Mahou Meido Meganekko

Seeing mention of Princess Lover (and how many brain cells one put at risk for watching it) over at Steven’s resulted in my going back and watching a few episodes again. The girls were really sexy, although the maid was more cute than sexy. I also didn’t believe half of what happened — as in, it just wasn’t credible at times. In the very first episode, Teppei and Charlotte fall what appears to be hundreds of feet off a cliff and land unharmed–evidently because they fell through trees. Everyone knows that trope, right?

Well then they somehow emerge from the forest back at the top of the cliff, as evidenced by the fact that they’re pushing his motorcycle when they are met by her butler and servants. Who, I should point out, do NOT offer him a ride in return for saving Charlotte from the attackers. Seems a bit rude. (I also think it’s bizarre that her chosen mode of transport is a carriage pulled by horses, when there’s obviously a limo available.) But that’s ok, because as soon as she was gone, the motorcycle worked again. (Groan.) The intelligence never gets much better, but hey, I already said why I was watching this animé!

Later, I thought that there was something unusual about how embarrassed Teppei got when he tried to follow Sophie through the curtain into the dressing room. The girls were entirely too well dressed for him to react that strongly. Note, he did not get a nosebleed, he was just embarrassed and apologized loudly. Well, it seems that scene was significantly edited for the TV version. (NSFW!) Excuse me while I go download the DVD rips… (It’s not available in R1…. I checked.)

One thing I found out though.. there is going to be a 2-ep OVA with the first episode released on 9/17/10, focusing on Sylvie (and somewhat on Yuu, the maid). It’s definitely hentai, per the PV I found on Tokyo Toshan. ANN lists it as an alternate retelling, which might explain that while Seika appears in it as well, I didn’t see Charlotte at all. Here’s hoping it gets subbed. (Why is it the best games, the ones that spawn animés, never get imported to the U.S.? We only get the sausage-fests.)

Strictly as a matter of evaluating haremettes, Sylvie was top tier, with Charlotte failing simply on the simple-minded score…I don’t think she was really dumb, but she came across as an airhead, which I find annoying in more than small doses. Seika was the violent tsundere, which automatically DQ’d her, although in terms of business leadership, she was Teppei’s best match. As for Yuu… I just never warmed to her. She wasn’t exactly a doormat, but I always got the feeling from her that she’d hop in bed with a hearty “Yes, Master!” anytime she was asked. I thought it was interesting, if a bit unbelievable, that the other girls accorded her an equal status in the “maidens’ promise” just because she had the advantage from proximity. I don’t know why it bothered me; I’m not a monarchist at heart. Yet the name of the show is Princess Lover, and here you have three “princesses” (two actual, one virtual)….and a maid. Hmmmm.

So, evaluating from personal taste, the order is Sylvie, Charlotte, Seika, Yuu.
From “best match for Teppei’s future” I see it as Seika, Sylvie, Charlotte, Yuu.

Enh. Who am I kidding? Go for the GXP ending and take ‘em all.

Update: ah, the joys of an 18mbit connection from AT&T. The entire DVD series, plus both sets of shorts in only a half-hour. I’d stopped watching after episode 9, so this let me get caught back up. It never got any more intelligent. “Hey, they’re on the Hazelrink Express, which is like a mobile embassy–we can’t stop it without causing an international incident. So let’s attack it with artillery and cavalry!”

And I got the picture file from the game too. Some observations, and bear in mind it’s a hentai game before you go clicking: Show ▼

Most of the picture dramas were just silly excuses to show the girls semi-or completely undressed, but the third one gave some background to Yuu; in the animé continuity, she met Teppei as a child, but he didn’t remember it. We knew she was an orphan, but it seems Teppei’s dad was a major contributor to her orphanage; this being after he left Arima Issen’s service. It seems he had been the old geezer’s head chef, and Arima’s daughter must have really liked his yakisoba, so he’d severed all ties (or vice versa) after running off to marry her. How that led to Yuu being adopted by Arima is anyone’s guess; the timeline doesn’t make much sense.

