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Since the last newsletter we've kicked things off the spring in a big way! First we announced 3 new spring titles: Hiiro no Kakera, OZMA, and Nyarko-san: Another Crawling Chaos. We held our fourth annual Global Shinkai Day and honored those who did wonders during and past 3/11 on The Live Show. With more announcements coming around the corner, you definitely don't want to miss a single thing here! |
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 Written by Joe Chan
They are known by many names: Pirates, Buccaneers, Privateers, Corsairs, Raiders, Filibusters, Freebooters. Their modus operandi is pretty much the same across the board: independent acts of robbery or violence, typically taking place on the sea, committed by one vessel against another vessel or town. Sometimes they are romanticized and revered, other times demonized and reviled; how they are seen depends on who they ultimately serve.
 Piracy has been around for just about as long as ships have traversed the seas. At some point in the mid-13th century, King Henry III became the first known monarch to grant commissions to the captains of private sailing vessels giving them sovereign right to act on behalf of the issuing nation to attack and plunder the ships of enemy nations as acts of war. After about 50 years, this royal writ came to be known as a Letter of Marque, and thus the privateer (or corsair, if you were French) was born.
Pirates, no matter what flavor they came in, had to be uncommonly resourceful in order to be successful and survive. In the case of privateers, they may have had the blessings of a nation, but they didn’t necessarily have their backing; those who operated illegally had to also evade or face off against pirate hunters and military ships alike. As such, pirates often utilized various tactics and ruses de guerre (or ruses of war), such as psychological warfare, to deceive their target or collect valuable intelligence from them.
 One of the new shows streaming on Crunchyroll this season, Bodacious Space Pirates, uses many such ruses de guerre to lull its viewers into complacency, leading us to believe one thing while the show aims for something else entirely. With its title, its origin (this series is based off of the light novel, Miniskirt Space Pirates), and its early promos, it was easy to believe that the show would be little more than action-oriented fluff, with cute girls flashing high-tech weaponry to get what they want. However, what it delivers has so much more substance and promise that many were stunned by its initial assault.
Rather than your typical action/adventure space fantasy, Bodacious Space Pirates ventures closer towards space opera territory, and even incorporates some elements of hard sci-fi into its storytelling. Sure, there are still a few aspects of silliness, such as the girls’ perfectly starched sailor fuku (though, when you think about it, is probably even more appropriate in a show about space pirates than in many other shows), keeps them modest even in zero-G.
 Marika Kato is a naturally talented sailor, as demonstrated by her performance in space skiff simulators, who discovers that she is the only child of the former captain of the space pirate ship, Bentenmaru. As of Captain Kato’s passing, she is, by law, the sole inheritor of his ship and its Letter of Marque, issued by her home planet, Sea of the Morning Star. Until that point, she thought of space pirates as an extinct artifact from a war over a century past, but upon learning that they were still around – and still legal – she reluctantly embraces her calling, and demonstrates that her pedigree has granted her much more than just the ability to sail a ship.
Her mother, once a space pirate aboard the Bentenmaru herself known by the moniker “Blaster Ririka,” teaches Marika that a major part of being a space pirate is psychological. A pirate’s ability to convince her target of her strength and superiority can often end a confrontation before it leads to combat, though having a big gun handy really helps. Such is another ruse de guerre that a pirate must master.
 Marika doesn’t jump into her new role straight away, instead taking time to mull over her choices. In the course of the events that gradually lead her to her final decision, the show takes the opportunity to introduce us to the world around her and that despite the obvious technological advances, many other things have survived through the centuries. Some of the newer tech seems to be a perfectly natural progression from today’s gadgets, such as the integration between an analog magazine and digital displays, but what the show likes to remind us is that there is nothing quite like good old human effort and ingenuity.
 As the heir-apparent of the Bentenmaru, all eyes are on Marika, and her days of living and playing as a normal schoolgirl are gone. Marika tests her sailing chops with her school’s yachting club, where many of her fellow club members turn out to be hiding a few secrets of their own. Some of Bentenmaru’s crew members infiltrate her school to pose as staff members, going so far as to become her homeroom teacher and advisor to her club, and they plan a voyage to sail the school’s own yacht, the Odette II, around the solar system.
 This is where some of the more interesting aspects of the series come into play. Unknown belligerents attempt to infiltrate the Odette II’s computer systems and instead of confronting them head on, Marika and one of her club mates, the transfer student Chiaka Kurihara, engage in electronic warfare to fend off the invasion. Marika begins to demonstrate superior judgment, leadership, and decision-making abilities at this time despite being out of her element with respect to EW. As the final confrontation approaches, many other ruses de guerre come into play: transmitting false data, feigning inactivity, masking unit identification, deception, and ambushes. There are so many more dimensions to standard space combat.
 Besides the unconventional display of space naval tactics and warfare, another thing to watch out for are the subtle displays that characters exhibit throughout the series. Watch for characters’ reactions to certain events – are there hidden meanings to their expressions that speak to more secrets, or are they another ruse to throw us off guard? Kane McDougal, Bentenmaru’s helmsman who is posing as Marika’s homeroom teacher and club advisor, drinks plenty of beer, but also seems to enjoy a good tea. Chiaki seems cold and distant, but often reveals a more girly side and is embarrassed by Marika’s display of affection. These little character quirks do more for character development than exposition ever could.
Then there’s the series’ setting and how the use of technology and environment can really tell you a lot about the world and the era it’s in. Observe the wasteland that Ririka takes Marika to during their mother-daughter chat. All those wrecked ships speak to a horrendous war resulting from Sea of the Morning Star’s declaration of independence. The existence of a tank shows that the fighting wasn’t just up in space either. Given how powerful a handheld weapon is in Marika’s time, one wonders how much destruction had to have been unleashed during the war.
