia and Eromanga sensei you will need all the buzz that is thrown in your direction.

Thank Gigguk for hyping the TOURNAMENT ARC!

And then there is the minimal amount of promotion. Heck, I wouldn't have noticed the series if people from the anime community weren't pointing to this series as the one where the internet sensation Bahi JD is working on the opening and end credits. And since Westerners (Bahi is Austrian) working in the anime scene is REALLY RARE, that generated a lot of buzz. But that was buzz from the community... not from the marketing department of the series. From that side we got two promo video's, but that was about it.

So it's safe to say that this series was flying under the radar for a lot of people. But it still could've been a "hidden gem" to promote... but then something else happened that prevented even that from happening.

Codeword: Filler

The comments on the first episodes haven't been nice. I could spill all the bile I can gather from MAL forums and Reddit. But in short: the story takes way too long to set up its premise. It's too slow and thus too boring.

And yes, I can agree with that sentiment. By the time the interesting part of the story starts (the robo-wrestling tournament), we're already at episode 8/12 while this is chapter 4 of the manga. Yes, it takes that long. Episodes 3, 4, 6 and 7 are filler... and so is episode 9. Yes, that is FIVE episodes of pure filled-up content in a 12-episode run. I don't think I've EVER heard of an anime that started to use filler THIS EARLY in its production cycle.

Do you know what most people hated about series like Naruto, Bleach and Fairy Tail? What brought a lot of their ratings and fan appreciations down? The massive amounts of filler episodes. Fillers are non-canon and often serve just to fill out a time-slot until enough manga chapters are ready to be animated. They're needed in long-running series, but nobody likes them.

And do I even need to mention the nonsense fillers add to the story?

And in such long-running series I can (somewhat) understand the use of filler. But here? Can somebody tell me why 5 of the 12 episodes of Atom the Beginning are Filler? Don't come and tell me there isn't enough material available, because there is. The monthly manga has been running for nearly three years and has sufficient material to fill up a 12-episode time-slot and even more.

And if the creators were testing the waters to see if they would care for a more long-running series of this kind, they most certainly failed. Because once again, nobody likes fillers.

Oh yes, we certainly needed a culture festival episode
Because we all wanted to see A106 make udon noodles, right?

So for crying out loud... WHY? It will probably take months (or even years) before we get honest interview of staff, director or producer on what went wrong here; but we're going to need some explanation. Because the end result is just not worth the investment of a casual anime viewer.

And that is sad because I wanted to praise this series. I want to let the anime community know that there is a huge interest in the Atom franchise in Japan and the rest of the world. I wanted to warm the people up for the upcoming Pluto series and who knows - maybe even the fifth-or-so reboot of the Atom television series as a whole.

And this anime has gorgeous visuals, the OP and ED are really good (Thanks to Bahi JD), the CG blends in really well with the 2D animation and the voice cast is really good. Everything but the story is really GOOD.

But as with most anime, the story is what makes or breaks the series.

And here, it's broken into pieces and patched together with a poor adhesive.

Can I still watch and enjoy it?

Yes, you can, but with a big asterisk next to it. The second half of the series is really good and really enjoyable to watch. The robo-wrestling tournament was always intended to be the highlight of the season and it shows. For those episodes alone this anime is worth watching (Episodes 8-12).

So err, just skip episodes 3 - 4 - 6 - 7 and maybe even 9 (though that one kind of works), and you'll have the story that was originally intended. The 4 mentioned episodes? Skip those and pretend they never existed. This way, you may still be able to enjoy Atom the Beginning.

It's a sad truth, but that's what it is.

Until next time, V out.

NyaaTorrents closes its doors, the end of an era?

Being a European anime fan and being active on the internet since the early 2000s, I've spent my fair share of time on the torrent-site nyaa (.org, .eu, and also.se). It's been a part of my anime watching life for years now, and I wasn't really that surprised to see it being down once again (happened a a few times before). What did surprise me was the series of messages that followed it, because it wasn't just "down for a short while". No, it's down for good. The anime-torrent-cat has been put to rest.

V reflects on Nyaa

Long story short

The owner of the site Nyaa.org/se/eu has decided to close his sites on voluntary basis. The reason why is not confirmed by the owner yet, but the people close to him do state that it's most likely due to the recent Kodi ruling in European court (again, not confirmed. Do take this with a grain of salt).

For those who don't know, the Kodi ruling is a court case where the manufacturer of devices that contained the Kodi software were pre-configured to have pirating tv-series as its primary function. While the Kodi software by itself is still not considered illegal (which may change, considering), the pre-programmed device IS considered illegal, because it's configured in a way to promote piracy.

And while this ruling by itself could not be a reason to shut down Nyaa, IT IS a precedent that may very well extend to other "sites that are configured in a way to promote piracy" (which Nyaa technically is). And since the owner didn't want the hassle or media attention the MegaUpload owner (Kim Schmitz) garnered when his site got taken down, he took it upon himself to pull the plug.

Fan-subs: Legal or illegal?

