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Posts Tagged Bunny Drop

Otaku USA: On The Shelf – September 14, 2011

On The Shelf - September 14, 2011

It’s Sailor Moon week!! Well… for lots of people anyway. Alas not me and many others relying on Diamond Comics and/or overseas shipping. Still, knowing it’s out there this week and coming our way soon is really exciting.

There are a lot of new manga releases this week alongside Sailor Moon however so I’ll have plenty of fantastic books to distract me from the woes of a Moon-less release date. For all the titles out to bookstore shelves this week, my newest On The Shelf article is posted over at Otaku USA.

New volumes of Bunny Drop, Twin Spica, With The Light, Arisa and a handful of new series starting (among others) – plenty for everyone!


Manga to Motion: Interview with Bunny Drop Screenwriter

Bunny Drop

This past week AnimeNewsNetwork posted an interview with Taku Kishimoto, screenwriter for the recently debut anime series, Usagi Drop.  I provided the questions for ANN’s interview and was glad to see they garnered some interesting answers. Inadvertently my first Japanese-industry interview so my thanks to ANN for the opportunity.

Of the answers, I think the following was my favourite:

“…considering the current situation, there is a high possibility that this anime adaptation will expand the demographic of the Usagi Drop fanbase. I couldn’t be happier if the men who watched this anime realize that they don’t have to let women monopolize the enjoyment of raising kids.”

The manga (from which the anime was based) is currently being released in English by Yen Press under the translated name, Bunny Drop. It’s one of my favourite series being released right now and even the spoilers of the series’ end have done little to damper my enthusiasm for each new volume. It’s a really sweet story about a single, middle-aged man who takes in the illegitimate daughter of his recently deceased Grandfather. Unlike Yen Press’s other series starring a single, middle-aged man raising a girl he adopts (aka, the amazingly hilarious Yotsuba&!), Bunny Drop has a great balance of drama and humour that’s more focused on the emotional and logistical role of actually raising a child.

When it was announced they were making an anime I was really excited. One of my favourites being animated, huzzah! Seeing trailers and images come out only furthered my excitement – finally a new anime series I actually want to watch as it comes out! And yet… I haven’t watched it yet. Sure there’s only one episode so far but I just can’t get behind the watching-one-episode-at-time trend. It’s why I wait for boxsets of series then marathon them, similar to how much more I loved manga when they went from releasing single-chapter editions to full volumes. Anyone else find they have the same issue?

That being said, I hope someone licenses it! Series are getting picked up for English release earlier and earlier these days so I hope Bunny Drop falls in that category. In the meantime, I hope newcomers read the manga, the anime-curious check out the interview and those who don’t mind one-episode-at-time enjoy the anime as it comes out because it looks adorable!


Swag Bag: Muscling In On Toronto’s Manga Supply

Welcome to what is definitely the longest Swag Bag to date! Mostly because I completely failed to compile my Swag Bag from last year’s Anime North… None the less! – my recent trip to Toronto was chock full of fun finds, and painful but no doubt hilarious attempts at cramming it all into my suitcases. This post here consists of the manga I bought while traversing the packed streets of Toronto while my TCAF purchases will come in a later post once I’ve finished oogling them enough to write something coherent.

The books listed here were all purchased from either my local Strange Adventures (pre-con buying is important, like eating before going to the grocery store – it helps… I think). The rest with exception of I think 1 or 2 came from what I’m dubbing the manga treasure trove of Toronto – The Beguiling. My thanks to their very accomodating staff! If curious about my other comic shop adventures in Toronto, you can check out the Ontario section of Kuriousity’s Canadian Comic Shop listings.

Now onto the swag!

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Year in Brief Review – Manga Favourites of 2010

It’s New Years Day! And that means the end of 2010 has come and gone – the end of the first decade of the 2000s’, the end of another year of fantastic comics (upon other many wonderful things).

Just for a little living in the past on this first day of 2011, what better time to look back at 2010 with some favourites, surprises, disappointments and neat website tidbits. Sure it would’ve made more sense to have posted yesterday but who has time with all those celebrations going on… right?

