Author Archive


Interview with Sam Pinansky of Anime Sols

May 27th, 2013

One of the absolute best things about working with JManga were the people involved. Robert, Yae-san, and Carl, the letterer who toiled so diligently for us. And it was my genuine pleasure to be able to work with Sam Pinansky of QuarkPro. Now Sam and his team have launched the ambitious new anime streaming and funding site, Anime Sols. I think it’s an interesting idea.

As Bruce McF said in comments here, “There’s nothing to DO at a Kickstarter other than to see how fast the thing is moving, and if it hits its basic goals, what stretch goals they come up with. By contrast, at Anime Sols, there’s a new episode every week for each series ~ one per day, given the series they have.So rather than a rush of pledges at the beginning and a rush of pledges at the end, if Anime Sols works, it could well have a steady flow of pledges as the series is running, and then hopefully a rush at the end when the time limit is hitting and its put up or shut up time.“I thought that a perfect summation of what I saw, and I wanted to get it all from Sam’s view.

Thanks so much to Sam for taking time out of his busy schedule to answer my nosey-parker questions. ^_^

E: Tell us a little about yourself and about QuarkPro. How did you get involved in anime and what are you doing now in the field? 

S: I went to school to study theoretical physics and got into anime when I was in college. While getting my Ph. D I took Japanese on the side and really enjoyed the language, and at the same time I started translating some anime as a hobby by fansubbing. After doing a postdoc in Japan I decided to stay, worked as a freelance translator for Crunchyroll and other companies during the early days of legal streaming, and after getting a job at Tezuka Productions, I continued to do that kind of work and expand my network. About a year ago I switched jobs to work for the Yomiuri TV group company ADEC and now I’m International Media Strategy Group Chief at YTV Enterprise. My current job consists of running a localization group in YTV Enterprise as well as new project development and technical encoding assistance. Quarkpro is my own Japanese LLC I started so I could be an investor in Anime Sols.

E: Anime Sols appears to be a streaming service with a crowdfunding component. . Where did the idea come from? What is the goal of Anime Sols?

S: I had the idea for Anime Sols more than 2 years ago, prior to the crowdfunding boom we’ve seen with Kickstarter. My experience in fansubbing taught me that basically every genre has its core fans and that they as a customer base were being poorly served by the current licensing paradigm… Japan needed to be able to directly sell to western fans but also needed to be able to do so with low risk, and crowdfunding was the perfect answer to that question.

E: So the site is really a crowdfunding site with a streaming component. ^_^

S: The streaming is necessary because most of the titles are fairly unknown [in the West,] so it’s important to have a website that not only collects pledges, but is also a place for people to watch and discover new shows to enjoy. The goal of Anime Sols is to introduce classic anime which are not so well known in the west, and to enable shows which otherwise are not viable to get a traditional license have a chance to be released on official R1 DVD with subtitles. It’s my hope that a core of dedicated fans will form which will help to attract new viewers and fans for these shows and create a healthy market for classic anime titles.

E: What are the differences between Anime Sols and other crowdfunding sites? 

S: One of the main differences is that Anime Sols is not an open platform. The site owner is a partnership of Japanese animation and media companies, and it’s those companies which are also providing the content and raising money through goal pledges. This allows 100% of the funds raised to go to the rights-holders and also avoids a lot of messy licensing legal issues with crowdfunding. There are other differences between Anime Sols and Kickstarter, for example, your pledges are charged when the goal is reached, not when the deadline hits. Please see the FAQ on the website for more details.

E: What have been the major challenges you’ve faced with the idea?

S: The most difficult thing was getting the other partners of the Anime Sols LLP to finalize the contract. But before that, we also faced numerous hurdles in terms of getting enough partners and finding content which we could attempt this business model with. The site development was also faced with an extremely tight budget and required a lot of work personally. Currently we are trying to figure out ways to get the word out and increase the number of site visitors, which is the biggest problem we are facing.

E: Interviews like this help, to some extent, but yeah, it always helps to have more feet on the ground. Do you have expansion plans if this first wave works out? Other titles or more countries in the works?

S: We have a number of further titles lined up that we would like to continue with, and we’re beginning talks with other companies to see if they have any titles they would like to place on Anime Sols as well. Expansion into other territories is something we will be looking into further down the line once the business is more established.

E: After a set is funded, you said that you’ve lined up distribution. Is that going to be worldwide?