Fan-subs have been kind of a legal gray area in Europe for a long time. Yes that IS strange, isn't it? For Americans and Asians it was clear for a long time that it was illegal to share this kind of content. Heck, in Japan it's even illegal to OWN fansubs.

But in Europe... nobody really cared and there was no general law prohibiting to create fan-subs nor share them for free (emphasis on: for free). Some countries had some form of law, while many others had pretty much nothing.

And since anime was pretty much unavailable in most European countries (if you're not living in the UK, France, Germany, Spain or Italy at least), most countries had other priorities to handle when it came to handling piracy.

How to watch anime in Europe in the past? Fansubs was the only way!

If you don't live in America, Asia or the previous mentioned 5 European countries, you're like me and have had a hard time watching anime in a legal fashion.

While during the anime boom of the early 2000s, some anime have aired on TV and some companies have tried selling official subs in a lot of European countries, the bursting of the anime bubble around 2008 caused most of those companies to become bankrupt. Today, not a single company is foolish enough to repeat that mistake, unless it's a Ghibli movie or Pokémon.

So how could you watch anime? Well, you either hoped some TV channel would broadcast it, you imported overpriced DVDs or BRs or you did like most people over here and went to nyaa (directly or indirectly via fansub sites).

Unless you had bank notes to spare, there really wasn't any other option!

Do NOT diss fan-subs

I get that it's not-done as a blogger or Youtuber to promote fan-subs due to piracy reasons (let alone promoting thieves like Horriblesubs), but you have to admit that they're a necessary evil.

Many anime only got popular in the west due to fan-subs. Mainstream series like Naruto and Bleach got their hype due to the fan-subs.

Many less popular titles would never have gotten a dub or release in the west, if not due to fan-subs making them more popular.
A sequel or remake is announced of a classic anime? Go search Nyaa or IRC for who subbed the original series and you can get up to speed.
Somebody advised you a niche title that may be up your alley? Search online and enjoy!
DVD's sold out and no longer being made due to the anime bubble bursting? You can rely on fansubs to be there for you.
Don't have any money? You could still watch fan-subs until you have money to start your own collection (it's what I did).

If not for fan-subs, the anime community would never be this big.

Times are changing - legally streaming anime

Luckily times have changed. Crunchyroll going from illegal to legal and Netflix starting to offer anime were two very big changes the anime community desperately needed. We now have options to watch anime in a legal fashion without it costing an arm and a leg. Go to Crunchyroll and you'll find hundreds of anime you can watch for free (including big titles like Gintama, Gundam, Naruto Shippuuden and Yu-Gi-Oh). Go to Daisuki and Viewster and you can find some other titles, no matter what country you live in.

Make this happen for One Piece and DB Super and you got me sold.

Yes, there's still that annoying "Content not available in your region" BS we have to put up with on the popular shows (like Attack on Titan or Dragon Ball Super).
But of the current season alone, there are LOTS of titles available to watch everywhere, even outside of the US. I counted all shows currently airing that I can legally watch in my area (Belgium) and I came up with 35 different titles (on Crunchyroll and Daisuki combined). And that's not even including the offers Netflix and Amazon have.

And yes, that includes popular titles like Boruto, WorldEnd, Berserk, Akashic Records, Love Tyrant, Alice & Zoroku, Eromanga Sensei, KADO, Hinako Note and many others.

Think about it. 35 titles that are still airing that you can watch without bothering to download anything illegally. And if you pay for their subscription, you can even watch the latest episode just as it aired in Japan! That is something that was unthinkable 10 years ago.

Back then, any site that offered you a subscription model was basically selling "free fansubs" for money. And yes, I did not forget Crunchyroll used to be part of these kind of scumbags. Why do you think it took so long for me to actually trust Crunchyroll? I only started trusting it after Funimation officially endorsed the site.

What about the anime "not available in your region"?

Well, the other thing that is good about the changed times is that the overall price of anime DVDs and BRs have dropped significantly due to decreased demand (and online/legal alternatives). I got quite a nice collection of anime DVDs and BRs that are otherwise "unavailable" to me via legal streaming.

Sites like Amazon, Zavvi, Archonia and others have made it possible to buy full seasons of classic and current anime for 30€ and below (which in the past could barely get you a single DVD disc containing 4 episodes of questionable quality).

Random screen grab from Zavvi anime Blu-Rays.
At this price, it's an offense to still bother with piracy.

But for the series that are not available (yet), I sadly enough still rely on groups like Horriblesubs. No, I don't like them either (they're no fan-subbers. They just steal Crunchyroll's content), but until region locks are a thing of the past it's the only option for me to watch shows like My Hero Academia, Attack on Titan, Atom the Beginning, Sakura Quest, The Eccentric Family and Dragon Ball Super.

Heck, I will make a promise here and now. The day Crunchyroll announces they're getting rid of Region Locks, I'm dropping torrented subs all together and I'm buying a Crunchyroll premium membership for the rest of my life. And I'm a man of my word.

How do I know which anime is available in my region?