Update 2: I see Steven noted the H-OVA back in June. After looking at the PV, I can say “No, it’s not censored out the wazoo.” Not sure about part 2, but part 1 appears to have been moved up to September 17

Posted as a popup on the front page, or in the forums:

It pains me to announce that this is the last week of manga reading on One Manga (!!). Manga publishers have recently changed their stance on manga scanlations and made it clear that they no longer approve of it. We have decided to abide by their wishes, and remove all manga content (regardless of licensing status) from the site. The removal of content will happen gradually (so you can at least finish some of the outstanding reading you have), but we expect all content to be gone by early next week (RIP OM July ‘10).

So what next? We’re not really sure at this point, but we have some ideas we would like to try out. Until then, the One Manga forums will remain active and we encourage all of you to continue using them. OMF has developed into a great community and it would be a shame to see that disappear.

Regardless of whether you stay with us or not, on behalf of the One Manga team, I would like to thank you all for your unwavering support over the years. Through the ups and downs you have stuck with us, and that is what kept us going.

As a certain Porky was fond of saying… That’s all folks!

Time for me to go lay down and let this all sink in.

- Zabi

In the forums, he also explains that 1000Manga, which they created for the more mature stuff, is also going away.

I can’t say as I’m surprised; I’m sure that manga scanlations are eating into the corporate profits. Unfortunately, in my case that pretty much means I’m out of the manga reading gig (assuming MangaFox and others are also forced to shut down). Short of torrents, I won’t have access, and I can’t support the Manga industry in the US.

It’s not that I don’t want to; in particular, I’ve felt bad about not buying Negima books just to support the author and industry. Unfortunately, I will not buy something I cannot use, and the text in the small-book format used by American manga importers is too damn tiny for me to read without a magnifying glass, something I just refuse to do. Gasses aren’t enough. Negima is a particularly bad offender, even on a large monitor I find myself having to load pages into a graphics program and zoom in to catch some of the text.

I was hoping that OM might be able to ride the storm by doing a CrunchyRoll type deal, especially to carry the stuff that doesn’t get released commercially in the US. Sure, they’d be forced to lose the big three (OP, Naruto, Bleach), and probably other highly popular titles, like Negima, but there’s a lot of marginal stuff that isn’t commercially viable for printing that they could work with. Either the site owners weren’t allowed that route, couldn’t take advantage of it, or didn’t want to.

Given the amount of anime that comes from manga (Sekirei, Negima, OP, Naruto, FMA, Bleach, etc.), this is also going to have a negative effect on the anime market. Some very popular series will still break through, but for most, there will be far less word of mouth ahead of time. Who would have cared about HOTD ahead of time, if not for the manga scanlations?

I’m not going to rant about corporate greed, or try to excuse getting something for nothing. It’s just the way things are, and I’m sad to see OM bite the dust, if for no other reason than my ability to get timely Negima updates.

Update: 91,000 Facebook “likes” and 77 pages of comments and counting. Publishers take note.

So, tonight’s the last night I can buy DTO anime at Crunchyroll. I’m looking at what’s to grab before it all goes away. Well, actually you can buy now, and download at any time before May 31, so I don’t have to limit myself to what my pokey DSL can get before tonight’s over.

Soooo…. Last night, I snagged Time of Eve. Damn good show, I recommend it, and it’s not likely to be marketed here anytime soon. It’s an indy production, six 15 minute episodes (I have yet to view the last 3), which explore the limits and limitations of Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics in a near-future setting. (And after you see the first few episodes, you’ll know why “limits and limitations” is not redundant.)

So, I started going through the list this evening…

Last Exile. cheap, it’s only 1.99 an episode or the whole bundle for $36. Let’s compare: Yes, Robert’s still got some in stock, and for only $1 more (and maybe shipping) I get physical discs and a lot better video quality. Advantage Robert. Oh, whoops, I missed the note on CR that LE wouldn’t be available as of 3/1/2010. Total advantage to Robert!

Neo Angelique Abyss: Not available for download.
Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu: Not available for download, not sure I’m interested.
Happiness: not available for download. Sounds familiar, but it’s slice of life. Not interested.
Shangri-La: Not available for download, and I didn’t like it that much when it was being broadcast.

