Even the finest acts must eventually come to an end. But I’d sure like to be there when the curtain drops, so I can rise to my feet and join in the thunderous applause.

Nozomi Entertainment have just announced that they will release a box set containing the last series of the ARIA anime franchise sometime next year. It’s very welcome news indeed, as I’ve already made my way through the first two seasons – both absolutely incredible – and, given the harsh economic climate (compounded by the lack of any fresh announcements), I’ve been fast losing hope of the third season seeing an R1 DVD release anytime soon.

I would have hoped to see more of Aria before the end of this year, but one can’t have everything. Moreover, in view of the very serious challenges that production and distribution companies are currently facing, this is probably the best that one can hope for and I’m very grateful for it.

Tip of the hat to Anime News Network for relaying the good news.

Kadokawa’s YouTube channel now has the first eight episodes of this year’s “rebroadcast” of Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu, complete with English subtitles and arranged in chronological order. Not that this matters to those who have already seen the fansubs or purchased the R1 DVDs, but if you’ve done neither then this is the perfect opportunity to watch them for free (and with no legal qualms whatsoever).

If I remember correctly, the raw Japanese versions of the original 2006 episodes that were previously posted on the Kadokawa channel included various extra/corrected scenes that had, before that time, only been released on DVD. I’ll do a quick check on one of the newly subbed episodes to make sure, but I imagine these English versions will also contain the additional DVD-only material. [UPDATE: Episode 4 had something that wasn't on the original broadcast version, so yeah - it looks like the YouTube vids are based on the extended DVD versions.]

Kadokawa will almost certainly yank these episodes off YouTube after a few days or so (in accordance with established procedure), so enjoy them while they last.

Not interested in fossils, paintings or broken pottery? Try this museum – it’s got nothing but manga.

Lots and lots of manga.

The Kyoto International Manga Museum is more than your usual tourist trap. Want proof?

Take a good look at the museum’s patrons, all lounging about in the fresh air with some of the “exhibits” in hand. More on that later.

Incidentally, visitors are not allowed to take pictures inside the museum. (Outside is fine. I think. In any case, no-one stopped me when I was snapping the pictures that appear in this post.) There are a couple of interior shots in this Japan Times article and a few more scattered across the official website, but they’re not nearly enough to give a good impression of just how great this place is. I’ll do my best using words alone.

500 yen will get you through the entrance; special exhibits cost extra. Unless the gift shop across the hall instantly ropes you in, one of the first things you’ll notice upon entering is the wall of bookshelves at the far end of the room – every inch of which is crammed with manga. This is the start of the aptly named “Wall of Manga”: a series of bookshelves lining the corridors on no less than three floors, holding a collection of some 50,000 volumes. And here’s the best part – you’re free to pick out and read anything you want. As much as you want. Cover to cover, no charge (except for the entrance fee, of course).

You can’t bring them home (this isn’t a lending library), but as long as you return your selections once you’re done you can stand in the hallways, sit in one of the reading areas, stretch out on the sunny Astroturf field outside . . . whatever strikes your fancy. No wonder the place was swarming with teenagers and young adults when I was there; it’s a real manga lover’s paradise.

There’s one important drawback if you can’t read moonspeak, though: nearly everything is in Japanese. There’s a good-sized sampling of translated manga from all over the world on the ground floor (in English, French and other languages), but the representative sample for each nation is probably no larger than an average-sized personal manga collection. Still, if you’ve got your kanji down pat – or if you’re satisfied with reading Pokemon movie manga (furigana everywhere!) – be prepared to sink into a world of unalloyed pleasure.

Done reading? Then put your books back on the shelf and wander around the museum, popping into the exhibit spaces and activities set up throughout the building. Foreign visitors are well catered for with good English signs throughout.

For the serious scholar, there’s a research area up top and, down in the basement, a vast archive of volumes ranging from nineteenth-century publications to contemporary works.

But this place has another attraction: the building itself.

The museum complex started life as a primary school. From 1929 when the central wing was built up to the 1990s, the halls were filled with students, not tourists. But the decline in the number of children that afflicted (and continues to afflict) many parts of Japan struck here as well, and the school was eventually folded into a new institution along with four others. Fortunately, the old building got a new lease on life when the Kyoto city government and Kyoto Seika University teamed up to start the manga museum, which opened in 2006.

It’s too bad that indoor photography isn’t possible, because the interiors are the best part. Even though extensive renovations had to be carried out in order to prepare the space for its new life as a museum, many features of the original school building have been retained: from the classroon walls with their distinctive doors and windows to the dark wooden floors lining the corridors. (Think of the school building in K-ON! and you’ll get the idea.) The headmaster’s office has even been preserved with its original contents intact, desk and all, looking as if he’d just stepped out to rap the knuckles of a few unruly pupils. Even if you’re not that interested in manga, spare an hour or so to do nothing more than walk around and soak up the incredible old-time atmosphere.

