First up is Aria the OVA ~Arietta~ and Aria the Origination, the 3rd and 4th parts of the Aria series to add on to the first two seasons that Right Stuf already owns.

Arietta is a single half hour long OVA episode released in September 2007 while Aria the Origination is a 13 episode (edit: +1) series which aired between January and March 2008.

Right Stuf also picked up Junjo Romantica, which Kadokawa USA had announced at least year’s Anime Expo.  It appears, like most other Kadokawa properties, Right Stuf is handling the production and distribution while Kado USA holds the actual license.  This is for both the first and second seasons of the show, totaling 24 episodes.  The first season aired between April and June 2008 while the second season aired between October and December 2008.  They are apparently releasing it under the title “Junjo Romantica” instead of “Romantica ~Pure Love~” which is what Kado USA was calling it last year.

Right Stuf also picked up Antique Bakery, another 12 episode series which aired between July and September 2008.  All titles are expected to be released “in 2010.”

Sands of Destruction is an anime based off of the SEGA game of the same name.  It is 13 episodes long and was produced by Production I.G. and directed by Shunsuke Tada.  It aired on TV Tokyo between July 7 and September 30, 2008.

Sakura’s class takes a trip to the zoo. However, Toya tells Sakura to be careful on the way to school due to the ruckus caused by the King Penguin slide being mysteriously flipped upside down. Sakura ponders if it’s a Clow Card, but decides to ask Kero later.

At the zoo, Sakura is teamed with Tomoyo, Naoko, Chiharu, and Rika to draw the elephants, where she soon finds Kero stowed away in her backpack. Meanwhile, Shaoran is teamed with Yamazaki and others to draw a sloth, where once again Shaoran falls for Yamazaki’s stories about sloths moving at amazing speeds “once they get in the mood.”

Soon they start hearing large crashing sounds, and Kero identifies it as the doings of a Clow Card and they soon start finding that animal cages are being broken and the zoo is evacuated. Sakura and Tomoyo follow the large banging until they find one of the elephants being tossed into the air, which Sakura saves with Windy, and Kero realizes that they’re dealing with the Power card.

Kero tells Sakura that she has to beat Power in a game of strength, so she challenges it to tug of war. She clearly doesn’t fare well until the elephant starts to help out, but even then Power is still winning. Shaoran then shows up and uses Time and pulls the rope out of Power’s grip, allowing Sakura to win. She’s then able to seal the dejected Power card.

However, Tomoyo has one final request for Sakura: to use Power to flip King Penguin back over, and to get a nice picture of it.

I guess there wasn’t anything necessarily special or spectacular about this episode. I guess the one thing it did perhaps show was Shaoran’s willingness to allow Sakura to capture a card without making himself known or otherwise telling Sakura that she wasn’t up to the task, which is a change of pace of what we’ve seen before.

Of course, if Kero keeps popping up unexpected like this episode, he’s going to blow Sakura’s cover again like he did in episode 2 if he doesn’t watch it.

Also, apparently the Japanese OP changes slightly and included Shaoran using his fire magic instead of Sakura’s father flipping pancakes. I never realized this before and I actually don’t believe that version was ever used on the English DVDs (though I’ll make sure to look when I write up the reviews for the next set of episodes (17-20). I just noticed this now when doing the screenshots off of the Japanese HD raws.

Fumi Manjome returns to her childhood home in Kamakura so that she can attend high school at the all-girls Matsuoka Secondary School. However, while she’s waiting at the train station, another girl, Akira Okudaira, or A-chan for short, literally runs into her. Akira, meanwhile, is on her way to her first day at Fujigaya Girl’s Academy, but is annoyed by her dotting brother, who is apparently lazy and has a sister complex.

They both get on the same train, where Fumi gets felt up by a passenger, but Akira notices and stomps on the guy’s foot. Afterward, while they walk towards school – since they get off at the same station as well, Akira tells Fumi that that’s just how one has to deal with perverts on the train.

Fumi seems to get a few friends on her first day at school, including the girl who sits next to her, Yoko Hanatsugi and her two drama club-mates Miwa Motegi and Misako Yasuda. Yoko unsuccessfully attempts to recruit Fumi into the drama club, but the quartet does end up going out for tea at the end of the day. Meanwhile, Akira initially doesn’t appear to get any friends on her first day, until a high-class looking girl named Kyoko Ikumi approaches her and they end up walking together after class.

