Two New Anime Licenses in Just As Many Days: Ray & Lupin the 3rd Season 1!

Anime Expo is over with and Otakon will be coming in a couple of days; for those interested, I will be at Otakon by the way. Anyway, the con season doesn't mean that anime licensing companies can't still go around and announce new licenses, especially if they don't go to cons normally.

First, this past Monday Maiden Japan, a "label" of Section23's (of which Sentai Filmworks is a label of as well), announced that they will be releasing Ray the Animation on DVD. This 13-episode anime adaptation of Akihito Yoshitomi's medical drama manga of the same name aired in Japan in 2006 from April to June. Akihito Yoshitomi is one of my all-time favorite mangaka, with Eat-Man being his absolute greatest work. ADV did release the first three volumes of the manga, and I can say that I certainly enjoyed them. More than likely this will be revealed as an October release, since when David Williams announced Sentai's October line-up at AX it was only made up of two titles. Section23 generally releases something every week, which means the unmentioned October slots are titles that aren't Sentai-related.

Ultimate Muscle: The Kinnikuman Legacy: 4Kids' Anime This Ain't!

The original Kinnikuman manga ran in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1979-1987. Created but the manga duo of Yoshinori Nakai and Takashi Shimada, who go under the pen-name of Yudetamago ("Boiled Egg" in Japanese), Kinnikuman started off as a parody of tokusatsu heroes like Ultraman but quickly changed into a splastick, superhuman-wrestling action story. It became a gigantic hit in the history of Shonen Jump, but Yudetamago weren't able to create a similar hit... Until 1998. Eleven years after ending their debut manga, the duo returned to the Kinnikuman world and introduced Japan to the "New Generation" of superhumans with Kinikuman II-Sei, with "Nisei" translating as "Second Generation", which was released in North America under the name Ultimate Muscle: The Kinnikuman Legacy. The anime, brought over by 4Kids Entertainment, became a fairly big hit with 4Kids commissioning Toei to continue making episodes after the show was canceled in Japan. The manga, released by Viz Media, never really seemed to be anywhere near as popular, even though it tells the same story and was fully released, with the volume having literally come out a couple of days ago. Why is that? And is this manga worth tracking down?

Twenty-eight years have passed since the end of Kinnikuman, which had Suguru Kinniku, a.k.a. Kinnikuman, taking his place as the new king of Planet Muscle alongside his new wife Bibinba. The Earth had no villains left to threaten it, and the other remaining superhumans stayed vigilant. Unfortunately, even superhumans get old and now the evil superhumans, banding under the name of the dMp (Demon Manufacturing Plant), have returned to Earth and the legends realize they have to train a new generation of warriors at the Hercules Factory. Among them is Suguru's own son, Mantaro Kinniku, who has already received special introductory training from the legendary warrior Ramenman. Unfortunately, Mantaro is still a wimp at heart and easily poops his pants, literally, before fights. Still, Mantaro, a.k.a. Kid Muscle, might just be the Earth's best chance at surviving... We're screwed, aren't we?

Hunter X Hunter 1998 JSAT Pilot: Familiar, Yet Different

Hunter X Hunter (you don't pronounce the "X" in the middle) is probably the longest-running-but-not-really-running manga in history. Debuting in Weekly Shonen Jump magazine back in March of 1998 this was the third title from Yoshihiro Togashi, who hit it big back in December 1990 with Yu Yu Hakusho and spent a couple of years between these two titles with Level E (which had an anime adaptation just this past winter). The basic story is about a boy named Gon Freecs, who finds out that his father Jing, who is very rarely home, is actually a hunter; in the HxH world, "hunters" are people who are pretty much freelance professionals. They can be well-versed in almost anything, from actual "hunting" to food research. Gon decides to become a hunter himself so that he can find his father.

