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This week, The Anime Network announced some simulcasts from this season, including Ikoku Meiro no Croisee, Ro-Kyu-Bu, and Kami-sama no Memo-chou. The reviews I've completed have been updated to reflect this.

I just wanted to get the word out for those of you who live in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area, the University of Minnesota Twin Cities’ Manga Anime Society is beginning its Spring Semester anime showings tomorrow evening. Showings take place every Thursday (except for school holidays) from 6:30-10:00pm in Moos Tower room 2-520. The schedule is as follows:

6:30 – Eden of the East

7:00 – Casshern Sins

8:00 – Xam’d Lost Memories

9:00 – Darker than Black

Showings are free and open to the public, so join us for some free anime and socializing.

Those of you living in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area may not be aware that, from Nov. 3rd to Nov. 13th, the St. Anthony Main theater on Historic Main Street will be featuring films from many Asian countries including, of course, Japan.  There are two anime selections on the list, one which I highly recommend and one which I'm dying to see.

Redline has been making the rounds of various film festivals this year in the US, and I've been really jonesin' to see it. It's not the story that intrigues me so much as the promise of getting to see some incredible (hand-drawn!) animation and being blown away by the thrilling action. This one is showing Saturday, November 6th at 9:30pm, and I've already purchased my tickets.

Summer Wars has quickly become one of my favorite animated films.  This story of technology, the internet, and, most importantly, of family is excellently-animated and very well-written - there's tons going on and yet it's never confusing, just exciting. This is showing Saturday, November 13th at 4:30 pm. I'm not entirely sure if I'll go see this again (though I'm strongly leaning towards yes) but I'm certainly planning to pick up the DVD/Blu-ray (probably the Blu-ray since this is such a beautiful movie) when it's released next year.

You can purchase your tickets online for the shows - in the description for each one is a link to do so.

Anyone planning to go see either of these? Let me know!

Sorry, no first episode for you all today (this week has been busy with other things), but I thought it would be worthwhile to share some of the interesting anime-related articles that I've encountered during the past week.

First up is an interview, in translation, with both the director and writer of the new anime Star Driver, which has been garnering a lot of attention due to its great animation and unorthodox presentation. The two discuss how the ideas for the series came about, as well as their decision to bring to life a school life/robot anime.

• The World of Star Driver

Kiraboshi!

Next is an article, more a conversation, really, between anime directors Hideaki Anno and Kunihiko Ikuhara. They talk about the craft of animation, how the aesthetics are changing with the advent of digital modes of production (the original article is from 1998, around the time the transition from cel animation to computer-aided animation was happening) and how profit-focused processes of bringing anime to the television screen has begun to hinder "me-anime," or productions that may be more creator-focused and less likely to make money back in large profits.

• What the Avant Gardesmen Have to Say

Lastly is the most recent edition of Brian Ruh's column for ANN, Brain Diving, which takes a closer, more academic look at what's going on in anime and anime culture. This time around, he introduces a book by Peter Cary called "Wrong About Japan," which seems to be a firsthand account of the author's own personal douchebaggery and preconceived notions about Japan. I'm reminded of some classmates' reactions to the film Lost in Translation, which came out while I was in college. They complained that the film was nothing more of a travelogue of someone only interested in pointing out the bizarre "foreignness" of Japan rather than genuinely trying to understand the rich culture; I found it to be an accurate telling of what an average person (lacking much of the cultural knowledge my friends and I had of the country) would feel like if dropped into Japan at a time not of their own choosing.  The book featured in this column, however, feels exactly like the travelogue of someone only interested in pointing out the bizarre "foreignness" of Japan. Ugh.  I'm almost tempted to pick it up just to see how bad it really is (but from the library; I don't want to risk this guy getting any money for it).

• Brain Diving: So Wrong it Can't be Right

I'll be back soon with more first episodes and follow-ups.  Looks like I've got about 11 shows to go!

While there never really is a whole lot of excitement in my world in regards to anime sequels that I'd like to see, I was lucky enough to get two wishes granted within the past couple of weeks.

First of all, one of my favorite recent shoujo series has a sequel coming up this January.  Kimi ni Todoke charmed me with its lovable (and comparatively smart, for shoujo anyway) characters and its sweet, chaste little love story. It's a little bit light and fluffy, but though it contained some of the same silly conflict at most shoujo series, the resolutions to these conflicts always managed to surprise me a bit.

The sequel was "sort of" announced a few weeks ago by the director of Gundam OO, who mentioned during a live commentary that his assistant director was busy storyboarding more Kimi ni Todoke. The sequel was officially announced on Tuesday.

In perhaps more surprising news, a new Berserk-based anime project was also announced recently.  This comes after months of rumors surrounding some supposedly "secret" screenshots featuring characters not in the original series (Puck, and Caska post-eclipse).  Some tantalizing (but all-to-brief) clips have been posted, in the form of commercials for the Berserk manga's 35th volume, which was just released in Japan.

There are mumblings that a certain Studio 4°C may be attempting the project as a full-CG anime.  The commercial videos would seem to suggest something along those lines, though at least the characters' faces seem to be animated in a more hand-drawn style.  To be completely honest, I'm hesitant to get too excited over a CG animated series, even though I've been hoping for more animated Berserk since I first watched the original animated adaptation.  The model of Zodd looked a bit clunky, but then again, supposedly these have been in the making for a while, and it might be just a small sample of what's to come.  Either way, it's exciting news.