That evening, guests stop by Akira’s house. However, they end up being Fumi and her mother, as the two girl’s mothers clearly know each other from before, but Fumi and Akira are rather shocked. They soon realize that they were childhood friends when they went to 1st grade together, where Akira teased Fumi even then how she was “quick to cry.” However, Fumi had to move and the two girls lost contact with each other.

Meanwhile, Fumi’s cousin Chizu is living with them for the time being, but Fumi is depressed that Chizu is leaving soon. But that night, Fumi finds out that Chizu is getting married, which just makes her more depressed. The next day at the train station, Akira helps cheer Fumi up after seeing that she’s down.

After the first episode, I am so glad I’m picking this series up not only to watch but blog too. And since it’s being simulcast by Crunchyroll, the only thing keeping me from getting these reviews out fast will either raw availability (which never seems to be much of a problem) or my availability.

In any case, this seemed pretty obvious from the information I got about the show before, but this definitely looks like a show with nary a male in it. Thus far, the only guys I’ve seen are both girl’s fathers and Akira’s siscon brother.

Fumi seems forlorn over Chizu getting married, so it seems that she either has a really bad case of separation anxiety or she’s been holding a secret crush on her cousin. In any case, it seems pretty clear that Fumi is going to be her new object of her attention. This show is described as a yuri show, though that’s not necessarily any signal of how far their relationship may or may not go.

This show’s animation, at least the character animation, appears to be pretty sharp, though some of the backgrounds are washed out and water-color like, though I’m guessing that’s stylistic much like how it was in shows like Koi Kaze. I do seem to like the OP, however.

Anyway, I’m really looking forward to more of this show. By the way, Crunchyroll says that this show is only 11 episodes long.

Thursday, July 2

Friday, July 3

Saturday, July 4

Sunday, July 5

No TokyoPop? Media Blasters? ADV/Sentai? Kadokawa? Pretty low attendence for a con, especially considering it’s supposed to be an industry con.

You can see the full review here.

The new scores for this series are:

Animation: 4/5
Story: 4/5
Music: 5/5
Dub: 4/5

Series: 4/5

Anime DVDs

June 30, 2009
Ah! My Buddha – Volume 3
Appleseed
Blade of the Phantom Master
Gakuen Alice – Box Set (sub)
Heroic Age – Part 2
One Piece – Season 2 Part 1
Samurai Champloo – Box Set

Manga

June 30, 2009
Black God – Volume 6
Cirque du Freak – Volume 1
Code Geass: Nightmare of Nunnally – Volume 2
Gurren Lagann – Volume 2
Inukami! – Volume 3
Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl – Omnibus Volume 1
Kiichi and the Magic Books – Volume 5
Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya – Volume 3
Swans in Space – Volume 1
Welcome to Wakaba-soh – Volume 1
Zombie-Loan – Volume 6

July 6, 2009
Fruits Basket – Volume 23
Gakuen Alice – Volume 8
Game x Rush – Volume 1
Guardian Hearts – Volume 2
KimiKiss – Volume 1
NG Life – Volume 2

Name: Sora o Miageru Shojo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai, Munto TV, The World Reflected in the Eyes of a Girl Looking Up at the Heavens
Genre: Fantasy, Adventure
Episodes: 9
Aired: January 13, 2009 – March 10, 2009
Based On: Munto OVAs from Kyoto Animation
Director: Yoshiji Kigami
Produced By: Kyoto Animation
US Distribution By: Not Licensed

Cast

Review

Sora o Miageru Shojo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai, or Munto TV for short, is a story about a seemingly simple girl, Yumemi, with an amazing gift that no one else has: the ability to see floating islands in the sky.  Little does she know that these floating islands are actually the land masses belonging the various nations of the heavens, and in particular the Magical Kingdom, who is led by it’s king, Munto.

Long ago, there was a war between the nations of heaven and the “lower world” over Akuto – a power source which can be used to create virtually anything – including new heavenly beings.  However, a consequence of this war is that the heavens created a space/time barrier between itself and the lower world, cutting off the flow of Akuto to the heavens.  Now, several millenia later, the kingdoms of heaven are running out of Akuto, threatening to send the heavens crashing down on top of the lower world (modern day Earth), destroying both worlds.  As a result, a war as broken out between the Magical Kingdom and an alliance of the remaining magical nations.  As all hope appears to fade, Munto sees a vision with the aid of the royal seer – a vision that tells him that a girl from the lower world – Yumemi – has the ability to once again reconnect the two worlds, saving both.