Use the following process:

• Go to: http://because.moe/. (bookmark it)
• Type in the anime you want to watch/test.
• The site will return the platforms you can watch it on legally (CR, Daisuki, Viewster, Funimation, AnimeNetwork, Netflix, Hulu and Amazon).
  Note: This search engine does not know about region-locks.
• Click on the site logo (e.g. the Crunchyroll logo) and you'll get a direct link to the anime page.
• If you receive an episode list, it's legal in your country/region.
• If you receive that [censored] message of region-locking, you're in no luck.

Note: Sometimes it's handy to test multiple platforms. Blue Exorcist Kyoto Sage (for example) is unavailable on CR in my region, but IS available on Daisuki. Same goes for Eromanga Sensei. Why? I have absolutely NO idea. But that's the way it is.

Okay, I got this little rant out of my system. Rest in Peace, Nyaa. You served your purpose.

Until next time, V out.

V Reviews - Bananya: WTF did I just watch?

Shifting through random best-of lists of 2016 anime series, a certain weird image popped up here and there that caught my interest. It was an image of a cat in a banana...

At first, I thought it was an add for 9gag, or similar joke sites. But no, this was a genuine anime of 2016.

So out of sheer curiosity, I started watching it! 13 shorts of about 3 minutes later and I'm still left wondering what I just watched.

V Reviews - Bananya

Backstory

Well, somewhere in 2015 a few business people at the Japanese Stationary store Q-Lia had a meeting about what new kind of mascot would sell them merchandise. Seeing as cats are very popular in Japan, they obviously had to do something with cats.

But how could they make cats look original? While there is no official confirmation on this, I'm pretty sure the Minions movie from 2015 (and its trailer) had something to do with this...

No matter what you think of the movie: the MARKETING on Minions is genius-level.

So not that much later in 2015, Bananya became one of the new Q-Lia mascot characters. And to no-one's surprise, the banana-cat became quite popular!

Did we mention there are plushies?!

Shortly after its launch Q-Lia launched a crowdfunding campaign to get an anime sponsored (animated by TMS entertainment). And while the campaign wasn't that successful (at first glance at least), they apparently still got enough money to get their animated shorts made.

And in summer of 2016 we were "blessed" with this beauty...

The err... Story?

Yeah, er... It's the story of Bananya, an animal who is both cat as well as banana. And he's not alone. There are other plushies... err, banana-cats as well. And while they're not visible when we look around, they start appearing and do stuff when we leave the room.

And they're technically cats doing cat-like things. But in this case, they have a banana-shaped lower half. And those cat-like stuff includes stuff like sleeping, eating, chasing mice, wandering around town... you know. The usual cat stuff!

Characters

Left to right, top to bottom we have:

• Bananya
• Tora Bananya
• Sabatora Bananya
• Kenaga Bananya
• Kuro Bananya
• Bananyako

And there also Baby Bananya, Oyaji (old man) Bananya, Taba (bundle) Bananya and a few others.

Art & Sound

The art is simple, yet very charming... And that's it. But honestly, that's all it needs. It's cats doing cat things in a cute way. No matter the art style, people would probably have loved it either way.

Sound is kind of basic, but acceptable.
What is fun to note however, is that nearly all of the characters are voiced by two voice actors: Yuki Kaji & Ayumu Murase. Both are high-level voice actors. Yuki for example voiced Eren Jaeger (Attack on Titan), Arita (Accel World), Citron (Pokemon X&Y), Yukine (Norogami) and many others. Ayumu on the other and voiced Hinata (Haikyuu), Allen Walker (D.Gray-Man Hallow), Rui (Gatchaman Crowds) and many others.

So high profile people for a series of shorts about banana-cats.

Personal opinion and conclusion

Err... I'm glad I watched it. Now I at least know what a Bananya is... And I'll admit: This blog post was fun to write!

But no, it's not a series for me. I like cats and banana's, but that's about it.
If you are a cat-fanatic, you're probably going to LOVE this anime and rate this a 10/10. I mean, just look at the reviews on Myanimelist: Probably all cat-lovers who reviewed it.

For me, I'll give it a passable score of 6.5/10.

It's not offensive, it's not bad. It's just... fluff. All short episodes together are about half an hour of fluff.

Recommendation: If you're feeling down and you need something cute to cheer you up, go and watch this. It will make your day all the brighter. Just looking at cats like Baby Bananya is going to give an automatic "Daaaaawh" reaction from you.

Just don't expect TOO much from it.

Until next time, V out.
I'm gonna go grab a banana now.

V Reviews - Tonkatsu DJ Agetarou: An 90s MTV cartoon in anime form

Anime series with an airtime shorter than the usual 20-something minutes usually tend to fly under the radar of anime fans. And that is a real crying shame. Some of my all-time favorites are "short" anime. Without Short anime, we wouldn't have masterpieces like Cromartie High School, Detroit Metal City, the Hetalia franchise, Chii's new Home and many, many others.

And in the past few years, short anime have taken a huge spike in creativity, especially when it comes to typical Studio Trigger projects..