E: Pledges can only be made from the US and Canada and will be distributed through Righstuf. however, we will be producing at least 1000 sets for any goal that is reached, so any sets which have not been pledged for we plan to distribute to the usual retailers such as Rightstuf, and they are free to sell to whomever they want, including international consumers who wish to import the R1 release into their own country.

E: Do you have a message for fans?

S: I hope that anyone reading this article takes the time to come to animesols.com and register, and then check out some of the over 60 episodes of classic anime we have streaming now for free, plus new episodes every day!

***

Thanks again, Sam, for your time – and for your vision. I love the idea of fans helping to fund the work that they personally love – it’s so much more meaningful that just sitting back waiting for someone else to invest in it for us. You have my support and the support of a lot of people who would love to see some of those classic titles see the light of day. Here’s wishing Anime Sols the best of luck.





Softest, Fluffiest, Fujieda Miyabi Contest Winners!

May 26th, 2013

At the beginning of this month, I announced a contest for a pile of Fujieda Miyabi goods and some other stuff.

Today we announce the winners. I love this part. ^_^

The Grand Prize Winner is Eric P.  from the  USA

And we have three runners-up who have won some lovely doujinshi:

Jenny Quesada – Costa Rica

Steven Meredith – USA

Christina Maria Jessen – Denmark

Please email me your shipping address at yuricon at gmail dot com and your prizes will go out as soon as I get my lazy ass in gear.

Thank you everyone for entering, we’ll have another contest very shortly for more cool stuff. ^_^

 





Yuri Network News (百合ネットワークニュース) – May 25, 2013

May 25th, 2013

YNN_LissaYuri (and other) Anime 

From YNN Correspondent Shannon Luchies, we have more interesting Media Blasters news this week – according to their Facebook page, they have licensed Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito. Thanks for the heads up Shannon! Yuricon Staffer Serge suggests “Completely forgettable except for Hazuki” as an honest pull-quote for the packaging. ^_^

Serial Experiments Lain DVD/Blu-ray Complete Collection Limited Edition on sale at RightStuf. With extras and stuff. ^_^

The September release of an Aoi Hana Blu-Ray box set in Japan will be accompanied by original art by manga creator Shimura Takako, Comic Natalie reports. Blu-Ray would be worth it for a change, since the animation is so lovely. It’s on my Amazon JP Yuri Wish List if anyone feels like buying me a birthday present. ^_^

I know you were on pins and needles about this: Sentai Filmworks has announced the release of Queen’s Blade Rebellion has been pushed back to September. Awww.

And another new free, legal anime streaming site has popped up – AnimeSols. This site is working with a number of anime studios and the Yomiuri media company to both stream and crowdfund older anime. To my surprise, I recognized a name in the credits. It was my pleasure to work with QuarkPro founder Sam Pinansky last year during our JManga adventure. AnimeSols has the shoujo classic Creamy Mami in the lineup, which is good news for shoujo anime fans. Unlike Daisuki, Animesols is available to North America only. I’ve had a chance to ask Sam about this and it comes down to the fact that they are using the crowdfunding upfront to get the disks printed (not as, say, a Kickstarter perk.) If they took donations from non-NA countries they’d be required to file sales and tax info in all those countries – and follow local censorship laws. Plus, just to drive a stake through the heart of the global economy, licensing agreements in countries from decades ago still apply. So there are countries that could not get streaming rights regardless. Okay, that’s the bad news – on the good news side, once sets are printed, they have an agreement with TRSI for fulfillment, so you’ll be able to buy sets wherever you are.

I hope to have an interview with Sam next week and we can get the whole scoop. ^_^

***

Other News

Manga artist Nao Yazawa is once again giving away some of her titles on Kindle! You can download Moon and Blood, Volume 1 in Japanese and Nozomi, Volume 1 in English for free until the 27th of May.

You may have heard that Amazon Kindle is opening a new service for creators of fanfic. Well, yes and no. It’s essentially a farm league for authorized fiction. Only series that have licensing agreements with Amazon will be allowed  – none of which are anime or manga, they are all US TV shows at the moment. ANN gives a succinct rundown on all the rules. With the success of several high-profile fanfictions that have transitioned into original work, this makes sense. My only concern would be if media rights holders use it to squash “unauthorized” fanfic. We’ll have to wait and see what happens. ^_^ In the meantime, your Madoka porn stories are probably safe. ^_^

A  lesbian film is making a splash at Cannes this year, La vie d’Adèle (Blue Is the Warmest Color), which is an adaptation of a graphic novel titled Le Bleu est une Couleur Chaude by Julie Maroh. It appears that Arsenal Pulp is releasing this in English in Autumn 2013 under the name Blue Angel. (Thanks bystrouska for the clarification!)

