Spice and Wolf Volume 4
Spice and Wolf Volume 4 Cover
It's been a while, but Volume 4 of Spice and Wolf has finally been released. It should have been released at the start of this month (June) but all UK outlets had a delay in receiving it. I then decided it would be a good idea to pre-order from two places and cancel whichever dispatched first... but it seems that the first place who dispatched it never told me when they dispatched it and consequently i've now got two copies. I'm already planning to give the spare away to a friend, so no loss overall!
As usual, there are the 3 beautiful full colour illustrations at the front of the book. The 2nd one features Holo lying down, with Lawrence's arm resting on her, extremely adorable! The 3rd one however seems to have Holo putting on a very disinterested face in the background.
Volume 4 picks up where Volume 3 left off, with Lawrence and Holo travelling ever further in search of Holo's homeland. As they stop off in Tereo to find out more however, things are do not seem entirely normal. Indeed, the plot line of this volume takes on a much more mysterious theme. Economics does not play as much as a role as in the previous volumes, but nevertheless it is an interesting plot line with lots of witty dialogue between Lawrence and Holo. There where also many 'sweet' scenes in this volume and I'm curious to see how they've handled this in the anime series, which i'll be catching up on soon. For reference, this volume takes us covers the mid point of Season 2 until the end of Season 2.
Volume 5 is due out on the 6th of December 2011. As usual, my preorder has been submitted since long ago. Hopefully this winter the weather won't delay it's arrival.
Spice and Wolf Volume 4 is available from Amazon.
Note: Most of this post was written shortly after Volume 4 was released in July, it was only in October that I actually got around to publishing it...
Dog Days Introduction and Opening
Dog Days Title
Nothing much caught my attention for the Spring 2011 season, except for Dog Days. Who knows, I may end up hearing something good about another show and end up picking that up, but at the moment my only Spring 2011 show is Dog Days.
Dog Days is set in a fantasy world where wars are fought in a very unconventional way - obsticale courses. No one dies and the result is respected by both sides. Currently, the nations of Biscotti and Galette are at war with each other, and Biscotti are loosing. Therefore, Biscotti's princess, Millhiore, summons a hero to come and fight.
My first impression is that this is quite a fun, if a bit silly, show. It seems to be a bit of a cross between Utawarerumono (due to wars and animal-people), Nanoha (use of excessive magic) and Takeshi's Castle (obstacle courses). As I enjoy all three, hopefully Dog Days will be a good watch!
The opening introduces the main cast of characters and shows most of them in battle. The song is Scarlet Night, as sung by the famous Nana Mizuki, who has sung the openings for many other anime series. The song is really good and fits the opening animation well, but I can't help but think that the opening sequence itself could have tried something different rather than just showing battle scenes and short clips of each character.
Princess and the Hero
Getting injured turns you into a cat apparently!
Starlight Breaker!
Spice and Wolf Manga Volume 4
Spice and Wolf Manga Volume 4 Cover
Volume 4 starts around where Volume 3 left off, with Holo and Lawrence finishing up their deal in Poroson. This volume stays mostly true to the original light novel, but adds a few minor things in here and there.
There is one full colour image in this volume, right at the start just like in Volume 3. The image itself is quite a nice one of Holo and Nora together, although Nora looks somewhat uncomfortable with Holo's sudden presence! The bonus track in this volume is a small Nora side story which I found slightly confusing to follow towards the end, the artwork depicting Nora and Enek together though is adorable! Indeed, this volume continues the same high standards of artwork seen in the previous volumes.
Oddly enough, this volume still carries the explicit content warning, despite the fact there is absolutely nothing explicit or even questionable in this volume at all, unlike the previous volumes.
Volume 4 of the manga covers the end of chapter 1 to the end of chapter 3 in volume 2 of the light novel. It would be nice to think that Volume 5 of the manga, set for release on the 25th of October 2011, would cover the remainder of Volume 2 of the light novel but i'm doubtful that they'd be able to fit 3 chapters of content and the epilogue into one volume of manga. Perhaps the recently released (in Japan) Volume 6 of the manga will end Volume 2 of the light novel?
Volume 4 of the light novel is set for release later this month, on the 28th of June 2011. As usual, I can hardly wait. It's always such a long time between each volume's release and this is perhaps my favourite novel series!
Spice and Wolf Manga Volume 4 is available from Amazon. ISBN 9780316178266
MCM Expo May 2011
Since i'm right in the middle of an exam period at the moment, I could only spare a day to head to the first MCM Expo of this year. Previously, i've been able to go for the entire weekend which is great since i'm able to spend a fair amount of time shopping, enjoying the various cosplays and meeting with friends. Trying to pack all of that into one day made for an extremely busy day! While i've been to expo before, this is the first time i'm actually writing about it so this post will also have some general introduction about expo itself.
Travelling to Expo via public transport is always an enjoyable experience, as you gradually get closer the number of cosplayers increases. It's always amusing to see the reactions of the general public to them and it definitely helps confirm that you're travelling in the right direction!
On arrival, the first thing I did was to collect my wristband so I could actually get in to the expo hall. Inevitably, this resulted in the queue. I even had to queue to queue to get my wristband, but it was very fast moving and within 15 minutes I was in the expo hall. I really pity those that pay for entry on the day - that queue takes hours.
