Late last night a rumour went around that Studio Ghibli were closing their production department. Since then a source for the news has been found. Although it doesn’t strictly say the studio are stepping away from making films, it doesn’t really give us too much hope that they won’t either.
Back in 2012 a new hit was aired during the Spring season and while I didn’t watch the show as it aired, I went back to it and fell in love with it very quickly. The series in question is Kids on the Slope, a simple story directed by Shinichiro Watanabe and based on a hit manga series. I’ve just rewatched the show for the first time with a close friend of mine and after seeing it again I figured I’d give this hit a review!
Kids on the Slope tells the story of Kaoru Nishimi, who transfers into a new high school during the summer of his first year. While there he encounters the school’s wildest student, Sentaro Kawabuchi. Due to a twist of fate the two quickly become friends and bond through playing music together, but with Kaoru having moved around a lot due to his dad’s job just how close is he prepared to let Sentaro?
MVM Entertainment have today announced a number of release dates to see us through to the end of the year with a number of great anime titles. The release dates and anime being released are as follows with their release formats included where confirmed:
The release formats for Blast of Tempest have yet to be confirmed at the time of writing. It’s certainly a nice line-up of titles to see us through to the new year!
Streaming service Viewster have announced the addition of more Aniplex shows to their anime line-up! The service have today added the following shows:
Servant X Service, Blast of Tempest and Silver Spoon can all be found and streamed on Crunchyroll in the UK. However, this is the first time we’ve had access legally to the first season of Oreimo as Crunchyroll only have the rights to the second season of the show here.
All of the shows mentioned above and a good deal more can be found on Viewster right here
With most anime in the summer season four or five episodes in, so I’ve decided to put my thoughts together quickly on the shows I’m watching currently and how they’re doing. This season overall is a more enjoyable season than the last and I’ve found myself watching the following shows:
I’m also watching Fairy Tail and Captain Earth, but neither of which really count in this section… especially considering I’ve quietly fallen behind with Captain Earth.
UQ Holder! is a relatively new series from Ken Akamatsu. The series is set within the same universe and 70 years after as his previous work, Negima! Magister Negi Magi, but readers can jump into UQ Holder! right away with no trouble if they haven’t read the work that comes before. With that said we’ve jumped into the first volume of the manga to take a look at what it has to offer.
Yesterday I posted up a review of No Game, No Life and upon reading the review a close friend of mine asked why I gave it so low a score for its soundtrack. Overall this led us to discussing anime soundtracks and what makes them stand out to each of us. So, figuring this would make a decent topic to talk about I decided to write a short ramble on the subject.
In the past few year’s we’ve had a bit of a boom in titles that are set around gamers being transported to a video game world or trapped within a video game (See Sword Art Online as the best recent example), but No Game, No Life takes this to a different level in an attempt to stand out from the crowd.
The story sets out by introducing us to brother and sister Sora and Shiro, who make up an ultimate team known as ‘Blank’. The two can complete any video game that crosses their path with amazing scores and are known as the best gamer in Japan, if not the world. One day a chess challenge is posed to them via email and upon completion the two are transported to a brand new world known as Disboard. In this world everything is decided by games, something which the two take great joy in partaking in.
Interesting news appeared this morning as Anime Limited revealed that Kill la Kill and Gurren Lagann are now available to watch on Netflix UK!
All 25 episodes of Kill la Kill have gone up on the service and can be watched subbed. Meanwhile all 27 episodes of Gurren Lagann have gone up on the service and can be watched subbed or dubbed. Both are top class series’ so it’s really nice to see them being added to Netflix. You can read my review of Kill la Kill right here
Overall the range of anime on offer to the UK via Netflix is fairly slim compared to the US offerings, but with Anime Limited seemingly interested in bringing more anime to the service here we should have some fairly interesting times ahead!
When Wakanim announced they were going to stream Shinichiro Watanabe’s Terror in Resonance I was excited to say the least. I’m a moderate fan of Cowboy Bebop and Space Dandy but I utterly adored Kids on the Slope and have gained confidence in Watanabe’s anime as he goes on. So, a series which brings together Watanabe at his finest and Cowboy Bebop and Kids on the Slope composer back together can only be a good thing, right? Right.
