It's Not My Fault TheOASG Podcast is Not Popular!

Show Notes

0:00: With summer anime season to talk about, the two hosts of TheOASG Podcast jump right into all the news that happened in the past few weeks, starting with MAPPA’s CEO saying that despite Yuri on Ice’s popularity, it made them very little money. Justin and Helen are a little skeptical about that, but even despite that, it certainly suggests how broken the anime industry continues to be right now.

3:54: On the heels of the anime industry being a bit of a mess, Unnamed Memory has been delayed to next year due to production circumstances.

4:50: Long running boxing manga Hajime no Ippo exceeded 100 million copies in circulation after the release of its 138th compiled volume. Needless to say, that’s a lot!

6:20: Tatsunoko Co-Founder Ippei Kuri passed away at 83 July 1. Along with creating Tatsunoko with his two brothers in 1962, he served as CEO of the company from 1987 to 2005.

Licenses

7:02: Fantagraphics & MSX: Mangasplaining Extra announced they’ve licensed Atsushi Kaneko’s Search and Destroy & Akane Torikai’s Wandering Cat’s Cage. They will be serialized digitally on MSX: Mangasplaining Extra this summer, while Fantagraphics will release them in print in 2024

8:26: ABLAZE announced they’ve licensed Masaaki Ninomiya’s Gannibal.

9:09: Seven Seas did not go to any of the big conventions this year, but they instead took to their socials to have their big license announcement event:

  • Keyyang’s Kimi to Shiranai Natsu ni Naru
  • Nujima’s Mysterious Disappearances
  • MOSCARETO & OKDONG’s Punch Drunk Love (Webtoon Manhwa)
  • BL First Crush Anthology: Five Seconds Before We Fall in Love
  • LN & manga of Kosuzu Kobato’s True Love Fades Away When the Contract Ends 
  • Yomu Mishima, Tooi Moge, and Monda’s Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of That Otome Game is Tough for Us
  • Takako Midori, Seren, & Mami Surada’s Before You Discard Me, I Shall Have My Way With You (Steamship)

10:37: Yen Press decided to also make some announcements while not actually at SDCC:

  • Chihiro Sakutake’s My Poison Princess Is Still Cute
  • Kazuma Kamachi and Kiyotaka Haimura’s A Certain Magical Index NT

11:18: Manga UP! added Yuzo Natsuno’s Assassin & Cinderella to their service.

SDCC News

11:36: The Mangasplaining Podcast & UDON Entertainment announced at SDCC they’ve licensed Kotteri’s Veil & Nami Sasou’s No Roses Without Thorns: My Life As a Shojo Manga Assistant

12:49: Kodansha will be the first to publish Oma Sei’s BLOOD BLADE manga; they’ve also licensed a few other manga and will release one popular isekai slime series in omnibus format.

14:30: Adult Swim announced they’re producing a new original anime titled Lazarus for Toonami with Shinichiro Watanabe and MAPPA; this led the two hosts to also briefly talk about what in the world Adult Swim’s doing with FLCL.

16:09: Drawn & Quarterly will release Maki Fujiwara’s My Picture Diary Book in September; Titan Manga licensed Yūsuke Ōsawa’s The Poetry of Ran and Yasu Hiromoto & Kubaru Sakanoichi’s Tengen Hero Wars manga.

16:42: The Eisner awards again happened and it went as expected, especially regarding who won this year’s Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia award.

Streaming News

19:49: The Pokémon: To Be a Pokémon Master anime will stream on Netflix September 8.

20:35: Toei Animation is now streaming the Slam Dunk anime on their YouTube channel, but it appears there wasn’t much QC for this one!

Main Topic: Summer Anime 2023 First Impressions

22:55: Justin and Helen give their thoughts on the Summer Anime season, which lacks in quantity of good titles (even more so if you’re not watching sequels), but has a few quality anime that could make someone’s end of year list (Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2, My Happy Marriage, Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, Undead Murder Farce). The hosts also discuss quite a bit about Reign of the Seven Spellblades (40:39), since one’s been reviewing it and other just has the first three books unread.

Weird News

1:04:01: Kenji Hamaoka’s Appare! Urayasu Tekkin Kazoku is going on a 1-issue break for the first time in 30 years. Why? Because Kenji and his family are going on vacation. Deserved!

1:04:46: The combo you couldn’t see coming: Pui Pui Molcar X Transformers!

1:05:35: Needless to say, The new Miyazaki film breaking records means nothing to Justin. Nothing. He’s not even a little bit miffed it did well despite no actual marketing.

1:07:20: Because just about everyone had PPP Loans, it makes sense that Harmony Gold of all companies got it too!

1:07:49: IKEA US is also now jumping on the anime bandwagon — somewhat. To advertise their products for college students, they collaborated with an Argentinean studio to produce manga-inspired comic and anime-like shorts of students inside their dorm rooms with IKEA items.

1:09:00: One Piece has been running for a long time — and that means it’s shocking it will get an ending theme for the first time in over 17 years. Well, not anymore!

Feel free to send questions or any comments you might have about this week’s episode in the comments section below, to contact at theoasg dot com, or to our Twitter account (@TheOASG).