As Major League Baseball is now slated to resume normalcy, will my sleep schedule do as well? With the world economy taking potshots from Vladimir Putin’s war, the weakening yen and the still-going concerns about COVID variants take on a different sheen as we head into Spring. Will we have too much or too little hopium? Well, that doesn’t really stop anything.
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Omonomono Newsletter, 2022-03-23
The end of the anime season this time coincided with the end of FUNi as a simulcast anime source for North America and some other English-speaking geographic regions. The merger with Crunchyroll has started in earnest and as a subscriber of both the transition, I feel it is not entirely smooth. I’m not a FUNi annual subscriber so I don’t have that FUNi issue, but not every show has gotten moved over. Hakozume, Realist, Slow Loop, Pupil of the Wise Man and Tensai Ouji are shows I’ve been watch and those are staying until the end, and others have raised the concern about home video updating the broadcast version, which is more of an ongoing concern. What was most amusing to me is how FUNi actually uploaded a few videos to explain the CR apps to its users. On the home video side, this is a bit more murky.
These Past Weeks
I want to buy this but Kotobukya JP doesn’t ship to forwarders. I might just suck it up and go with the pleb version given the differences are small, and there’s a notable discount. I mean, they did a full video and interview with Shiina Natsukawa and Miku Itou for this!
More consumerism, but LPs anyone?
This is good culture. Hiroaki Gohda releases first artbook.
Ashita no Joe partners with Strathmill to release branded single-malt scotch. These 30- and 50-year-olds are available for 39600 yen and 68200 yen respectively at 700ml each. Sold by lottery only at very limited quantities, the taste should be in the ballpark of the typical Speyside profiles. It’s a classic IP old enough for this treatment, I guess? Now when you drop one of these bottles, you can do the famous Joe meme pose.
Norio Wakamoto to write a book.
The artist for Kisekoi watched the first two episode 13 hours straight. I can’t imagine how it actually feels but this is very …wakaru? I mean, it was really good.
Yui Makino celebrates her first child’s birth. It’s a girl!
Dragalia Lost to end service later this year.
With the FUNi merger with CR, these lists sure gets easier to track now lmao.
Famitsu Dengeki 2021 Game Awards results.
Jujutsu Kaisen 0 made 17.7 Million in its first 3 days in the US. It isn’t gong to screen much after those 3 days either, so these are close to final numbers I think. In comparison Mugen Train weekend numbers were 21.2M USD. Jujutsu Kaisen 0 made 108M or so in Japan since last Christmas, so these North American numbers are rather impressive. This is what Hollywood films do overseas, if you ignore the demographic aspect.
Sunao Katabuchi’s next film teased. More Cultured Stuff, I assume.
3/11 came and went, but 3/11 is remembered, in a film.
A lot of Gundam stuff happened in March and on Youtube. Including some news like more 00.
Overlord season 4 announcements.
Live action film about anime industry to feature several seiyuu in theme song (and in the movie too).
Rest in peace the guy who does caligraphy for Demon Slayer.
This is probably the most shocking news that wasn’t shocking the past month. My condolences to Norihito Inoue’s family and friends.
The Seiyuu Awards came and went as well. Cheers to all the winners. Full list.
Also shocking (and was really shocking) is the passing of the mangaka for Tokyo Mew Mew. What will this mean for Tokyo Mew Mew New?
It’s popular to support the Ukraine cause. Besides, of course, the involuntary-ish sanctions blocking digital gaming services in Russia I guess.
Cybersecurity strikes home. One Piece delayed.
Good Luck shokotan, space person applicant.
IDOLM@STER Biz folks talk about the new org. Fan Fun First?
SideM to get Stage Play in June. This is kind of cool.
Director Wada gives comment about upcoming Million Live anime, date set in 2023. What’s another year am I right? But these takes are not wrong. By the way the full PV is now on countdown.
Ayana Taketatsu has a Youtube Channel.
D4DJ Global collabs with Yukika. Yukika is from IDOLM@STER.KR if you recall…
The surge of random US Republicans legislating morals expands to anime a bit.
Free stream of Satoshi Kon documentary from 3/26 for one week (US only?).
Anisong galaxy brain ZAQ had a stream for ZAQ no Hi this time, and announced a few things.
Personal Note
As the winter season anime wraps up, looking back, a lot of stuff was good. I continue to enjoy ongoing shows like 86 (which finally wrapped up), Attack on Titan Se–I mean final season part 2? IDK. Dai no Daibouken is now a slow burn as we approach the final fights. Ranking of Kings switched by diamond tears to hard-hitting drama. We even got that bonus episode of Mushoku Tensei S2 in. If you count the two ongoing isekai shows, Priconne S2 and Realist, they are also quite fine. Priconne is particularly sakuga-heavy.