Those of you who live in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area and who are looking for a good social opportunity should check out the University of Minnesota Twin Cities' own Manga Anime Society, an anime club that's been around for more than 10 years(!) and which is open to the public, students and non-students alike.  The first meeting is coming up soon, this Thursday from 6:30pm-10:00pm in Tate Hall room 170, which is directly off of the Northrop Mall area and is close to many restaurants, multiple bus lines (the 2, 15, 60 and the Campus Connector stop there, in addition to some other less frequent bus lines) as well as some on-street meter parking and multiple parking garages.

The anime viewings and social nights will always be free and open to the public, but if you choose you can pay $6 to become a member, which gets you free food at social nights, a cool membership card (very collectable! I have a whole ton of them sitting around), and voting rights for the following semester's showings using the club's online submission/voting service, Votaku. And, unlike many other anime clubs, MAS shows full seasons of shows rather than selections of many shows, which helps to build a committed community and gets people to keep coming throughout the semester.  Here are this semester's showings, a good variety of shows for viewers of various tastes:

6:30-7:00 Hakaba Kitaro

7:00-8:00 Mahou Shoujo Tai Arusu (Tweeny Witches)

8:00-9:00 Kimi ni Todoke

9:00-9:59 Macross Frontier

Many MAS members are also closely involved with Anime Detour, the Twin Cities' own anime convention, so if you're interested in getting more information on activities related to that part of the fandom there are plenty of people there who can help out.

Hope to see you there!

I'm generally out of the loop as far as video game news goes (because anime is really my one true love in terms of Japanese entertainment exports) but I caught wind of this game a couple of days ago and got a glimpse of the trailer, which is truly impressive.  I'm a big fan of Studio 4°C because they almost always take on unique projects and offer up non-standard and interesting visuals, from the fantasy world of Tweeny Witches, to the feverish hallucinations of Tekkonkinkreet, to the COMPLETE AND UTTER AWESOMENESS of Detroit Metal City.

The Japanese video game magazine Famitsu is streaming the trailer here (note: some scenes are erotic and might not be appropriate for work). Or, check out the Youtube version after the break:

Or so said my friend just now in reply to an email I sent her in regards to the spectacular news from Anime Expo that Nozomi Entertainment, Rightstuf's in-house licensing and distribution arm, has picked up the US rights to the Revolutionary Girl Utena TV anime and movie.  Additionally, they're going to be releasing them with the absolutely beautiful remastered video that was re-released in Japan within the last couple of years.

When I first heard the news that Central Park Media, the original US rights-holder for the series, was closing up shop, this was the title of theirs that immediately popped into my mind. It's not the first title that most people come up with then they're thinking of iconic anime titles, but Utena has an extremely passionate and perennially active core fanbase that seems to have a knack for spreading the word and continually bringing new fans into the fold. Since CPM's disappearance I've read countless forum posts that have hoped for (and sometimes pleaded for) a license rescue, and even though I considered the prospect a long shot, I was crossing my fingers along with everyone else.  Utena is weird enough that it's kept itself outside of the mainstream, but it's also incredibly rich with ideas about gender, sexuality and deconstruction of shoujo and mahou shoujo genre tropes, and stands up to (and I would argue, thrives on) multiple viewings. My friend runs a panel at our local anime convention about this series every year, and people still have things to say about it, 13 years after it was originally broadcast. To have it slowly languish in obscurity would be a terrible crime.

There might be people out there who already own the CPM releases (as I do) and who don't think that there's any point in double-dipping, but believe me, the video quality is such an improvement (especially when compared to the dismal first two DVDs that were released stateside) that it's completely worth it:

And those are just a couple of examples. With Nozomi in charge of the re-release I think we can also expect a really nice presentation and (*fingers crossed*) extras that were present on the R2 discs.

This, along with some of the other announcements from Anime Expo (which I'll get excited about in some later post) are going to make me a very poor woman once DVDs are released.  I'd better start getting comfortable with mac-and-cheese and ramen for a while.

I didn't really want to post anything else about this, but the resolution was just too ridiculous not to talk about.  So remember my previous posts regarding the tempestuous love triangle between Bandai, Section 23 and the anime Sola? Turns out that the whole debacle was due to a "clerical error."

Seriously?

I guess my question is, did no one bother to check up on the licensing status of the show independently before signing a deal?  Did no one at either company bother to do a quick search via Google or ANN just to confirm that the show was available?  It seems like a lot of very basic steps weren't taken, and now someone is probably going to get the axe because of the mistake.

On the upside, it does seem to suggest that Bandai isn't in an out-of-control downward spiral towards bankruptcy, which is certainly good news.

...Or do they? 

Huh?

To review, Section 23/Sentai Filmworks recently announced the acquisition of some anime titles formerly announced by Bandai Visual.  Bandai has even already released one of the titles, Sola, in the US.  Nobody seems to know what the heck is going on, and Bandai's only response seems to be "we still have the license!  It's all fine!"

I would like to think that there's going to be some epic throwdown regarding these titles, but that might just be wishful thinking on my part.  I suppose it helps that neither of the titles in question are ones that I'm particularly worried about running out and buying, so I can just sit back and watch things unfold.