Comic Natalie reports on a new line of Rose of Versailles dolls.I think they are terrifying. ^_^ Speaking of dolls, if you know who this is,  are you as amazed as I am at the fact that they are still making figurines of him? It’s a pretty good one, too. ^_^

***

That’s a wrap for this week! Become a Yuri Network Correspondent by sending me any Yuri-related news you find. Emails go to anilesbocon01 at hotmail dot com. Not to the comments here, please, or they might be forgotten or missed. There’s a reason for this madness. This way I know you are a real human, not Anonymous (which I do not encourage – stand by your words with your name!) and I can send you a YNN correspondent’s badge. Thanks to all of you – you make this a great Yuri Network!





Yuri Anime: Sweet Blue Flowers / Aoi Hana Disk 2 (English)

May 24th, 2013

swb Where Disk 1 of Sweet Blue Flowers was full of nostalgia and longing, Disk 2 is a brutally beautiful look at all the different kinds of pain people can inflict upon one another without ever meaning to – or wanting to – do so.

With the backdrop of the school play (and Sugimoto being simply too cool as Heathcliff,) Fumi finds herself unsure of her sempai’s feelings. As the days pass, she is more and more sure that Sugimoto likes someone else. When she discovers the truth and confronts Sugimoto, she finds an uncomfortable truth waiting for her, as well.

If the entire series was just this one disk, it would still be one of my favorites. The life lessons in it are deep and abiding. It’s a love song to young love and to Kamakura and to the springtime of youth. Above all, it is a love song to young girls who find themselves in love with other girls. You are not alone, you are not wrong, you can love and lose and love again. That’s a hell of a chorus and I am glad this series is out there, singing those important words.

I’ll say this once again, because it cannot be said too many times – despite her own words to the contrary, Fumi is an incredibly strong character. As I watched this series over again, I felt honored to be allowed to share in Fumi’s story.

The world could use more Fumis.

Ratings:

Art – 8 (with some lapses toward the last two episodes)
Story – 10
Characters – 10
Yuri – 8
Service – 8  Sugimoto as Heathcliff is pure service. ^_^

Overall – 9

I’m so on pins and needles about the end of the manga. I know what I want it to be, but what will it be? /worry worry/





Tamako Market Anime, Guest Review by Katherine H.

May 22nd, 2013

Tamako_MarketI watched the first episode of Tamako Market and decided I was done with it. Even Yuri was not enough to make me watch any more. And now that Sentai has licensed it, I’m no more moved to review it than before.

Thankfully YNN Correspondent and Okazu Superhero (and all-around fabulous person) Katherine H. has agreed to take a break from writing reviews at her own blog, Yuri no Boke, and step in to cover me in a weak moment. I’ve taken a lot for Team Yuri, but the bird was too repulsive for me to deal with. Anyway, it is with genuine appreciation (and relief) that I turn the floor over to Katherine!

Sometimes less is more. I have never watched a show for which that phrase is more apt than Tamako Market.

Sixteen year-old Kitashirakawa Tamako is a mochi shop owner’s daughter. She grew up with her kid sister Anko, her father, and her grandfather. Like her father and grandfather, her passion is making and selling mochi, even seeing Valentine’s Day as an opportunity to drum up business by making chocolate-filled, heart-shaped mochi.

Tamako loves her neighborhood, the close-knit Usagiyama shopping district, whose business owners treat her like family. She usually hangs out with Kanna and Midori, two girls whose families own businesses in the area. She is also close friends with Mochizou, the son of the owner of the mochi shop across the street. Tamako and Mochizou’s dads see each other as rivals, but this is played for comedy.

If Tamako’s family and the nice people in her neighborhood were all this show is about, it would be a solid slice-of-life show. However, someone involved in its production apparently watched Coming to America and thought, “This show needs something like that, but with a talking bird!”

In episode 1, Kaoru, the local flower shop owner, finds a huge talking cockatiel in a bouquet when Tamako visits her shop. The cockatiel insists on going home with Tamako and introduces himself as Dera Mochimazzui. Dera has flown from a made up country in the south Pacific to find a suitable bride for his prince. It’s Dera’s fault that Tamako Market feels like two shows mashed together- like a jalapeño puree added to a peach smoothie. “Well, Katherine, I liked the show fine. Dera’s subplot didn’t bother me.” That’s fine and dandy- I’m sure someone liked it, but I wanted to poison whoever came up with it.