2016 as well has had some weird and creative short anime that are worth taking a look at. In the following few weeks I'll give a spotlight to the most interesting of these short anime of the past few years, starting off with Tonkatsu DJ Agetarou by Studio Deen.

Tonkatsu DJ Agetarou is a short anime on the other end of the spectrum of what we're used to. It doesn't look at all like an average anime of today. If anything, it would more or less fit into a creative animators block on MTV (like back in the 90s). It has a weird animation style, its cast are mostly young adults/teenagers and it's all about music. It would totally fit on MTV (too bad MTV has totally lost all of its relevance today)!

So start to boil your pork cutlet and look up your best vinyl records. Because today we're spinning Tonkatsu!

Backstory

Tonkatsu DJ Agetarou is a gag manga created by Lipyao and illustrated by Yūjirō Koyama. If you never heard of those names before, that's not really surprising. This series IS their first.

It has been running in the digital Jump variant "Jump+" since 2014 and it has already been published into 9 physical volumes (since December 31st).

And in April of 2016, Studio Deen has adapted the manga into a short series of 12 episodes of about 10 minutes each. Not only that, Pioneer has been sponsoring the show and few club parties have been created surrounding the "Agetarou" figure. If the series becomes more popular and gets a greater following over time, who knows what else we can get from this?

What IS Tonkatsu?

Tonkatsu is a typical Japanese dish, which consists of a breaded, deep-fried pork cutlet. The pork cutlet is either fillet, or loin parts. And it's usually served with shredded cabbage and rice. There's also a variant of it with Japanes curry, aptly named "katsu-Kare" (Tonkatsu-Curry).

And yes, while I was in Japan a few years ago, I've eaten it a few times as well; even in a family-run restaurant like Agetarou's family restaurant.

Story

Agetarou is a young adult who is working in his family's tonkatsu restaurant in Shibuya. But since he's forced into the job by his parents, he's not really into making Tonkatsu. One night, he's forced to do a delivery to the staff of a night club.
Agetarou has never been to a club before, and as thanks for the delivery the staff member lets him in from the back entrance.

Welcome to da club!

When entering the club, a new world opens for Agetarou and he instantly falls in love with the environment. He loves the music, the chill people and the cute girls. On the dance-floor he suddenly meets Shuugo, one of his frequent suppliers of hot towels (yes, that IS a thing in Japanese restaurants). Shuugo apparently is a frequent visitor of the club and it doesn't take too long for the two to become close friends.

I just wanna dance the night away!

Agetarou starts to go to the club more frequently. Until one day, he sees the American DJ Big Master Fly perform. Agetarou becomes inspired from him and realizes that the BPM of the DJs tracks is similar to that of cutting the cabbage in his restaurant. In fact, throughout the series he finds lots of similarities between preparing Tonkatsu dishes for customers and DJ'ing. But he is even more inspired when he receives an LP from the DJ.

For tonight... GOD is a DJ

He instantly dreams of becoming a DJ and starts to set out on becoming a full-fledged DJ. But Agetarou realizes he has a long way ahead of him into learning the craft.
The rest of the story focuses on Agetarou's journey to become a DJ. From finding a decent setup to practice his DJ skills (that doesn't cost an arm and a leg), digging through records, learning the crafts from a "sensei" DJ, playing his first gigs, almost f**king up his first gig, and so on.

Diggin' through some records!

Characters

	Agetarou Katsumata: Main character. Is your average "innocent" teen boy who has been somewhat sheltered due to him and his friends never really having too much time to go out. That changes after Agetarou discovers "the club" and wants to become a DJ.
	Agesaku Katsumata: Father of Agetarou. Doesn't like his son going out that much and would rather have that he learns the skills to become a top tier Tonkatsu chef!
	Shuugo Oshibori: During the day a delivery man of hot towels in restaurants; During the night a frequent visitor of the clubs depicted in the anime.
	(DJ) Iori Oiri: Veteran DJ with a style that Agetarou likes. Becomes the sensei to our young wannabe DJ and helps him through his first sets.
	DJ Big Master Fly: American DJ who towers over everything and acts like "god" for Agetarou (sometimes in the series even literally as a god, giving him advice from the skies).

Other guest characters include the writer (Raita), other DJ characters and even a possible love interest.

Animation

This is done by Studio Deen and err... well, it's something only they could do (probably). Because it's an anime where not keeping up consistent quality animation doesn't really matter.

No, Tonkatsu DJ doesn't look like your average anime. If anything, it looks like the crude animation style of your typical 90s and early 2000s MTV cartoons (like Beavis & Butt-head, like Aeon Flux, Like Daria, etc). Crude, but cool enough for teens to enjoy. And trust me, there are some trippy images to enjoy.

Sound

As expected of an anime about DJs, there's a lot of groovy tracks on the soundtrack. However... how do I put this?

It becomes too repetitive WAY too fast. I guess the budget for tracks to play on the anime was limited, so they had to keep themselves to the few tracks that were on the OST. And while they're not that bad, it's just way too repetitive for the entire series to remain interesting to listen to.

