Today at Aniplex of America’s Sword Art Online Panel with special appearances by Director Tomohiko Ito, Character Designer Shingo Adachi and Producer Shinichiro Kashiwada at Sakura-Con in Seattle, Aniplex has confirmed that the highly anticipated anime series Sword Art Online II will see a worldwide simulcast.
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At one of my most recently attended anime convention, I noticed quite a few cosplayers armed with some of the most amazing weapon props I had seen in a while. After careful investigation, I learned these cosplayers’ characters were from an anime called Black Rock Shooter. Entirely too enthralled by the cosplays, I decided to check it out, and I jumped in headfirst. I didn’t know anything about the plot or characters; all I knew was that there was an OVA released in 2010 and an anime released in 2012, and that there are varying opinions on both.
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You can’t just have a regular old dating game anymore. You’ve got have a catch these days—vampires, monster girls, pigeons—some sort of hook to pull people in beyond the usual tropes that separate each route. Kamigami no Asobi, true to its name, pulls gods from all sorts of pantheons, reimagining them as attractive high school boys.
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Inspired by a match on TV in which the “small giant” from Karasuno High jumps to amazing heights, even getting over blockers, Hinata gets his middle school friends together to form a volleyball club and sets his sights on one day getting into Karasuno and playing volleyball in the footsteps of the small giant he idolizes.
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While there’s plenty of modern hustle and bustle in Tokyo, one of my favorite places I visited was the Ueno district, which is home to the famous Ueno Koen. This park is one of the largest and most popular in Japan, with thousands of visitors showing up every year for the springtime tradition of hanami, or cherry blossom viewing.
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If there’s one thing that I knew I had to do while in Japan, it was visit a real onsen, or hot spring. Luckily for me, there were actually quite a few in the region of Akita where I was staying, and the particular one that I visited was apparently one of the best. For a first impression, I’ll definitely say that it’ll be very hard to beat, and it was one of the most relaxing and revitalizing experiences I had in Japan.
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Cupcake Cosplay is composed of cosplayers Breathlessaire and Starlighthoney. These two ladies won the USA Finals of the World Cosplay Summit in 2013 and represented our country in the International Finals at Japan last summer, and came back with the Brother Industries LTD sponsored award, along with Second Place overall!
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One Week Friends is a bittersweet shoujo story of friendship and understanding that follows Yuki Hase as he attempts to befriend his classmate, the quiet and withdrawn Kaori Fujimiya. Fujimiya, however, isn’t so keen on entertaining friendships because she suffers from a memory problem that resets her memory every Monday, forcing her to start over each week.
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Nike, the fourth princess of the Principality of Rain, has the ability to summon rain whenever she pleases. After losing a bet with her sisters, Nike must travel to the Sun Kingdom against her wishes. In order for her country to continue being autonomous, she is promised to wed the King of the Sun Kingdom, Livius I. When she arrives at the Sun Kingdom, Nike bids farewell to her escorts and enters the country alone. Soon realizing how different the Sun Kingdom is from her home, Nike passes out due to hunger, and is rescued from thieves by a pair of sisters.
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Paradise Kiss could easily have been a standard “Girl meets boy, girl’s life is changed forever” narrative. Luckily, in the capable hands of Ai Yazawa, it instead becomes a beautifully drawn, thoughtful meditation on adulthood, ambition, and the ways we hurt the ones we care about. With the issues of agency, identity, and non-conformism front and center, Paradise Kiss has the potential to be a powerfully feminist narrative, and while not an unqualified success, it certainly succeeds on some levels.
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