I take it everyone remembers this? Just a little picture of Jotaro that launched hundreds of claims that the Part 3 anime was right around the corner, but it’s been pretty quiet about that ever since. There were those trading cards, but that was just a drawing style thing. There was those other pictures of Jotaro, but those were an April Fool’s prank. There’s the rebroadcasting on BS11, but that’s more a hopeful sign than a definite confirmation.

On the other hand:

This is from the teaser part of Episode 26 as contained in the Vol. 9 blu-rays that’s been making it’s way around. One graphic, and it’s the strongest confirmation we’ve gotten yet. It isn’t necessarily a “We will do it” sign, but it basically is. It even is a literal sign stamped onto the episode. There’s still no confirmed date or pictures or anything, so it’s probably still a good idea to be cautiously optimistic, but if you’re going to parade around anything while calling Part 3 anime, this is that thing.

Hope to see everyone with their bags packed for an Egypt road trip maybe around late spring?

I think we all knew this was coming. Silicon Era has posted that NamcoBandai has shared with them that there will be name changes in the US and EU versions of All Star Battle. It’s not surprising. Heritage for the Future had them. I’m pretty sure that some of the Viz licensed manga has had them. They are reportedly aiming “to make sure that the localized names for the characters fit with Hirohiko Araki’s intentions ‘while not offending any party,’” and that, “the localized names will be matched to the U.S. and European versions of the recent anime to ensure consistency.” So they are doing this with care, not that it won’t still infuriate some I know.

The key to this though, is how they phrased it. “Matched to the US and European versions of the recent anime.” We haven’t gotten any word on that one before. Might just be something you want to keep an eye out for as we move towards our new Part 3 anime.

(Thanks to the news from Silicon Era.)

Man, Jotaro, have you got some slim feet. I think it’s those school shoes. And now that I look closer at Star Platinum, I might have been wrong about them using the purple coloring scheme. I thought it was weird they would pick that because it’d be out of sync with ASB, but now that I look closer, I think that might just be a purple aura that’s particularly in the face. The arm looks that green color.

The JoJo’s The Animation official website has changed over to the Stardust Crusaders form with this lovely duet of Jotaro and Star Platinum. This is pretty much the whole site at this point. There is some news, but it’s just what I just said and that the anime will officially begin airing in 2014. I think some winter season anime does air in January, but I’m pretty sure that means we’re looking at a spring release. Not a bad thing. Spring tends to be in the stronger half of the year along with fall season, so hopefully this will mean great things.

Keep an eye on Stardust Crusaders news here. I’m hoping we get info on the OP, ED, and lead composer soon. Who would be a good one for Part 3? Kow Otani?

(Images from Warner-Bros.JoJo. © Warner-Bros. Inc., Hirohiko Araki, LUCKYLAND Communications, Shueisha, davidproduction, and the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure The Animation Production Committee.)

If you haven’t heard the news, this most recent Ultra Jump has confirmed that the Stardust Crusaders anime will be running in spring 2014 season. In celebration, Tokyo MX is going to be broadcasting a Parts 1 and 2 highlight reel over New Years to help tide us over for the winter season. Spring anime season starts sometime in mid to late March, so we’re probably looking at a late March to early April start of the run. It’s like they staggered it just so all the hype for this would kick in right as all the hype from ASB was starting to calm down.

Keep yourself calm. If you get too excited, you may punch your computer in half. God knows I’m trying not to.

When stumbling around mindlessly at the start of a new year, it’s always comforting to know that if the current year sucks, at least you’ve got stuff you already liked to fall back on. Top X lists are only as valuable as you want them to be, and making one is about as special as me preferring to walk using my legs instead of my eyeballs, but I’ve got an opinion and had a rough day, so let’s have some fun and wind down.

Something to keep in mind while reading through these is that I’m pretty shit at picking favorites. In discussions over things like “Favorite JoJo,” I’ll always pick someone immediately (Josuke!) before fidgeting and going down the whole cast list being noncommittal. So the placement of these shows is somewhat fluid. I did try to place them in a top to bottom continuum, but you should really take this as these being shows you should check out if you haven’t already more than anything else.