And for a series focused on music, that's a crying shame.

Personal opinion and final conclusion

I loved this short, quirky anime. It's something completely different from what we're used to in the everyday anime of today.

And as somebody who grew up on watching MTV (back when it was still relevant), including the classic MTV cartoons, this seemed like a blast from the past. It's something that would fit right in there!

I personally hope there will be more of it because i enjoyed this; even with the music becoming repetitive at the end.

I'm giving this a solid 8/10!

Recommendation: If you like music, or if you liked the classic 90s MTV cartoons, give this a watch! It's a really interesting short series!

Until next time, V out.

On a side-note... how did this never become a meme? Screw it, I'm going to be using this image from time to time now!

The Digi Rant: A drunken rampage may get you followers, but doesn't grant you respect

Oh, Digibro... *sigh*. I really wish I shouldn't have to talk about him, but it's been annoying me all day and I need to get this out of my system...

I don't know if it was the alcohol influencing him, but this video is a prime example of how not to make a video on Youtube. This is Youtuber drama at its finest (or worst, depending on our point of view). He tried to convey feedback to other anime Youtubers on how to improve their content, but does it in such a way he either undermines almost every point he tries to make, or just starts dissing everybody around him.

In general, the video makes him look like a Hyrulean Sword who can't handle feedback and and a selfish asshole who thinks that only his video's are good and the rest sucks. In short, he makes the entire Anime Creator community look bad...

I know Digi has his share of fans that'll try to defend him to hell, so I'll try to stay as calm and complete as possible on this. But his rant has too many missteps and only a handful of points that stick to the end. Let me list them for clarity's sake.

Misstep 1: 2-minute (or more) introductions to video's should be cut? Should it really?

The first point that Digi tries to make is that he's sick and tired of introduction stories to video's that last 2-3 minutes, using Gigguk's latest video of Konosuba as an example.

Personally I don't really mind introductions to an analysis/discussion video, since it helps set the mood and context of said video. I find mood + context necessary when watching 15+ minute video's. And yes, this applies to all Youtube video's, not just anime-related content.

But I can understand that if you have tons of video's in your feed to watch, you want to skip to the actual meat of the video as soon as possible and skip the introduction bs. And there are lots of people who think this way, because lots of comment sections in Youtube video's have comments like: "Actual review starts at 2:30" (with timelink).

Skipping to the point of the story is something that I've seen Digi do in past video's. He doesn't do minute-long introductions or stagnates between segments. And getting to the point as fast as possible may be one of the reasons why he has so many followers.

But to be honest... it doesn't make his video's any better than the ones he's criticizing. In the end, it's just a directional choice. Heck, in most cases Digi removes the introduction segment, yet keeps rambling to fill his required timeslot of 15+ minutes on most of his video's (keep that in mind, it'll return later).

So by forcing his own editing choices onto other content creators he's not not giving constructive feedback, he's just being selfish and arrogant.

Misstep 2: Nobody in the anime community is looking at their writing or trying to improve

Do I even need to comment on this? It's baseless bashing. He again uses Gigguk as an example to say his writing sucks (it's no Pulitzer price certainly, but it's not bad), his microphone sucks (just as much as Digi's mic in this video tbh) and his music is too loud (maybe if you listen with headphones? I had no real issue with it) and that he focuses on the wrong things to improve (his forced opinion, Gigguk clearly thinks differently).

All in all, Digi is once again trying to push his own choices onto other people, which is quite arrogant and selfish.

Misstep 3: "I can't talk to these f**king people, because none of them are watching my shit"

Baseless assumptions much? I think most anime creators have seen a Digibro video at this point. He spreads them like wildfire, so they're kind of hard to ignore.

Also, did he try contacting "those people"? From what I've personally noticed, a lot of anime youtubers are open to feedback and collaboration videos. But if they don't reply, it may be because of the negative tone and hating/bashing Digi uses.

Here's a golden tip for all of you: "Constructive feedback helps to get communication started".

In this case, I can only point to Digibro's lack of experience in communicating with real people. I'm just guessing here, but I assume his youtubing career has resulted in him never really getting an actual job where communicative skills are tested.

To give an example, just listen to Digi's response to Geoff (Mother's basement) after Geoff said he met Arcada IRL and said that he's a nice guy. "Doesn't make his [Arcada's] video's good. His video's are not entertaining. Why should I respect him as an entertainer if I don't find his video's entertaining?"

Sentences like that have multiple problems.

• A: Arcada (GlassReflection) is one of the creators who is constantly trying to improve himself and is slowly getting better at it. In short: Arcada is the type of guy that Digi says doesn't exist in the anime youtuber community, safe himself.
• B: he's bashing baseless again. Digi calls himself a drunk, American asshole later on in the video. And he's not exactly wrong about that. But admitting that, doesn't necessarily prove his point, nor does it excuse his negative behavior.

Misstep 3.5 (kinda subrant on the previous one): "All of these youtubers hang in cliques, but don't venture outside".