LOCATION: Near Karasuma-Oike subway station. Head north from the station along Karasuma-dōri; it’s just a couple of buildings away from the intersection. For more details, check the official website.

The blissful, halcyon days of my self-imposed exile from work are fast approaching their end. In a few weeks, I shall return to the not-quite-as-wonderful world of labour, toiling five days out of seven – and possibly more when the occasion calls for it – just to make enough money to support my insatiable profligacy. My silence over the past week is due in part to my having to rush this way and that, collecting documents and preparing the paperwork needed before I once more assume the crushing yoke of white-collar servitude.

Nah, seriously, it’s not as bad as all that. I’m quite excited about my new job, actually: large organisation with an international presence, ample opportunities for career and personal development, and (most importantly) assurances of a reasonable work-life balance. Best of all, in return for losing my freedom to the daily grind of gainful employment, I can expect a not-entirely-unreasonable financial boost a couple of times each month. Fresh fodder to fuel the fire of my flaming fanboyism, providing the necessary resources with which I can equip myself with the necessities of an obsessive anime enthusiast’s life: DVDs, manga, artbooks, and all manner of useless merchandise. Not to mention regular trips to the indescribably beautiful Land of Raw Fish on Rice, which I’d like to take at least once every two years if I am able to.

There’s no need to announce a hiatus since I fully intend to keep blogging as regularly as possible. I shall merely revert to the arrangements that were in place the last time I was gainfully employed: blog whenever I can, pause whenever I need to. Naturally, the rate at which I can write and publish posts will probably diminish as work starts eating away at my personal time, but I haven’t the slightest intention of stopping completely.

Cheerio.

The latest offering from TokiKake’s Hosoda Mamoru is due for release (in Japan) on 01 August. For more details, check out the official site.

No word yet on overseas screenings or a subtitled DVD release, but it’s probably just a matter of time.

I can’t wait.

Behold the new standard of Japanese masculinity.

The Mainichi Daily News reports that young Japanese women are embracing the Sengoku era with an ardent thirst. Books, magazines, even “armour” underwear based on historical themes are flying off the shelves. Reki-jo (”history girls”) are turning to the likes of Uesugi Kenshin and Sanada Yukimura as paragons of masculinity: a rejection, it seems, of the man-in-the-kitchen image that appears to have gained popularity in recent years.

Our mission is clear, lads. Forget about getting in touch with your feminine side. Leave the puppies at home and dump the frilly apron. To impress the modern Japanese woman, we need to embrace the bloodthirsty, merciless, town-sacking, head-chopping warlord within.

Now excuse me for a moment – I need to see a man about a full suit of Sengoku-era armour.

Today on Wolf Hurricane, I talk about Stella – a hardbound artbook featuring the work of ARIA manga author and illustrator Amano Kozue.

Click here to read my post.

. . . by all means please do the sheet belt.

A bit of good news from MangaBlog: apparently, Volume 5 of the Aria manga series is due to hit store shelves in November. Huzzah!

Now for a bit of bad news from MangaBlog: apparently, Volume 5 of the Aria manga series is due to hit store shelves in effing November. That’s half a blooming year away.

In any case, I’d like to see an official scrip or press release of some kind before I start jumping for joy. And even if this report is 100% accurate, a lot can happen between now and effing November. Collapsing sales, licence withdrawals, bankruptcies, meteor strikes – you name it. So at this point, there’s still no guarantee that I’ll get my Akari fix before the year is out, and unless Tokyopop formally renounces (or loses) its English publication rights I’m not touching scanlations with a bargepole.

Nevertheless, I’m prepared to use those two words that politicians and spokesmen seem to love so much: cautiously optimistic. Let’s hope that this announcement is true and, if so, that Tokyopop will follow through.

Now that the spring season is winding down, let’s have a look at some of this year’s summer offerings.

I won’t do a comprehensive write-up describing all, or even most, of the shows scheduled for release in the next month or so – just the stuff I plan to watch. That makes for a pretty short list, partly because I’ll soon be rejoining the labour pool and work will cut deeply into my free time but also because I don’t see a lot of attention-grabbing titles in the summer timetable.

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CANAAN
Official Site / Anime News Network / Wikipedia

I know far too little about this title to say anything definitive about it – or to even state that I’m watching it for certain – but it’s based on a mystery-themed visual novel and I usually have room in my schedule for a good mind-scratcher. The PV doesn’t offer much in the way of hard information, though the animation quality and character designs are good enough for me to at least grant this a fair hearing.