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Swag Bag – Anime, Anime and More Anime

Not a whole lot of buying last week as I awaited a hefty RightStuf order to be delivered. And delivered it was! I prefer buying manga in-store and at conventions so when I make big purchases online, they usually consist primarily of anime.

Note to all Canadians: now is the perfect time to get together some friends, head over to RightStuf.com, fill up your cart with oodles of goodies (check out their clearance section for amazing deals), getting that free shipping and taking full advantage of our strong dollar. Save lots of money and get some awesome stuff!

In my box of shininess this time, I continued a recent buying spree of Funimation box sets which always impress with me low prices, great selection and amazing dubs. Their S.A.V.E line is really phenomenal – an entire series for $12? Try justifying to me how that isn’t affordable (advance note: you can’t).

My series of choice this time were Jyo-Oh-Sei, a sci-fi survival series of which I really enjoyed the manga; Baccano, an anime cominbing violent mafia wars and alchemy; Hell Girl (S01), an episodic series about a website where you can ask to have someone banished to Hell; and Eden of the East, which I’ve heard so many amazing reviews for from people I know, that I had to give it a go. Thus far I’ve watched Hell Girl, which was really good and had a continuing plot line I didn’t expect, and the first half of Baccano. The first four episodes made little to no sense but after that the story picks up pace and wow is it something else! Very fun.

The final boxset of the purchase was Media Blaster’s new release of Magic Knight Rayearth which is a digitally remastered version in celebration of CLAMP’s 15th Anniversary. I’ve already seen the series via VHS, but the quality I’ve seen of these remastered episodes is more than reason enough to finally upgrade that series to DVD. I look forward to the shiny nostalgia of this title.

Bunny Drop (Vol. 02)Manga always needs to sneak its way in somehow though and I bought two books that I absolutely adored upon reading. First was the second volume of Bunny Drop from Yen Press. Following a man taking in a young girl and going through the realistic motions of caring for her is both heartwarming and impressively grounded. The other book was volume of The Last Uniform from Seven Seas, a positively adorable series about schoolgirls and their feelings for one another. Both books made me very happy.

In a disappointing follow-up to my last Swag Bag, the DelRey omnibus edition I bought of Mushishi fell apart into a pile of loose out-of-order pages when I sat down to read it! Looks like I got a bad bind. I hope it’s a one-off and not from a bad batch out there. If this is some kind of omen about DelRey manga then, well, it came too late.

So what’ve you bought recently? Anything you’d recommend or something coming up?


Super Savings: RightStuf Fulfills Your Yen Press Desires

RightStuf Fulfills Your Yen Press Desires

RightStuf is bringing manga fans more snazzy-savings this week, this time with all Yen Press titles. From now until June 14th, all Yen Press’s titles are 30% off their already listed prices! This means a nice chunk off every book so snatch ’em up while the price is good.

Lots of great new titles have come out recently such as Kobato (Vol. 01-02) and My Girlfriend’s A Geek (Vol. 01). The second volume of the popular Black Butler is out as well, along with a slew of other continuing favourites. And if you haven’t picked up Yen Press’s re-release of Yotsuba&! and their March release of the incredibly charming, Bunny Drop then by all purchasing means go out and do so, you won’t be disappointed.


Kuriousity at SDCC: Yen Press

Kobato as licensed by Yen Press

Lots of great announcements here at the Yen Press panel, so as before while this will be a brief overview until I have the time to write something full, but here’re the goodies in the meantime!

New license announcements:

Black Butler by Yana Toboso
Darker Than Black by Bones, Tensai Okamura, Nokya, Arklight
Romeo & Juliet by William Shakesspeare/Adapted by COM, Gonzo, SPWT
Bunny Drop by Yumi Unita
Sasameke by Ryuji Gotsubo
Omamori Himari by Milan Matra
My Girlfriend’s A Geek (Fujyoshi Kanojo) by Pentabu & Rize Shinba
Novel By Pentabu (blog collection by boy that inspired the Fujyoshi Kanojo)
Otome by Yuuki Fujinari
Dragon Girl by Toru Fujieda
Natsukashi Machi no Rozione by Sumomo Yumeka
Kobato by CLAMP (Coming May 2010)

Lots of great titles in the list, and following the licensing is a nice-sized Q & A which you can read a few excerpts from after the cut.

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