Pot calling the kettle black, imho.

Misstep 4: His issue with CanipaEffect in general (it returns a few times in Digi's video)

Digi has a point that Canipa takes a certain stance towards him, although Canipa sure isn't the only one taking that stance (just sayin'). Canipa isn't really hiding it that he isn't a fan of Digibro, but he doesn't outright say it (which gives him the label passive aggressive). Although this is probably because he doesn't want to spread hate like someone else (just sayin').

But it's also clear that Digibro has not yet directly contacted Canipa to clear out this "conflict". In other words, refer to the golden tip from misstep 3 once again.

Misstep 5: Digi's rant on RCAnime (#ThisPunkBitchMotherfuckerRCAnime)

I've seen RCAnime's video on Konosuba. Yes, the audio mixing wasn't great (it made me click away before the end). Yes, he has a voice that hasn't fully matured. But come on? Dissing on how people sound? There's many people making content on Youtube whose voice isn't that great. Heck, personally I don't even like Digi's voice. But again, that's just me. I'm not dissing him for it. It's not like he can change that!

But what this rant quickly boils down to is the podcast on which #ThisPunkBitchMotherfuckerRCAnime "made fun" of Digibro's 24-part series on the Asterisk War...

Yes, I know it's not a 24-episode rant on the Asterisk War itself, but a 24-episode on how not to suck at making anime, using each episode of the Asterisk War as an point of view... But the point remains. At the end of the day people will remember it as the 24 episodes on how the Asterisk War sucks... and make references about it. Because that's what this is.

If you listen to the referenced podcast, the diss is actually just a simple reference joke. But apparently Digi didn't get the joke and got annoyed by it, assuming it to be bullying.

Valid point #1: Teach people about sound mixing

Yes, you may be surprised to see this in here. But there is a point that remains valid at the end of the video (it needs to be said). Digi talks about sound mixing and says he's going to do a full tutorial video on that.

My thoughts: Good! Do that! In fact, I'm even interested in that and curious as to what you have to say!

Misstep 6: He makes a 15+ minute video on why people should stop making 15+ minute video's

Another one of Digi's rants is how he finds it annoying that so many people talk too much about the same thing, thus causing the video to be 9, 15 or even 30+ minutes. He even calls certain youtubers out on abusing Youtube's search algorithm (which is true).

But there's no better way to undermine that point if you know that Digibro does EXACTLY the SAME thing. For somebody who claims he watches his own video's all the time (which I doubt - most creaters hate re-watching the stuff they make), it's very off-putting to see him acting so... did I mention the words selfish and arrogant already?

Misstep 7: Dissing other creators for accepting sponsorship deals

Okay, so you either like or dislike sponsored video's. I don't care personally. But content creators need to live. Sponsorship deals helps give that little extra above Patreon and Youtube ads and Geoff mentioned not too long ago that he kinda needs the money since he's moving out of his mother's basement (which I remember well, because the pun made it stick).

But Digi shouldn't be jealous about people who do accept these deals after he refuses the same deals (to each his own, seriously).

Would people like Goeff and Gigguk have made said sponsored videos they did without said deal? Maybe / maybe not. Maybe Geoff had ideas about it, but didn't want to push it too hard because it's only frigging Naruto.

Valid point #2: Youtubers stealing lines / ideas from others

I think it happens to most people. We all get our information from somewhere, but don't always remember where we got said info from. Most YouTube creators use advanced copy-pasting to create a video in the first place. Though, admittingly, Geoff should've referenced Digi at least. This is one of the things that Digibro does right. When he re-uses lines or opinions from other people, he actually bothers to say WHO said it and provides a link to them.

Misstep 8: "If I can get the info from literally going to Sakuga booru, then what's the point?"

If I can get information from Wikipedia, ANN and other sites, what's the point of watching anime Youtubers?

Answer: Because only a minority does visit those mentioned sites. The majority of people rather click on a YouTube video explaining them stuff. Most content creators are part of the minority that needs to look up stuff in order to make video's. And yes, this IS a reference to my earlier quote about advanced copy-pasting.

Misstep 9: Blaming youtubers for not being anything different, while not understanding content that dares to be different

Digi has a point that many anime youtubers make similar content or don't try to be different from the rest. But once again, he undermines his point when he attacks YouTubers that dare to freshen up this homogeneous mess.

Animat's video (while being a little too long for my taste) had an original intro. I genuinely liked it and I'm kind of jealous of not coming up with that idea first. But then again, Digi hates 2-3 minute introductions (see misstep 1). So I can understand why he doesn't like this video.

But then came his comment on Pause and Select: "I literally cannot understand most of Pause & Select's video's".

Seriously? Pause and Select's video on the theme of Death in Rakugo Shinjuu is one of the best anime related YouTube video I've seen in 2016! His content is deeper and more thought-provoking than your average anime reviewer.

If anything: He makes thé videos Digibro claims he wants to see. But Digi's "I don't understand" response says more about him, than about Pause & Select's video's.

