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Show Notes
0:00: Justin and Helen have MUCH to discuss to end the year, so they get around to all the recent news that’s happened over the past week, which includes AnimEigo’s Kickstarter for Macross II succeeding, which does prompt Helen to bring up a funny fact about this.
Licenses
2:55: Hanashi Media licensed two new light novels: Ryo Mizokami & Kozou’s The Dark Guildmaster’s Smile Would Fit Best and Bunchou Muku & Akira Kasukabe’s My Pet Is a Saintess. This is the part where Helen feels like a grandma.
4:12: Fantagraphics will be publishing the new Poe Clan in 2025 — to prep for this, they’ll also release a Box Set of the Poe Clan that’s been released in 2024.
4:59: Gou Tanabe & H.P. Lovecraft news! Dark Horse is releasing Mountain of Madness as a deluxe edition and The Call of Cthulhu in 2024, so if you’re into that combination, next year will be big in that respect.
5:36: The Ancient Magus Bride, following its Season 2 anime conclusion, announced the manga would be getting a simulpub!…but with AI translation. Needless to say, this one decision led to a host of criticism and discussion (That’s still going on around the internet), so of course Justin and Helen discuss Bushiroad’s decision to do this.
Streaming News
20:55: We got Psycho Pass: Providence streaming on Crunchyroll; Netflix will properly simulcast Delicious in Dungeon (and in multiple languages); HIDIVE will now stream the The Tunnel to Summer, the Exit of Goodbyes January 2.
Weird News
22:07: Butareba having to delay its 9th episode came with another cost — not being able to air its 12th episode in 2023. With likely TV programming issues preventing it from airing in January, Butareba won’t finish this year, and will have to find a slot at some point to show it.
23:15: Normally we get anime reboots or remakes years after the original already ended — this will not be the case for One Piece, as we’ll have the concurrent anime still ongoing but at some point Netflix (with WIT Studio animating it) will stream The One Piece on their service. While Justin is fascinated by this decision, he also wonders just what this says about the anime industry.
26:07: Pieyon is a very popular character in Oshi no Ko, so naturally they had to make sure to capitalize on this by making it happen in real life.
26:57: Would you want to try and work until you’re 187 years old? Well, 87-year-old Masako Nozawa is aiming to work that long in voice acting if she can!
27:57: And while this podcast doesn’t cover video games that much, Justin had to shout out E3 one last time (we think!) as they announced there will no more E3 moving forward.
Main Topic: Final Fall Anime 2023 Impressions
29:19: Justin and Helen give their thoughts on the Fall 2023 season — which felt stacked for Justin, not so much for Helen, who instead found time to start watching Turn A Gundam instead. There were a few stragglers and continuing anime they didn’t discuss (Helen though mentioned her love for Apothecary Diaries), but overall you’ll hear some dislikes (Kingdoms of Ruin), mediocrity (S-Rank Daughter & Our Dating Story visuals) and some likes (Tearmoon Empire, Jujutsu Kaisen S2).
…Also Justin talks about finally finishing Zom 100 (31:00).
Weird News of 2023
1:03:30: Yes, we did have a year where a Final Season meant something totally different for Attack on Titan Megamix Final Arc Super Special since they had four of them!
1:04:52: Zom 100 was a show that aired in Japan on Sundays, but in likely other places it aired more on Mondays than Sundays, and yes that counts the Grand Finale that came out on Christmas!
1:05:16: After many long years, Black Butler and Kimi ni Todoke are returning in anime form! Definitely good for the fans, but weird in that it’s taken so long!
1:06:07: PLUTO actually aired! Helen had faith that it would eventually happen, but Justin had some doubts due to the radio silence.
1:06:56: NFTs seemingly are dead except in Japan, and that extended to earlier this year when Arknights smartphone game publisher had to send send a cease and desist letter to an NFT platform for copyright infringement!
1:07:18: It’s usually not known if a translator’s been swapped for a project or leaves unless they say so or is noted in the work itself. One translator left because NisiOisin in Shonen Jump is not a very fun manga to work on!
1:08:08: From the Netflix TV series to Luffy appearing in the Thanksgiving Parade (which ended in “Disaster“!), it’s fair to say One Piece has had an explosion that no one back in 2003 — even 2013 — would’ve seen coming.
1:09:30: Justin will never forget The Boy and the Heron managing to get by with just a visual and us knowing it’s based off a book and Ghibli just saying nothing else until it finally aired in theaters in Japan.
1:11:10: When we do our 2023 taxes in 2024, will there be something that can top an anime girl doing our taxes on Steam? The answer will likely be no, but can’t forget this was a thing that happened this year!
1:11:52: K MANGA really had some type of year huh? It had some questionable planning, an embargo breaking, and only available in the US, but leading up to their launch things were relatively on track, until VIZ Manga launched a day before K MANGA, which only spotlighted the significant issues with their service. Cutthroat but very much effective!
1:13:10: Can’t forget that after 30+ years in the business, Right Stuf ended this year, absorbed into Crunchyroll.
1:14:20: bigolas dickolas woIfwood, thank you for your efforts in getting Trigun to be published once again by Dark Horse*. From talking about one audiobook and asking people to listen to it led to everyone talking about Trigun, it sure was a good time earlier this year!
*Obviously just joking here, it certainly was great timing!
1:15:42: The two hosts already discussed The Magus Bride situation, which only concludes what a year it’s been with AI dominating a lot of spaces this season — some to questionable effect (Black Jack) some which resulted in hilariousness (Yuzuki Family’s Four Sons)
1:18:29: When an anime gets popular that’s largely great for the original source, but sometimes it leads to fandom going crazy — see Jujutsu Kaisen having spoilers every which a way at one point, and that includes somehow getting spoiled by Duolingo (and that’s even before it officially came out)
1:20:33: Winning a trip to Japan shouldn’t be the craziest thing, but ANN’s method of finding the winner was indeed pretty crazy!
1:21:52: Make sure to never mix up Oshikiri with Oshimi, or else you’ll have Rensuke Oshikiri making a comic about you mixing him up with Shuzo Oshimi!
1:22:46: And well, there was literally no other competition for the weirdest news of 2023. I mean, how can you beat a story where a manga artist who has four manga adapted into anime explain that he got into 50 million yen in debt because he became addicted to buying wristwatches in manga form? Well you can’t. Hiroyuki confirmed Weird News Legend.