At 12, there was an industry panel, hosted by Manga UK, MVM, Anime on Demand and someone from Anime News Network. At the panel, the distributors announced new licences, admittedly not much that interested me, and answered questions from the audience. Anime on Demand contributed well to the discussion, talking about how their service can be used by the other distributors to gain an insight into the relative popularity of certain shows, which gives them a higher change of being released on DVD/Bluray here. They also revealed interesting information on how the recent Tohoku Earthquake is actually helping them - since the two production plants for HD tapes have been damaged a lot of studios are finally switching to digital processing which speeds up the transfer to the companies here in the UK. I'm glad I attended this panel and will certainly keep a look out for it at future expos.
One of the main features at expo though is the sellers, there are quite a wide range of things on sale including figures, manga, anime, character goods and even doujinshi (both safe and unsafe!). This is a great opportunity for me to pick up some cheap things, but also to get a proper look at certain items. Buying a figure online is pretty risky since you don't quite know if the picture truly represents the final product and the high risks of fakes. Having said that however, I did see a few fake figures on sale and steered well clear of those sellers - be careful regardless!
In the end, I spent just over £100 on things, including;
£100 worth of goodies
Yotsuba&! volumes 6-9
I really need to get around to writing about volumes 2 to 5, it's a thoroughly enjoyable manga.
Newtype May 2011
I had trouble obtaining this from my usual source because it had sold out and couldn't find it for sale anywhere. I was extremely glad to find it for sale at expo, especially since it contains an extra feature on Nanoha: The Movie First and Dog Days, there's also a small preview of the next Nanoha movie. It also contained a large double sided Madoka poster - Madoka and Homura on one side and information about Madoka as a whole on the other side. This issue looks like it's going to be an interesting read for me.
The Disappearance of Hatsune Miku CD
The disappearance is perhaps one of my favourite Miku songs (along with Everwhite) and a few of the other tracks looked interesting so I picked this up for £12. There was also a CD from her live concert but by that time I had already spent too much and needed to limit my funds for an emergency!
Nanoha Nendroids
Nanoha Nendroids
These where pretty cheap (£5-6) and look pretty cute. I ended up buying Fate (normal clothes), Arf and Nanoha (normal clothes with Raising Heart). I was tempted by a few other figures, but the cost can be very off-putting.
These are the first nendroids (or mini figures) that i've got that have required assembly. I was really careful while putting them together for fear of accidentally breaking them. It was a bit hard to get Fate's legs into the base, and Arf's arms kept falling off when I put the cape on before I adjust them!
Blurays from Manga UK
Manga UK have a stall with their blurays and DVDs at very cheap prices (even cheaper than places such as Amazon!). I suspect that they get more money per sale than via a normal shop too so this is a fantastic way to support the distributor, but it could be alternatively viewed that this makes anime seem less popular since there are less sales in shops and they'll be more inclined not to sell anime since it doesn't sell? Either way, I couldn't pass up this opportunity to grab some stuff cheaply. Other retailers also have stands (such as MVM and Beez) but they had nothing on offer that I particularly wanted (Well, I was tempted by the new Region 2 release of Lucky Star which includes the OVA for £20, but I already own the R1 DVDs, which cost me £70 in the first place).
One small problem however is that I don't own anything that can play bluray disks! A quick trip to eBuyer has resolved this however and I should have a bluray drive for my computer shortly.
Origin:Spirits of the Past
While not an outstanding film (other than the intro, which is fantastic and certainly does the bluray justice) I still enjoy watching it. At £5 for the bluray, I couldn't say no. However, for some reason the actual disk hadn't been clipped into the case and came inside a small bag instead, not sure why.
Summer Wars and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time Combi Pack
I really like both of these films and already own them on DVD. Having seen the bluray versions though, these are two films which really do justify the enhanced detail. I'm glad to finally own them on bluray and £17 for both isn't too bad considering the DVD of Summer Wars cost just over £12 itself.
Eden of the East
This is something i've been meaning to watch for a while, the premise of the series sounds very interesting. £20 for 11 episodes on bluray is pretty fantastic value.
All in all, I had a really enjoyable day (although due to train problems I had a bit of a nightmare getting home, finally arriving at 2:30AM...). It was a shame that I couldn't go on Sunday too but this October I should be able to go for all 3 days - it'll be interesting to see what it's like on the Friday which is much quieter.
Girls Dead Monster Tour
Remember the awesome in-world band of Angel Beats, Girls Dead Monster? Back in 2010, they did a tour and that tour is now coming to BluRay!
The set list was as follows;
- Thousand Enemies
- Alchemy
- Shine Days
- Rain Song
- Answer Song
- Morning Dreamer
- Brave Song
- My Song
- 一番の宝物~Yui final ver.~
- My Soul, Your Beats!
- 23:50
- Day Game
- Run with Wolves
- Crow Song
Encore;
- Highest Live
- Little Braver
Looking at the digest video, Marina and LiSA (who sung for Iwasawa and Yui respectively) sound just as good live as recorded. LiSA is especially energetic and seems to really be enjoying herself!
I'm very much looking forward to seeing this - it's set for release on the 1st of June 2011.