5. Yozakura Quartet – Song of Flowers

“Anime” is shortened version of a Japanese appropriation of the term “animation,” so you’d think animation would be a key part of every show, especially ones with fights. But budgets and creativity are fickle mistresses, and more often than not you get flickering still frames, speed lines, and bored to tears by anything attempting action. And when there is animation, you’re lucky if the directors know how to use it well enough to make the fights have better weight, impact, and choreography than a dizzy person throwing a styrofoam ball into an airbag. So when a show is able to have not only the budget for things to move but also the directorial chops to make things move in interesting ways, it tends to stand out, and Yozakura is certainly a show in that category. More shows need to take cues from this one so they know that a bad guy with an infinite dinosaur supply and beating a giant fish monster by baseball swinging it into the sky iare a pretty good things for shows to do. Could have done with less arbitrary panties and tits, but being a fan of Kill la Kill may have voided my ability to complain about that.

4. Silver Spoon

Another thing typically associated with anime that it usually has no idea how to actually do is teenage characters in high school. Selling me on a show that’s not only about teenagers in high school but also about the thrilling activities of farming was a task that Hercules would find unreasonably cruel. Hiromu Arakawa can, thus, feel very content that she’s tougher than a Greek demigod because Silver Spoon was a really good adaptation of an already good manga. The story is filled with real heart that makes the characters feel very human even when they get into the comedy antics that would usually have me reaching for the disc and a firecracker. Couple that with a real sense of humor, an impressive knowledge of a farm’s goings on, and an adaptation that was able to bring that all to life, and you’ve got an easy “must watch.” I would place it higher, but the show’s not technically finished, but fuck it, show’s good.

3. The Devil is a Part Timer

If this year had a theme, you’ve probably picked up on what I think it is from the title of this post, but this show embodies that to the core. It has the most insipid possible premise, magic people from the vaguely European folklore dimension end up coming to Japan where they’re normal and suck but not permanently, and that trademark light novel “title is also the description” thing painted this show as generic shlock, but damn if it wasn’t actually funny when you actually watched it. The characters play off each other really well, and the fervor that Jakob “Maou” Satan and his housemate take to their new life even when faced with the potential to return to being magically powered super beings got a good laugh out of me more than a few times. Everything great about this show can be summed up either in this picture, that Lucifer would prefer to be a NEET than return to Heaven, or by the moment when Maou, in his demon muscleman state after having punched the current villain into another timezone, defends the reliability of his preferred brand of boxer shorts because someone complained. Some characters could stand to have their cliches toned down, but the central three guys are so solid that I’ll let it go.

2. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure

If you didn’t know this was going to appear here, you’re either not paying enough attention or are just new here. Nicely enough, it also fits into the year theme because the initial previews and talks of no budget were cause for worry. davidproduction showed us that you can get around any problem like that by being really creative and having a brilliant knack for presentation and adaptation. A lot of people praised the adaptation by says that david “really gets JoJo,” but I’d say they went one step beyond. There’s a certain danger in having adaptations or new installments be made by fans of the source because they’ll be too afraid to try new things out of a misplaced sense of respect. davidproduction blew that out of the water by managing to properly balance reverence for the original with the confidence to trim the giant upper arms that make you look like you got a side of beef stuck in each one. That attitude elevated Part 1 from what I’ve always considered cute but honestly kind of throwaway to something I’d suggest without question because it’s good, and then your mind explodes when you watch Part 2. Couple these guys with a budget, and they might have to sell a helmet with the blu-rays so you have something to hold your head together. And I totally support the attempt to make that because the weird ass products the anime brought out were also pretty good.