And the last misstep: "I'm going to make so many people f**king angry with this video".

So, let's see. how did the crowd react to Digi's meltdown?

If you follow the targeted people on twitter, you might've noticed most of them just had a: "Lol, wut?" response, mostly laughing at the video; celarly knowing better than the ranter himself.

Some even made sarcastic comments. RCAnime for example will now forever be known as "ThisPunkBitchMotherfuckerRCAnime".

Gigguk on the other end responded by addressing the anime community in general rather than hating back on Digibro (*sigh of relief*). Because let's face it. The people who were the most angry about Digibro's video was the angry pitchfork-wielding anime community.

And if I'm annoyed about anything, it's that there really is too much hate going around in the anime community in general and Digibro really didn't help with his video.

So let's keep it as it is. Let's laugh at Digibro's drunken rant video and move on. He finally got this rant out of his system (and so do I now) and maybe something good will come out of it (I doubt it, but I can hope).

And yes, now I'm going back on finishing my damn pt 2 of my Erased review. I Really, really want to get THAT out of my system and focus on regular reviews again.

Until next time, V out.

V reviews - In this corner of the world: A better war movie than The Wind Rises

For the past two weeks, the Anima festival was happening in Brussels. Too bad I found out about it a little too late. Why? Because the festival had the first Belgian air dates for "Your Name", and I was just a little too late to get to see it.

But after biting away my disappointment, I found out there were still some tickets left for another anime movie that was recently released: "Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni", which is released in Europe as "In this corner of the World".

The movie information and trailer caught my attention. And since I totally missed out on Your Name, I wanted to double down on watching this film. So I drove to Brussels through the pouring rain, parked my car in the overpriced Flagey parking, sat down in these worn-out uncomfortable theater seats and watched it. But the end result made the entire trip worth it!

"In this corner of the world" is kind of flying under the radar in the west, since its name is not "Your Name", nor "Sword Art Online the Movie". But it is a movie that requires your attention. So let's review this and get the show on the road!

V Reviews - In this corner of the World

Backstory - The manga

"Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni" is a Japanese seinen manga created by award-winning writer/mangaka Fumiyo Kōno.

Her published works tend to be on the short side (1-4 volumes) and usually tend to be slice of life dramas. And since she was born and raised in Hiroshima, most of her stories are about the atom bomb and the aftermath of it. While she is too young to have experienced the bombing herself (°1968), she grew up in a city that has experienced this drama first-hand. This means that she has heard lots of first-hand stories from people around her. Family members, neighbors, everybody who lives in Hiroshima has their own story. And Fumiyo absorbed those stories and turned them into works of her own.

Until now, Fumiyo's most recognized work was "Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms", which received several awards and was turned into a live-action movie as well (which also garnered lots of praise and awards). This story was about a family of survivors of the atom bomb.

"In this Corner of the world" on the other end is the story of a young woman that has to experience the hardships that the second world war brings to a family of common people. And once again, the manga has gained lots of critical praise.

Backstory - The movie

In 2012, a project to animate this manga was first announced, but then postponed due to lack of resources. In 2015, a crowdfunding campaign was launched in order to help finance the project... and by god, it got almost double the requested money. Calling this a success is an understatement.

By October 2016, the movie was finally released in Japanese theaters. And now the producer is taking the movie all around the world, to show it at movie festivals.

And this movie adaptation is aiming to become a big success. Seriously, look at the Accolades of the wiki page. It's only been released for less than half a year and the list of awards already are too long to mention on a single A4 page. In the Japan Academy Awards, it even beat out films like "Your Name" and "A Silent Voice" in the category of best animated movie.

And this is just the beginning. I'm curious what it's going to do at the big Film Festivals (like Cannes, Sundance, etc), not to mention next year's Academy Awards (it will be nominated, mark my words).

The Story

The story of this movie portrays the life of Suzu, growing up from a kid in Hiroshima into adulthood. She's a dreamer and an talented artist. But most of all, she's an airhead with little to no care in the world.

But as has long been tradition in Japan, a young man (Shuusaku) asks for Suzu's hand to her parents and she is being married off without even seeing the guy once. Okay, she sees him once while being "disguised".

Master of disguise, everyone!

Shuusaku and his family lives in the harbor city of Kure, which lies in the south of the prefecture of Hiroshima. So Suzu has to move to Kure and shortly thereafter she has to marry the man (with a hilarious joke concerning the "marriage night" and umbrella's - you'll get it once you see it).

Wait, is she starting to strip...? During her wedding?

Suzu has to live in this new environment, while proving herself to be as useful as possible with this new family. And that isn't easy, especially when her sister-in-law (Keiko) returns home after her husband died early and Keiko got into arguments with her in-law family. In this process she had to leave behind the shop of her late husband (which was forced to close down anyway) and she had to leave behind her son with her in-laws (in order to inherit the family name, I guess?).

But while this setup of a movie would be somewhat stale, I didn't mention the name Hiroshima without it playing a pivotal role in this story.

Yes, this is wartime Japan in World War II and everyone somewhat falls victim to it.