In episode 7, Choi, a girl who serves the same prince Dera serves, comes to check up on Dera’s progress. She’s the best thing about this subplot because she’s like, “Stop being such an annoying little shit” to Dera. Alas, her arrival precipitated Tamako Market’s climax, in which the prince himself, with his bodyguards who look uncomfortably like racist caricature drawings of black people, arrives in Tamako’s hometown.

Everyone stupidly expects Tamako to leave to marry the prince even though it’s Choi who decided Tamako should marry him and Tamako’s reaction to that was pretty much, “Huh?” Tamako cares more about having enough shopping points to win a pendant than the proposal, until she gets saddened and upset that everyone expects her to leave—although, wtf Tamako, I know you’re dense, but why did you take so long to clarify that you don’t want to marry the prince, other than needing to fill out twelve episodes? The Dera subplot not only sucked in its own right, it made everyone conveniently stupid.

There is good in the show, when it focuses on Tamako and her friends and family and minimizes Dera. Tamako is a likeable lead, despite how dense she is. (I was amused that being dense is a family trait, and her dad and grandpa are the same way, though.)

I don’t find Anko herself particularly compelling, but her episodes were sweet—the first one focusing on her relationship with her deceased mother, and the second one giving us a look at how her and Tamako’s parents got together.

Midori, our yuri character, got three episodes: episode 2, the Valentine’s Day episode; episode 5, the class trip to the beach episode; and episode 10, the school cultural festival episode.

In episode 2, Midori comes to terms with her feelings for Tamako. The most surprising thing about this episode is Kanna telling Midori, out of the blue, that “Anyone can love anyone they want.” I like to think Kanna said that because she caught on to Midori’s feelings :-)

In episode 5, Mochizou decides to confess his feelings for Tamako, but Midori finds out what he plans to do and prevents him. Btw, anyone who thought Midori was being “mean” by running interference—what the hell is the alternative? Sitting idly by and risk letting the person she loves being taken? I’m glad she had the cojones to do what she did.

Midori tells Tamako she loves her, but Tamako earnestly says that she loves Midori back in a way clearly meant platonically. Nonetheless, again, I’m glad Midori did something, while still acting the way a teenaged girl in love might act instead of being like “Hern, TAMAKOOOOOO, LEMME GROPE YOUR BOOBS.” By the end of episode 5, Midori and Mochizou recognize each other’s feelings for Tamako, and come to a mutual understanding over them. Mochizou makes his feelings apparent in front of Tamako—and unlike Midori, in front of other people—also, but Tamako doesn’t recognize them for what they are either.

Episode 10 focuses on Midori’s role as President of her school’s Baton Club (which Tamako and Kanna are part of) rather than her love life. She takes it on herself to design their costumes and choreograph their dance for the school cultural festival, and finds that she’s in over her head in doing the latter. She’s afraid of disappointing the other club members, but when they find out, they offer to help. Things turn out fine and they give a good performance.

As a one-sided crush, Midori’s storyline doesn’t do much for me as a Yuri fan, but she’s a good character and her crush is handled well for what it is. Episode 2’s message, delivered by Kanna, pleasantly surprised me, even if it was handled a bit awkwardly by being given no context by the show, my assumptions aside. Add that to Kaoru being trans without anyone caring or it being treated like something wacky (which is inconsistent with Midori keeping her feelings under wraps in front of other people more than Mochizou, but still nice), and you have a pretty LGBTQ-friendly show.

In short, again, this would be a solid, enjoyable slice-of-life story if you stripped away certain additions to it.

Art: 8 for everything except the prince’s bodyguards, who get a -10

Story: 7 for the non-Dera aspects, 3 for Dera’s subplot

Characters: All over the place. 7 for the overall cast excluding Dera, 2 for Dera

Yuri: 4

Service: There’s that one comedic butt shot in the bath, and the girls wear swimsuits at some point, and I assume someone somewhere will get off on that. There are also a couple times Dera peeks at the girls in the public bath. The girls themselves aren’t shown from his perspective, so it’s a mild example of that gag, but I can understand how it might be a deal-breaker for someone jaded by the creepy commonality of peeping gags in anime and manga. 3

Overall: 5

Once again, I say thank you, thank you! and sob a little at your ankles, Katherine for the fabulous review. I hope you know you’re welcome as a guest anytime. ^_^