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What is it about this gender-bending romance that's captured the hearts of so many fans? Find out here.
"Attention Toonami Faithful - We heard you," went out the broadcast on multiple social networks, along with a URL: http://www.adultswim.com/shows/toonami/
That's right -- the long-missed Toonami programming block, part of the Adult Swim block on Cartoon Network that broadcast action-oriented anime from 1997 through 2008 and helped allow anime to reach a wide segment of the U.S. viewing audience, is being reinstated as of May 26.
The vast majority of anime is still produced in Japan for a Japanese audience first, which is one of the cardinal definitions of anime I've used. But more and more we're seeing projects either done for hire as export-only items, or created with both Japanese- and English-speaking audiences in mind.
One new release this month, which could fall into either of those categories, is Dragon Age: Dawn of the Seeker. This CGI-animation feature--from the same director, and using the same animation style as Vexille--uses the EA/BioWare game franchise of the same name for its setting and inspiration.
Anime show titles are often at right angles to the show they're attached to. Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex is not about a ghost, Dance in the Vampire Bund is not about a dance (although it is about a vampire nation), and most anyone would be hard-pressed to say what Mardock Scramble is about without reading the sleeve copy on the disc.
But every now and then along comes a show whose title tells you absolutely everything you need to know. Case in point: Cat Planet Cuties.
"Controversial" is such an open-ended word. With anime, it's typically used to refer to two basic kinds of shows. The first sport the easy kind of controversy: violence, sexuality, or material intended for mature audiences that seems aimed at younger viewers (for the latter, consider Shin-chan).
The second kind of controversy involves political incorrectness, or better to say variations in cultural viewpoints that don't always make sense from the outside. What's offensive in Japan may pass without a blink in the United States, and the same is often true in reverse as well. Case in point: Hetalia, a surprise hit anime about ... anthropomorphic countries.
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