It should be noted that this series is effectively the two Munto OVA series remastered, with what amounts to another OVA-length story added to the end.  The series breaks pretty cleaningly into thirds:  the first three episodes being the first OVA, the next 3 episodes being the second OVA, and the final 3 episodes being new material added to the story.  However, Kyoto Animation merely uses remastered footage of the OVAs instead of reanimating them.  As a result, The animation quality differs between each of the three sections of the series, which may or may not be distracting (though I think it’s less distracting if one knows this fact going in).  Also, as should be obvious by now, despite being 9 episodes, one is really only getting about 3 to 3 1/2 episodes of new material if one had already seen the Munto OVAs previously.

Also, the story is incomplete at the end of the series, with a movie conclusion called Tenjo-nin to Akuto-nin Saigo no Tatakai, or Last War of Heavenloids and Akutoloids, finishing the series off

The series is rather flawed, given the before mentioned reuse of old footage, not enough new footage, and being short despite the fact that they’re using a movie to finish the story off.  One kind has to ask what the point of the whole endevar was.  Why not just do a movie sequel and be done with it?  Having said that, I still think it’s respectable watch, though if one is familar with the original OVAs, one can pretty much skip the first 5 1/2 episodes or so.

Scores

Story: 4/5
Animation: 3/5
Music: 5/5
English Dubs: N/A

Overall: 3/5

First Watched: January – March 2009
Do I Own: No
Do I Recommend: Yes

Issac is pissed that someone was able to pull off the assassination from the last episode on his turf and demands that those responsible are found. Meanwhile, Cal has doubts that Reiji can avenge her friend Judy’s death, but Reiji assures her that his “friend” will be able to do the job. Cal insists on getting deeper, and while Reiji initially refuses, Cal’s finally convinces him to let her see his “friend” as well as let her crash at his place that night (since she got kicked out of her apartment).

Reiji calls Lizzie so she can pose as his friend, while at the same time, Lizzie is rather amused by the great Phantom Reiji being led around by a little girl. That night, Cal explains to Reiji that Judy wasn’t her real sister: Cal had run away from home and Judy took her in as a result.

Meanwhile, Issac runs into Lizzie and isn’t all too happy that she’s out also investigating on his turf, and brings her along with him to Reiji’s place to see Cal. However, Reiji refuses to let Issac see her, despite his insistence. Issac then tells Reiji to come to headquarters the next day so that he and Claudia can “tell McGuire everything.”

Cal overhears all this, and thus Reiji is able to get her to tell him what she knows that night. However, the only thing she can tell him is that she and Judy were out walking, and a stray bullet hit Judy out of the dark. Cal’s also able to guess who Reiji really is from his conversation with Issac. She then reveals that she is the one lugging around the missing $5 million, dumping it all in front of Reiji and begging him to kill the people who killed Judy.

The next morning, Mr. McGuire demands an explanation of what’s been going on. Reiji explains that he prevented Issac from talking to her because he didn’t want to “spoil” her: he saw in her a special talent, a desire to kill, and a soul with no place to go. In other words, someone who would make a perfect assassin. Despite Issac’s protests, Mr. McGuire reluctantly agrees to allow Reiji to train Cal.

Well, from the best I could tell, this is what happened: Issac found out about Cal via Lizzie and was probably going to do several unspeakable things to Cal in order to get her to “talk.” Realizing this, Reiji did whatever he could do to keep Issac from getting his hands on her.

Of course, this just raised Issac’s already high suspicions about Reiji and Claudia even further, resulting in his demanding that Reiji explain what’s going on to Mr. McGuire. Realizing that Cal was probably in even more peril now, Reiji did about the only thing he could think of: coming up with an excuse for Inferno not to tear Cal apart physically and/or mentally, and his best excuse was that she had potential to be an assassin.

I’m still not totally clear if Reiji even really believed what he was telling Mr. McGuire, but he’s basically put himself in a position to where he has to train Cal as an assassin lest they both literally get the axe now.

Of course, we’re still heading down a road towards an ultimate confrontation between Issac and Claudia, though so far it isn’t looking good for Issac in that regard as he appears to be losing most of the arguments within Inferno up to this point.

Also, I think this episode pretty much confirms that the shadowy figure in the last episode was not Cal, which just makes me think all the more that it was Ein, acting under orders of Godoh’s second in command who had shown such distaste for working with Claudia. After all, it has been something like 9 months since she was shot. If she did survive her wounds, I’d imagine that she could very well be healed by then. I’m also figuring that we’re going to see a time jump of probably a few years in not too long. I doubt Cal will stay the age she is forever in the series.