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Clarissa reviews the hottest anime of the year! The year 2016, that is. YURI!!! on ICE isn’t as rude as the hockey player dudes of today, but men’s figure skaters can have their own heated rivalry! Or maybe they’re an extended series of “Russian taunts.”
Introduction (0:00 – 43:07)
The Crunchyroll Anime Awards just concluded, and this year it’s not just us wondering what the deal is. Even the Japanese language edition of Wired (archived here should that be paywalled) is doing articles pontificating on how weird it is that an awards for anime with no Japanese judges and no Japanese users (because Crunchyroll is geoblocked from being accessed within Japan) elects to hold their awards show in Japan while not targeting Japanese audiences.
There were multiple theatrical anime showings at the movie theaters lately. We all missed out on seeing Visionary Director Creator Shoji Kawamori’s latest film, Labyrinth, since apparently it contains zero dance magic and is entirely about how you kids need to put down that cell phone. But Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway: The Sorcery of Nymph Circe has proven something of a litmus test within the Gundam fanbase overall, due to its lack of emphasis on mecha action in favor of a protagonist trying desperately not to be horny on main like the mind’s eye versions of his heroes. Hopefully we needn’t wait another five years before JUSTICE FOR CHAN IS SERVED. For now, the highlights of Bandai’s financial statements for the fiscal year is showing that Mobile Suit Gundam is bringing more money to them than Dragon Ball, Naruto, and One Piece. Sure, that’s just Bandai’s cut rather than the overall take, but anybody trying to tell you that GQuuuuuuX or Witch From Mercury were somehow financially unsuccessful should be blocked and unsubscribed for either lying like hell or being outlandishly wrong.
17:41: We continue to notice oddities with the Crunchyroll Store, and haven’t been the only ones. We read an email from a former Crunchyroll employee–we checked, it’s real–which more or less confirms everything we’ve been speculating and then some. Something tells us we ought to do an interview about this.
We wrap up things by talking up the revamped and expanding MediaOCD store before hating some more on the speculative market vultures who so far haven’t proven successful at doing to English-translated anime and manga what they did to used videogames, trading cards, and American comicbooks.
Review: YURI!!! on ICE (43:07 – 1:35:20)
Clarissa met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and tribal tattoo-trunked legs of stone
Stand in the blizzard. Near them, on the ice,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose grin,
And winked single eye, and sneer of pure hetero command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The finger-gunned hands that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the medal pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Jean-Jacques Leroy, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair! Yes, I was born to make history!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level zamboni’ed ice stretches far away.
In other words, we regret to inform everybody that it’s been a full decade now since this series from director Sayo Yamamoto took the globe by storm, igniting a fandom so large it broke containment from the usual anime otaku circles. The most unexpected of unexpected hits, it resulted in Sayo Yamamoto never directing a full anime series ever again; the formal announcement that the planned theatrical film sequel was canceled was only made last year. Although as of this writing it remains readily available via streaming, given all that’s going on you might want to consider buying the series on home video while it’s still readily available (the Limited Edition is long out of print).
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- SakuraBlog’s article about the crunch-induced key animator count
- SakuraBlog again, this time on the costume design
- AniGamers’ Interview with Sayo Yamamoto and Animating the Skating
- Megan Bailey on YOI’s characters’ similarities to actual skaters and the historical lack of out gay athletes despite the sport’s reputation