Anyway, this manga became very popular and Togashi has very special treatment with the brass at Shueisha. Unofficially called "Togashi-ism", the man is allowed to take year-long+ breaks without actually doing anything, followed by doing the manga for a few months and then going back on break. But let's get back to the actual review. Pilot films aren't exactly common in anime, but they do happen often enough. Hell, the Dororo anime from the late-60s had a pilot film first, and it was even in color whereas the TV series was done in black & white (which was apparently a cost-cutting decision). Anyway, before Shuiesha now has festivals at the end of each year called Jump Festa, and often pilots are made for anime that haven't been given actual anime yet; Toriko, Eyeshield 21, and Gintama all have gotten this treatment. But before Jump Festa there was JSAT, or the Jump Super Anime Tour. In 1998 three Jump manga received pilots: One Piece (which needs no explanation), Seikimatsu Leader-den Takeshi (which was from the then-future-creator of Toriko), and Hunter X Hunter. The biggest trick with pilots are that info on them can be scarce, but let's take a look at the Hunter X Hunter 1998 JSAT Pilot.

"Twelve More" Older Anime That Deserve License Rescues Part 2

Time to get back to talking about older anime that deserve license rescues. Part 1 was, inadvertently, filled with titles that had been featured on ANN's "Buried Treasure" series of articles, including one "Buried Garbage", but Part 2 is devoid of those kinds of titles... But they still deserve license rescues all the same, because they are definitely quality titles.

I've talked about the Saint Seiya movies not too long ago, and though the TV series is very well-known around the world I feel that it still deserves one more chance here in North America. The 114-episode TV series adaption of Masami Kurumada's most-well-known title aired from late 1986 to early 1989 in Japan and was quickly aired around the world in the 90s... Except North America, specifically the United States and Canada, where it didn't debut until 2003. The version we got, renamed Knights of the Zodiac (which, translated in different languages, was the name used around the world as well), was DiC's attempt at finally bringing over Saint Seiya. Unfortunately, DiC's handling of Saint Seiya went more in the style of what they did with Sailor Moon back in the 90s, and in 2003 it just wasn't going to cut it anymore. ADV tried to save what good name the series had by releasing it uncut and with a 100% accurate dub, which was better but still only above-average, but a major problem came about: DiC only licensed the first 60 episodes of the TV series. ADV had only sub-licensed the series from DiC, much like what had been a few years earlier with Sailor Moon, and that restricted them from doing anything beyond those episodes.

"Twelve More" Older Anime That Deserve License Rescues Part 1

Back in January I did a piece called "Twelve Older Anime That Deserve License Rescues", where I listed off more than twelve older anime that I felt deserved getting licensed and released in North America again (12 =/= 12...  Thanks, College Education!). These titles were chosen based off of a number of factors, such as present availability and affordability (i.e. is it OOP/Out-of-Print and/or is it expensive?), whether or not it ever got a DVD release over here, and if the show itself just seems worth it to license rescue (i.e. Did we get all of it the first time?  Are there dubbed episodes we never got?  Is it even good?). At the end I also listed some "Honorable Mentions" that also could deserve license rescues, which just showed how much anime we truly have gotten released outside of Japan. Well, I feel it's time to come back to this idea and list off another twelve(-ish) older anime that deserve license rescues. Like last time this will be split up across two parts, each featuring six entries, but I will say that this list doesn't have as many titles that I am personally familiar with like the first list, so this is mostly going off word-of-mouth and any research I could find. But, anyway, let's get started:

Maison Ikkoku was the creation of Rumiko Takahashi back during the 80s, debuting after Urusei Yatsura but predating Ranma 1/2. It ran from 1980 to 1987 in Big Comic Spirits magazine, totaling 15 volumes, and is considered by some to be Takahashi's magnum-opus-of-sorts when it comes to her romantic comedies. From 1986 to 1988 it received a 96-episode anime series, and Viz released both the manga and the anime in their entireties. In fact, Viz originally released the anime on VHS in the 90s before releasing the entire show across eight dual-audio, 12-episode sets, twice-a-year, from 2003 to 2006. There's only one problem: Maison Ikkoku never became a big seller for Viz, so these boxsets quickly became rare and now command high prices in the second-hand market. Well that's only partially true, as you can get the first three sets used for pretty fair prices.