There are also a lot of quality new isekai anime this round, like Leadale, Pupil of the Wise Man, and the “MAO and Hino show featuring A2” are all pretty good. On the more normal front, Tensai Ouji, Bisco, Miss Kuroitsu, Cue, Hakozume, and even lol-twitter-protagonist anime Tokyo 24 Ward is not too terrible. Even World’s End Harem delivered above and beyond its guilty-pleasure expectations. Top picks might still go to Kisekoi and Akebi-chan, but Slow Loop probably deserves the top mention for me given how much trauma that anime showcased yet still was extremely head-on-shoulder and on topic. Well, if we all can take a moment of silence to appreciate how extremely wild Akebi-chan is, maybe anything can then go as usual.
I’m actually making a bit of time to watch old shows. I am like 2/3 of the way through season two of Isekai Maou. It’s kind of a fallback. I binged Rolling Girls, which is still on FUNi, and I hope transfers to CR sooner rather than later. Rolling Girls is a brilliant show that you have to be fully paying attention to, which is really hard to watch if you are nodding off here and there as its fast-but-not-that-fast narrative has no grip.
On the flip side you have the movie Pompo the Cinéphile. This movie is very classic and makes nods all over the place. I watched it at the NYICFF earlier in March and there are jokes that only weebs would laugh at, jokes only kids would laugh at, and jokes everyone laughs at. It’s a good movie that I probably will try to own on, uh, UHD? Because I’m no Cinephile but I get it, I really get it. Pompo is a 2021 film, which makes 2021 the year that had the most self-referential media (along with the latest Matrix) that I’ve watched in recent memory. Pompo may use a full write-up but I need to rewatch it. At the film festival, I also watched Studio 4C’s Poupelle of Chimney Town, which was fine if very straight play for a kids film.
Lately I have also been spending a lot of time back in Umamusume. The more I play the game, the more I enjoy the content from official sources, from fans (and there sure is a lot of this), and from tie-ins like all the NHK stuff last week, the more it feels like a great game? By that I mean even without the seiyuu-idol aspect, or the two seasons of the anime, or even the excellent music (which admittedly is more a part of the game), there hasn’t been a raising game like this since Arcadem@s. The new raising mode addresses a lot of what I didn’t like about the earlier two modes and I am having a lot of fun. It could also just be me and this time of the year, and raising games.
I have a lot of thoughts too about Blue Archive, now that we’re about half a year in. It’s a mix of great and bad to be honest. It really sucks when you are not exactly its target audience, but at the same time you appreciate what the game is about, and who would play a game where girls with guns shoot at other girls with guns, except it isn’t?
Upcoming Events
Upcoming this week:
Four past concerts streaming on Nico. RAS yesterday, Maaya Uchida tonight, Nao Toyama tomorrow, and angela Friday.
Susumu Hirasawa 3/25-26
Yumi Matsuzawa birthday live 3/26
ANIME JAPAN this weekend. Lots of streams, even some live performances here and there. International streams are available too. And as usual, different companies will host their own streams. Aniplex here. Kadokawa here.
3/26-27: Orbital Children
22/7 live 3/27 – new members?
Pakatube 15 3/27
“Prefes” or the “Handsome woman female ani-song and game song singer” has an EN site, starts March 27.
Next week:
IDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls 10th TOKYO has now an English language site. Looks like Bandai Namco Arts is taking a cue here and following Denonbu and giving the world more options to stream outside of Japan. Not that Asobi was particularly hostile (other than creating the account, it is as easy as it gets), but it’s good to see marketing in English, Korean and Chinese. Maybe the 10th year of CG deserves its own post. 4/2 and 4/3.
Aniplex to do in-person premiere of Kaguya-sama season 3 in LA and NYC on 4/2.
Yuri Komagata 2nd live delay streams start 4/2.
Week of 4/4 – ?
Week of 4/11 – ?
Week of 4/18
Trysail Tour 2021 is being streamed.
Maaya Uchida’s 2/20 show is being streamed on 4/20. Blaze it.
Beyond that horizon, I have Shiny Color 4th live, which will have a stream–details to be released. 4/23-24.
Long Reads
Atsuko Enomoto talks to Ken Akamatsu about working conditions
Repotama guy please keep doing your thing lol.
Kinoco Music Academy x Nano.RIPE from last week is viewable on Youtube! Mostly talk but some performance in the beginning.
10th Anniversary of nano stream here. Also some performances!
Saving the best for last: Mocho did two segments to promote her new single (PV linked above). It happens to fit in the two weeks that 2nenAgumi Activebu’s slot was empty due to Haruka Yamazaki on COVID break and Aimi on medical hiatus. She was originally going to guest, but instead she just did two videos instead. Momo Asakura will continue to guest on Activebu this week and next week.
The two segments segments are amazing for Mocho fans and seiyuu fans in general. The first segment she ranked all her Secondshot colleagues. That can be a big deal for seiyuu otaku. For the second segment she devoured food.
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