1. Inferno Cop

I’m tempted to just follow everyone else example and just post .gifs because it would be enough:

but there’s plenty more to the insanity that is Inferno Cop than that. My brother and I now have, “I’m immune to your bullets!” “So am I!” “Oh noooooo- *BOOOOOOM*” as a go to quote for an easy laugh, and how are you going to put that in a .gif unless you have subtitles to distract you from the explosion? It really shows how much execution matters that a show that has the exact opposite of the animation I praised Yozakura for because this it was animated on the $20 dollars the director found in his pocket after a wash was one of the best shows I’ve seen in years. Trigger did that by embracing their limits and making the lack or animation a core part of the already awesome humor. I can’t even come up for a comparison for what the show is or why it’s so much fun to watch, but if you don’t get some sort of laugh out of watching Inferno Cop escape the hospital where secret government agents were trying to kill him by giving him the ability to turn into a souped up formula one car, then you’re the one who doesn’t make any sense. There is a small misstep with the humor and pace in one of the middle episodes, but that’s like complaining about a perfectly cooked pie because one of the pieces was slightly smaller than all the other ones. Watch this show. Even if you’ve already watched it, watch it because it will work again.

There are some other shows to mention that aren’t really in the top partially because I didn’t finish a lot of them. Free! is in that category because as fun as a easy batch of nerd tears is, the show itself didn’t really sustain my interest. Not to say it was bad. It just didn’t really grab a hold of me. Basically, everything about the show I cared about is in this video rather than the show itself.

WataMote also deserves mention. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t like WataMote, but it and Chuunibyou have taught me something about myself: That, because everyone who seemed to like these shows did so because it reminded them of their own awkward teen years, my own teen years must not have been as awkward as I originally thought. When faced with the character’s awkwardness and inability to socialize, I just kept yelling, “Take a bath and wash your hair,” at the screen. Maybe I was just more normal than I thought, and anime about teenagers being social misfits can be safely filed away as something that’s just not for me.

Pokemon Origins was another for the year’s theme for trying something new with the series while also having fights that were also pretty cool, but it’s really only a passing fancy if you’re not into Pokemon like I’m not. The show equivalent of a really nice cookie, good, but then gone. Same to Rock Lee and His Ninja Pals, which was apparently this year, but replace “fights” with “occasional jokes” and “Pokemon” with “Naruto.”

Other than that, I can’t really think of anything I watched or watched long enough to really care about. If there’s any shows you see up there you didn’t check out, this would be a good time to consider them.

(Thanks ANN for all the show posters)

Of all the weird products there have been for JoJo especially since the anime, this has to be the one I understand the least. Underwear, I get. Food, I get. Punchable friend frog made perfect sense as a plush doll, but JoJo Anime brand dart fletching is something I probably would have never predicted.

The above is one of the packs, the variety pack. It comes with one Joseph, one Red Stone of Aja, and one Caesar.

There’s also the Joseph only pack

And the Caeser only pack

Each one comes as a set of 3. The variety pack will be ¥1,600, and the two character specific ones will be ¥750. If you feel like your darts game could use a little ripple boost, they’ll be available from Still Alive on February 24th.

(Pictures and original story from Araki-JoJo)

This news has been a long time coming. With davidproduction’s decision to have a new composer for each Part, who gets to be that composer sets a huge precedent for the tone of the series. Our draw this time is a Mr. Yuugo Kanno. He’s done a few shows including the recent popular Psycho Pass and a show I thought was pretty good Birdy the Mighty: Decode where the above comes from. The main theme has this upbeat, somewhat jazzy feel with the saxophone, and the other is a little more what I’d expect from a fighting show.

That said:

A lot of his music is more of this somber style. It is good, but not very Part 3. But that probably speaks to his range more than anything, and the trailer musics are probably his and was pretty good. So I think we’re in good hand this time.

Now that’s interesting. Someone on Crunchyroll just posted that they’re getting JoJo’s for their spring season simulcast. That’s a fairly big deal. Even if you’re not a big fan of the way they do things, support for an official English version of JoJo’s in the States could set the precedent for more material to come our way. The image itself shows that we’d probably get the whole anime, not just Part 3. Fan support and whatnot too, so that could end up being pretty good in the long run.

You know, if it’s true. Today is what day it is, after all, so it’s reasonable to be wary. I would say that the fact that the JoJo page 404s while none of the other pages in that post do is the most fishy smell. The spring lineup page also doesn’t have a JoJo’s button while all the other shows do. But there are all those nice TBDs filled with potential, so it couldn’t hurt to hope. Both for the chance to support the show in a visible way and as a way to help stifle those terrible “preferred sub group” arguments.

Just kidding. You’ll never actually escape that argument.