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SORA NO MANIMANI
Official Site / Anime News Network / Wikipedia

From Anime News Network:

Saku Ōyagi is a quiet bookworm who moves back to his former hometown as a high school freshman. He meets his childhood friend, Mihoshi Akeno, although a traumatic incident long ago had left their friendship in an awkward state. Despite this, Mihoshi brings Saku into the astronomy club she founded, and this sets the stage for the slapstick romantic comedy that ensues.

The timing of this release is probably no coincidence: 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy and there’s a link related to that event on the official website. I haven’t read the original manga so I don’t know how much astronomical content it actually has – plot-critical or a merely incidental device? – but the association is enough for this onetime space buff to dip his toes into the series.

ANN describes it as a “slapstick romantic comedy”, which I have no objections to (provided they don’t go overboard with the fanservice). I just hope that there will also be a relaxing, gently paced current to this series since the astronomy theme makes a good foundation for a slice-of-life story. Gathering in an open meadow, looking up at the ink-black pall of night and staring awestruck at the innumerable stars – ahh, Aria-typical bliss. I don’t know if we’ll see anything of that kind, though.

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TAISHOU YAKYUU MUSUME
Official Site / Anime News Network / Wikipedia

From Anime News Network:

The anime will adapt Atsushi Kagurazaka’s two historical slice-of-life novels about two 14-year-old Japanese high school girls named Koume and Akiko who decide to start a baseball team in Japan in 1925. At the time, few baseball teams — male or female — exist in the country. First though, the two girls have no clue where to find nine players, how to use the equipment, and what even the rules are.

This may surprise some, but my inclination to try out this series is largely born out of a long-standing interest in Japanese history. I’ve read up on the Meiji Era, I’m familiar with the Shouwa Era and I’m now a spectator on the sidelines of the Heisei Era, but the Taishou Era has always been a big white gap in my timeline and I’m eager to see it portrayed in animated form. Never mind the possible fact holes and inaccuracies; I can fill them in myself. (After all, that’s what Wikipedia is books are for.)

Historical interest aside, I’m also satisfied with the character designs and animation quality (check the PV for a sample of both). Not the best, but tolerable.

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TOKYO MAGNITUDE 8.0
Official Site / Anime News Network / Wikipedia

From Anime News Network:

The story will center on Mirai, a middle school freshman girl who goes to Tokyo’s artificial Odaiba Island for a robot exhibition with her brother Yutaka at the start of summer vacation. A powerful tremor emanates from an ocean trench, the famed Tokyo Tower and Rainbow Bridge crumble and fall, and the landscape of Tokyo changes in an instant. With the help of a motorcycle delivery woman named Mari who they meet on Odaiba, Mirai and Yutaka strive to head back to their Setagaya home in western Tokyo.

Fire, destruction, chaos and catastrophe – heck, I’m sold! I’m already looking forward to seeing the Tokyo Tower toppled for the umpteenth time.

What interests me most is how the production team will depict the disaster and its aftermath, especially after reading that BONES (the animation studio behind this project) have done some serious homework by digging up seismic data and interviewing earthquake survivors. Let’s see just how realistic things can get when all those facts and figures are woven into an animated story.

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UMINEKO NO NAKU KORO NI
Official Site / Anime News Network / Wikipedia

From Anime News Network:

[The story] takes place in the year 1986, during the time frame of October 4 and October 5 on a secluded island named Rokkenjima. The head of a wealthy family named Kinzo Ushiromiya, who lives on and owns Rokkenjima, is near death, and eight of his family members arrive on the island to discuss how Kinzo’s assets will be divided once he is dead. Also on the island are three family members who live there, five of Kinzo’s servants, and his personal physician. After the eight family members arrive, a typhoon traps them on the island and shortly after people start to get mysteriously murdered.

I may have dropped Higurashi no Naku Koro ni partway through, but I have a soft spot for murder mysteries in general so I’m prepared to try this new series out. Besides, the story (or what I know of it so far, at least) vaguely reminds me of one of my favourite novels, Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.

I’m a bit iffy on the character designs. Not so with the solid voice cast: Horie Yui, Ono Daisuke, my dearly beloved Inoue Marina – heck, even Kugimiya Rie has a part (presumably a minor one, but never mind).

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ZAN SAYONARA ZETSUBOU SENSEI
Official Site / Anime News Network / Wikipedia

Not much to say about this one really, except that I’m in despair for not having it sooner. Anyone got a noose and a large cherry tree in full bloom?