Bodacious Space Pirates is a show that has surprised and will likely continue to surprise as the season goes on. You’d better keep an eye on it or it might hit you when you least expect it to. After all, deception, surprise, and ambush are just how pirates do things.
 
 Written by Nate Ming
If there’s one thing you can count on in almost any sports series, it’s strong character development. After all, you need somebody to root for when they’re down to the final seconds of the championship game where the main characters are behind by one, and the evil rich kids from the private school need to be put in their place!
While A Knight in the Area lacks the crazy, overwrought drama of some sports anime, it does one better: it has honest, earnest characters who act like people. They have dreams, and sometimes they’re willing to set them aside for the ones they love--like all of us have to do every now and then.
 Kakeru Aizawa is a manager of his high school’s soccer team, led by his star big brother Suguru. Suguru is a genius youth-league player, having previously competed in--and won!--an International Youth game between Japan and Brazil. Kakeru is completely blown away by his brother’s skill, and decides to hang back as a manager, letting his brother shine as a star player.
 What we don’t find out until a little later, though, is that Kakeru and Suguru used to play soccer together as kids, along with Nana, the only girl on the team. Suguru wants his brother to play soccer again--he knows that Kakeru loves the game and is only staying on as manager so he won’t have to play.
 Kakeru has his reasons for not wanting to play, just like how he goes off to an empty park every night to practice soccer by himself. Suguru wants to play alongside his brother, for them to enjoy soccer together. But a sudden parting will force the brothers apart, and now Kakeru will have to carry his team to victory without his genius brother leading the charge.
A Knight in the Area starts out as a no-frills sports series--you’ll learn more about soccer, the rules of the game, and the strategy that goes into team formations and positioning. By the third episode, it’s chock-full of solid character development and an excellent, heartfelt plot that really makes you care about the brothers and the tough decisions they have to make, on and off the pitch.
 Written by edsamac
Summer seems to be the season that beckons adventure. Being a New Year's youth of sorts, many of us have taken summer as more than simply a break. For some, it could be a chance to try new things; for others, a means to get in touch with themselves once more. And to those who haven't had the courage to, summer holds a strange energy-driving force to push love into overdrive.
 Sadly, it isn't summer yet. Stranger so, Waiting in the Summer talks about just that, premature though it may be. Still, I was rather drawn towards the show this season given its standing as a romance comedy. This season's line up is currently riddled with suspense, returning series', and a couple fantasy shows to boot. That said, Waiting in the Summer did not feel out of place at all - living up to its name as a welcome change of pace from the frigid winter releases.
The story talks about Kaito Kirishima, a high school boy and motion film photography hobbyist. After figuring himself in a mysterious explosion while out one night testing his camera, he wakes up the following morning with little recollection of what had happened. Unfazed by the bizarre event, he goes to school as if nothing happened. After announcing his plans of producing an amateur film during the summer break, he meets a certain Ichika Takatsuki after inadvertently having his best friend walk up to her and ask her to star in the said film. Unknown to Kaito, Ichika is actually an alien from a distant planet, and after a series of uncalculated events, she ends up living together with Kaito for the remainder of the summer as they shoot their film.
 Despite the bizarre setting, the story initially comes off as uninspired and predictable. Give it a dash of Ah! My Goddess with a hint of Amagami, and you get something along those lines. What probably got me excited were the cameo appearances of several well-loved models of FUJICA Super 8mm cameras used (although monikered). Still, elements of character development weren't lacking, and my attention was drawn away from the somewhat obvious plot flow and directed more towards the relationships of the characters.
 In fact, it's in the resonance to character development where one may find some sort of appeal in the show. All the characters seem to be tied up in a sort of "following the leader" love race of sorts, where each person has a romantic interest in someone else. Imagine person A loving person B, but person B loves person C, and person C just so happens to love person D… exactly like that. At first, I found this hilarious and somewhat laughable, but each character had their own way of dealing with it - and it was, surprisingly, very convincing. For what the show lacks in twists and something I could sink my teeth into, Waiting in the Summer focused much of its initial 4 episodes laying down the character relationships more than anything else, perhaps (and hopefully) hinting towards a very interesting twist of sorts somewhere down the line.
 And this is weird when you think about it. I'm watching the show thinking that its "predictable" (as far as the romantic comedy genre is concerned), and yet I feel like there's a twist that's about to occur that's gonna pull the rug swiftly from beneath my feet. It's this reason why the show has a strangely unique appeal to it that keeps one watching, albeit riddled with a nagging sense of "oh, I've seen that before…" or "Boy A and Girl A are obviously into each other - get it over with." Given the right approach, this show has the potential to become something great - this much, I believe is true.
So what is it, really? Just another romantic comedy knock off trying to look a little more bizarre by throwing aliens and video cameras into the mix? I really don't know, and all I can do is wait and hope for the best. As love can be a waiting game at best, so does this show it seems. It may be a little less than engaging for the more love-struck of the bunch out there looking for a more emotionally charged show, but for those looking for a casual release in the form of a summer break 5 months or so early, then this show won't displease. I'll be waiting to see what happens in that summer indeed - and hopefully, so will you.
Naruto Shippuden ©2002 MASASHI KISHIMOTO / 2007 SHIPPUDEN All Rights Reserved., Soranowoto © Paradores/Aniplex/ 1121, Chu-Bra © Yumi NakataEFUTABASHA^CHU-BRA Partnership, Astro Boy, Dororo, Blackjack and Phoenix © Tezuka Productions All Rights Reserved, Nurse Witch Komugi-chan Magikarte Z © ADVFilms All Rights Reserved
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