Linebarrels of Iron: Available at $2 per episode, no discount for bulk purchase. Robert’s got the boxed set of the first half for $37, so $74 for the full set of discs and much better graphics vs. $48 for the individual episodes on CR. Advantage goes to Robert here, I think. I quit after the first episode.

Blassreiter Available for download, not available at Robert’s. Not that wild about it.. oh GONZO. Warning: Lark’s Vomit!

You know, I’m seeing a pattern here…. “Not interested — Not available for download.” This may explain why I haven’t been going to Crunchy much, of late…. Oh well, I’ll sign up for their iPad drawing, and maybe I’ll get lucky. Yeah, right. Normally I don’t bother with drawings and contests designed to elicit my information, but hey, in this case, they’ve already got my email and street address…

Because download-to-own is dead at Crunchyroll:

As Crunchyroll continues to evolve, we add new features and remove ones that don’t perform well. Recently we’ve made a decision to discontinue our Download-to-Own service, which lets users purchase DRM-free, downloadable videos of our popular shows. We believe online streaming video is the future will continue to focus on those efforts. Starting March 31, 2010, no new purchases of video downloads will be allowed. However, your existing downloads will continue to work until May 1, 2010. Please download and save your video files by May 1, 2010.

As an alternative, we offer high quality, ad-free streams through our Premium Membership service. It offers over 50% of currently airing Anime titles in Japan and thousands of catalog episodes for as little as $5/month.

Frankly, I thought they’d already discontinued it. I looked and looked for where to download what I was watching on CR, but couldn’t find the links. Maybe I’m just blind, but I figured that after “Gonzo’s mistake with Strike Witches” (Whatever that was supposed to be, I dunno) This disappointed me tremendously; I have issues with the playback hanging sometimes, so I would prefer to spend the extra money to have a quality download, with an approved translation then and there, rather than wait a day to a week. As a result, I’ve been doing very little watching on CR, and was thinking about canceling my subscription.

DTO would would have been killer for Bakamonogatari, since my copy of ep. 14 is a total botch. Alas, no luck. I think it’s been licensed though, so perhaps we’ll see it at retail soon.

ANN now claims Railgun is a 24 episode series, though they have only air dates for the last ten. Raws of ep. 14 are out, but the Nyaatorrent link was bad when I tried it. Not that I understand enough Japanese to watch it raw, but that’s a measure of how the show has captured my attention, that I’m willing to discuss its physics to death and even watch a raw to figure out where the story’s going…

Update: Mazui posted their subs, and there is a preview for ep. 15.

Continuing with some snap reviews of first episodes, below the fold:

(more…)

Well, it’s not looking good for quality anime anytime soon. I say that based on the theory that in bad times, “quality” = risky, and “lowest common denominator” = higher likelihood of sales.

On Tuesday, the Japan Video Software Association announced its survey results on Japanese video software sales for the first half of 2009. The overall market, which includes DVDs, Blu-ray Discs (BDs), UMDs, and video cassettes, amounted to 127.731 billion yen (about US$1.381 billion). That is 90.3% of the sales in the same period last year — a drop of almost a full tenth in sales. Despite its declining sales, the DVD format is still the overwhelming bellwether with 93.1% of the video software market.

The sales of Japanese animation DVDs for general audiences was 22.447 billion yen (US$242.6 million), or 91.2% of the sales in the same period last year. This is the latest annual drop in the segment; sales in the first half of 2008 had been 88.1% of the sales in the first half of 2007. Still, anime continues to be the largest segment of overall DVD sales, with 30.4% of the yen spent and 24.1% of the raw number of releases sold. However, less anime DVDs were rented — 88.1% of last year’s total.

Now that last year’s Blu-ray Disc/HD DVD format war is a fading memory, BD sales jumped 386.8% to 8.443 billion yen (US$91.2 million). 1,744,105 copies were sold — an increase of 312%. BDs now represent 6.6% of the overall video software market by yen spent, and 4.5% by copies sold. Anime dominated BD sales with a 56.6% share; last year, it was only 20.9% of the market. However, only 32.7% of the BDs rented were anime.

So, more Akikan, less Shinigami