Shops start to close down, food supplies are being rationed, black markets flourish, bomb shelters are being built, the military police is being suspicious of everybody and so on and so on.

Yup, that's all that is left to eat today...

And while the majority of the movie consists of Suzu getting used to her new life, the second half of the movie starts to become more dramatic.
The moment you really feel you got to know the characters in this movie well, the war starts to creep in... really close.

Air raids become more frequent, people are being torn away (quite literally) and tears are being wept. Even Suzu herself is unable to escape unscathed.

This is only the beginning...

And after tragedy hits her really hard (no spoilers), she wants to return to her family in Hiroshima. All this while the movie makes sure to show you it's just a few days before the bomb is dropped...

The only thing you're wondering when all this drama starts, is if Suzu will make it out alive. But for that, you'll just have to check the movie out yourself.

Characters

	Suzu: Innocent airhead who is being pushed into adulthood, but still has the mindset of a child at times. She's our main character and is quite enjoyable to follow.
	Shuusaku: Suzu's husband. A quiet man who respects Suzu for who she is. Seriously, in a world where women are just married off to random people, I kind of expected this guy to be either a scumbag or predator of sorts. But overall, he's quite an okay guy. He does kind of idolize the military and wants to train to become a marine later on.
	Keiko: Shuusaku's sister. Keiko is a woman with a strong personality. She's not evil or malicious, but her personality can be a bit overwhelming for Suzu at times. Keiko is a young widow who got separated from her son after falling into an argument with her in-laws. After this breakup, she returns to her own parents home together with her daughter (Harumi). This leaves her somewhat bitter and jealous of Suzu. But Suzu makes it really hard for people to hate her.
	Entarou & San: Shuusaku's parents. They gladly welcome Suzu into their family. Entarou works in a military factory. San stays at home most of the time, but has health issues. Due to this, she relies on Suzu to do the household chores.
	Harumi: Keiko's daughter. She gets along really well with Suzu and vice versa. While not said out loud, it's clear that Suzu sees Harumi as a replacement for her sister. She really cares for this little girl.
	Sumi: Suzu's younger sister. The two get along really well, but they get separated when Suzu marries. They do see each other a few more times in the movie and you still see the close bond these two have. She is considered to be a beauty and does take advantage of her looks by charming soldiers into obtaining goods and even a ride to Kure.

There are more minor characters floating around in this movie, but less time is spent on them. These include Suzu's parents and grandmother, Suzu's "evil" big brother, Suzu's early boy-crush (Tetsu) and a few others.

Animation and sound

This is really a well animated movie. It's animated by Studio Mappa, known for recent hits like Yuri on Ice, Rage of Bahamut, Kids on the Slope and Hajime no Ippo the Rising. If anything to compare it by, I think Kids on the Slope does come the closest. It uses a similar color palette.

The character design require some getting used to (they feel a bit chibi-like at times). But once you get used to the art style, you can get sucked into the movie.

Other than that, the environments are amazing to look at. It sometimes feel as if I'm looking at photographs instead of animated backgrounds.

The music is created and performed by singer/composer Kotringo (Rieko Miyoshi), who has also received some awards for this score (which should say something about the overall quality). If you want a feel of what the soundtrack sounds like, take a look at the trailer.

One song that did jump out from the movie was the opening track, which is typical Western church music (kind of a weird choice). It's probably a coincidence, but I couldn't help but notice it.

Analysis

This movie is adorable to watch, yet very captivating at the same time.

Yes, it does tend to drag itself a bit halfway through. But when the tension of the war comes, it really makes you live the emotions along with the people who are experiencing the tension.

And while the movie makes sure not to show too much of the bloody results of the war, the few times when war does chime close to our family, it really packs a punch. While I did not cry myself, there will be plenty of people who will be needing their Kleenex.

Also, the last 5-10 minutes are a bit weird. The movie does it best not to show too much of the war horrors that happened post the A-bomb (not unlike the infamous first few volumes of Barefoot Gen). But then there's suddenly a few scenes with a girl and her mother which are utterly disturbing and kind of misplaced in this movie. It comes out of left-field and has a big impact on the final moments of the movie. But it also makes you wonder: "Was that really necessary?"

But overall: Do I like this movie? Yes, Yes I do.
In fact, I find it to be better than The Wind Rises. The Wind Rises is the Oscar-winning Ghibli movie that is also a "slice of life" drama set in World War 2.

But I personally found The Wind Rises to be a bit boring. Yes, it has pretty visuals and it was Miyazaki's (supposed) last movie (now we know better!). But that's about it. Outside of the plane building, there's not much substance to that movie. The love story and drama is just mediocre at best.

tl;dr? This review in one image

In "In this Corner of the World" there's so many things present that one part does not outweigh the other. It's a better overall experience and a must-watch if you want to learn anything about Japan during World War 2 and how living in Japan during the wartime was like.

Overall, I'm giving this an 8,5/10. If this movie plays in a theater or film festival near you, go and watch it! You will not regret it!

Until next time, V out.