Retrospect in Retrograde: Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor

Well, it's certainly been a while since this segment last happened, hasn't it? To be fair, last year I was pretty busy due to the entire year having a recurring theme to it, so I simply didn't really have time to fit in a re-review for an anime I originally reviewed based solely off of memory back in the blog's early days. However, that wound up working in my favor, as at the end of last year one of the few anime remaining that's eligible for a Retrospect in Retrograde re-review received a new home video release, one that included something that didn't exist back when I first reviewed it. Therefore, before I move on to the stuff that'll be the subjects of Reviews #299 & 300, I think it's time for me to finally return to another of my earliest reviews here (Lucky #13, to be exact!) & give it a second go-around... and this time around it'll be based on an English dub that I seriously never thought would ever happen back in early 2011!

The eyecatch is nothing more than black with the logo in the corner,
so here's the iconic final shot of the OP sequence.

By 1996 mangaka Nobuyuki Fukumoto was already a bit of a star in the industry, though admittedly more of a cult star. Having made his professional debut back in 1980 Fukumoto wouldn't really hit it "big" until 1989 when he debuted the mahjong manga Ten: The Nice Guy on the Path to Tenhou, followed by its prequel Akagi: The Genius Who Descended Into Darkness in 1991, which told the early days of a supporting character who was already a legend in Ten; in short, Fukumoto's forte was gambling manga. While some of his works would receive live-action movie adaptations in the 90s, namely Akagi & 1992's Silver & Gold, anime was understandably not something one would expect of his work, due to the subject matter, but in 2005 that all changed when Madhouse, VAP, & NTV debuted a late-night TV adaptation of Akagi. The Akagi anime did surprisingly well for a late-night anime, hitting as high as 4% in the ratings (in today's landscape that'd put it just below the iconic Chibi Maruko-chan!), so it was decided that Madhouse would follow up Akagi with another adaptation of a Fukumoto manga, one that wasn't quite as focused around mahjong (at least, not until way later on).

Debuting in early 1996 in the pages of Weekly Young Magazine, Kaiji would go on to become the most iconic work in Nobuyuki Fukumoto's entire career, with a current total of 91 volumes across six series, the most recent of which debuting in 2017 & is still running, though it's been on hiatus since 2023. The series details the trials & tribulations of Kaiji Ito, a man who is constantly self-destructive when it comes to money yet when put into life or death games of chance (with absurdly high financial payouts) is capable of seemingly impossible turnaround victories. On October 3, 2007 a TV anime adaptation of the first manga run (Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji, which ran from 1996 to 1999) debuted on NTV under the name Gyakkou Burai/The Suffering Pariah Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor, and adapted the entire initial 13-volume run in 26 episodes. When I originally reviewed the Kaiji anime back in February 2011 the show was still only really available via fansubs, outside of a short-lived "blink & you'll miss it" official English subbed stream on Joost (yeah, that service didn't last long), with a second season adapting the second manga run soon to debut in Japan. However, in July 2013 Crunchyroll announced that it was adding both seasons of Kaiji to its catalog, followed by Akagi getting added later that September. Meanwhile, 2008's One Outs, which was done by much of the same staff at Madhouse, got ignored seemingly because it wasn't based on a Fukumoto manga; ironic, since now some of that Madhouse staff is reuniting for a Lair Game adaptation.

Then, in late 2020, Sentai Filmworks announced that it had licensed both seasons of Kaiji for home video release (alongside a streaming option on its own Hidive service), with a sub-only BD boxset collecting both seasons together coming out in April 2021. Later, at Anime Expo 2022, Sentai announced that it would be dubbing Kaiji into English (though the announcement never seemed to clarify just how much of it they were dubbing), with the dub coming out in chunks starting later that November. Hidive would eventually offer the dub for all of Ultimate Survivor by the end of 2023, but it would take until December 2024 for Sentai to give Kaiji a new home video release, this time a dual-audio BD box set containing only Ultimate Survivor; there has been no word as to whether or not Season 2 (Against All Odds) will get similar treatment. Still, while I did review Kaiji: Against All Odds shortly after it originally finished airing in September 2011, so it's technically not eligible for an RiR re-review, I can at least give Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor a new watch, this time via the English dub, and see if the praise I gave it in that original review remains true, over 14 years later.

Twelve Older Anime That Deserve License Rescues XIV: What Once Was New is Now in Need of a Rescue Part 2

When comprising this list of license rescues for more "modern" releases, so to speak, I literally just went to the ANN Encyclopedia's list of "Video Releases" & looked through everything it had from 2010 to 2015. The end result, unsurprisingly, was initially a massive list of titles due to this being the era of FUNimation re-releasing tons of old ADV & Geneon titles under the S.A.V.E. label (though some did get the Anime Classics label) after both of those companies went under, Sentai Filmworks & Maiden Japan releasing a bunch of various anime from the 00s for the first time ever via DVD boxsets (so as to create a catalog, after ADV's demise), Discotek Media's rise into the fan favorite it currently is, and so on. Not just that, but some of the releases from this era have still managed to either stay in print or simply remain available for close to MSRP (hence why I didn't include something like Trigun or Matchless Raijin-Oh), while others at least have managed to stay available via streaming to this day (hence why I limited those to just three, across both halves). Simply put, A LOT of anime came out in the first half of the 2010s, and especially a lot of older titles that back in the day would have simply been ignored (hell, I even wrote a piece wondering if an "Era of Old-School" had come about back in 2012), so whittling a list that seriously initially totaled somewhere in the 30s to just 12(-ish) was a little tricky, but I think the ones I wound up with were some of the strongest picks I could find.

So let's start off the second half of the 14th license rescue with a title that, many would argue, should NEVER be unavailable in English... even if its licensing scenario is a bit convoluted.

Debuting back in 1989 in Fujimi Shobo's Dragon Magazine & originally running until around 2000, though it did return for a bit in 2018 & 2019 (plus various spin-off series from 1991 to 2011, & a bunch of manga), the light novel series Slayers by Hajime Kanzaka (story) & Rui Araizumi (art) is often considered one of the all-time greatest fantasy franchises to come from Japan. It details the adventures of Lina Inverse, a powerful but immensely vain sorceress, & her friends as they travel the world & take on all manner of evil... all while also being a bit of a zany comedy. Likewise, the various anime adaptations of Slayers are also cited as some of the greatest anime of all time, with the 1995 to 1997 trilogy of TV anime (Slayers, Slayers Next, & Slayers Try) specifically being mentioned. When it comes to English releases, Central Park Media initially started releasing the first Slayers TV anime from 1996 to 1998 on both VHS & LD, with Next & Try later coming out in 1999 & 2000, respectively; Fox Kids even planned on airing the show on TV, but found it too much work to edit for TV standards. All three shows would then get re-released on DVD in the early 00s, before CPM's rights seemingly expired, resulting in FUNimation getting the license to Slayers TV in mid-2005, upon which all three seasons would get re-released via DVD boxsets in the late 00s, culminating in a "complete" boxset containing all three seasons in mid-2009.

Twelve Older Anime That Deserve License Rescues XIV: What Once Was New is Now in Need of a Rescue Part 1

Time is never ending, always moving, and we are helpless against it. When it comes to anime fandom it means that those who stick with the medium for the long haul will only get older over time, while new & younger fans get created & discover things for themselves. Simultaneously that also means that what was once a brand new release will, inevitably, become old, outdated, & even go out of print, possibly never to be seen again once it sees release (or even re-release). I bring this up because at the end of this year The Land of Obscusion will turn 15 years old, i.e. this place (like myself) is oooooooooooooooooooooold... at least in terms of fandom, because I'm not even 40 yet. However, that also means that there are now anime releases that while I was writing stuff for the blog in its earliest years were "new" are now long out of print... which means that they're now eligible for the license rescue list! Therefore, let's look at 12(-ish) anime that were last released in North America between 2010 & 2015, i.e. the first five years of the blog's life, that are now out of print (& on the more expensive side to get, if not absurdly so), could benefit from a new release in some way beyond simply being easily available & affordable again (new content to be offered, upgraded video quality, etc.), and (aside from three) aren't even available via streaming right now.

Do any anime fans 15 years or younger even read this blog? Maybe, maybe not, but it's time I make the majority of the people who actually do read my ramblings feel old!

The mangaka collective known as CLAMP is one of the most beloved groups in all of manga, and while the members of CLAMP have changed throughout the decades the quality of their work has (for the most part) remained relatively high. They truly made their name throughout the 90s with titles like RG Veda, Tokyo Babylon, Magic Knight Rayearth, X, & Angelic Layer, so by the early 00s they were already essentially legends when they debuted ×××HOLiC in the pages of Weekly Young Magazine in early 2003. Pronounced simply as "Holic", as the x's are meant to represent the various "holics"/addictions that people can be found as having, the manga follows Kimihiro Watanuki, a high school student who can see various spirits & the like, something he finds very intrusive in his life. After finding a mysterious shop run by Yuko Ichihara, a seeming witch who can grant wishes, Watanuki asks Yuko to grant his wish of removing his ability to see spirits. Yuko accepts, but only if he works for her as her assistant, which in turn results in Watanuki being sent on various jobs involving the supernatural. ×××HOLiC is also strongly connected to another manga CLAMP debuted in 2004, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, mainly by way of the latter's deuteragonist, Syaoran. The ×××HOLiC manga technically ended in 2011, after 19 volumes, but in 2013 CLAMP debuted ×××HOLiC Rei, a sequel that hasn't gotten anything new since Volume 4's release in 2016, though CLAMP seemingly still considers ×××HOLiC Rei as simply being on hiatus, not outright halted; both manga series have been fully released in English, initially by Del Rey Manga, & later by Kodansha Comics.