#FOR A 2024 ENGLISH DUB CASTING

[guardianhyren]

KATEKYO HITMAN REBORN IS GETTING A DUB AND NO ONE TOLD ME?!?!

[lin-onehalf]

Fun little reminder that the voice of Ryoga Hibiki is Damien Haas (man with the baseball cap) now.

I personally know him best from Smosh and when I saw his name on the credits I was both happily surprised and like, “I should have expected this.”

[bapydemonprincess]

"NOW FIGHT ON! YOU CAN DO IT CIEEEL!!"

"Keep it up! GIVE EM WHAT FOOOOR!!!"

"WE'RE HERE FOR YOU, WE ARE!!!!"

"...He ain't even out on the field yet, you loons"

"Ho, ho ho ho.."

"Goodness gracious. Such rowdy bohemians. Can't take them anywhere."

[demifiendrsa]

Uzumaki | Official Trailer

The 4-part Uzumaki anime mini-series will premiere on Toonami on September 28, 2024 at 12:30AM (effectively September 29, 2024), followed by streaming on Max.

Cast

Japanese/ English Dub cast

Uki Satake/Abby Trott as Kirie Goshima

Shinichiro Miki/Robbie Daymond as Shuichi Saito

Toshio Furukawa/Doug Stone as Yasuo Goshima

Takashi Matsuyama/Aaron LaPlante as Mr. Saito

Mika Doi/Mona Marshall as Yukie Saito

Mariya Ise/Cristina Vee as Azami Kurotami

Katsutoshi Matsuzaki/Max Mittelman as Katayama

Wataru Hatano as Okada

Tatsumaru Tachibana as Tsumura

Kouichi Toochika as Yokota

Ami Fukushima as Shiho

Gen Sato as Boy 1

Shunsuke Takeuchi as Boy 2

Anna Nagase as Girl

Kōsuke Okamoto as Attendee 1

Staff

Director: Hiroshi Nagahama

Script: Aki Itami

Original creator: Junji Ito

Music: Colin Stetson

Animation Production: Studio Drive, Studio Akatsuki

Production Producer: Production I.G

[animenostalgia]

News - Netflix has FINALLY announced a release date for their streaming English release of Sailor Moon Cosmos! The streaming platform will release both 80-minute parts on August 22, 2024, and if you search for it, you can already set a reminder. No word yet on the dub cast, but much like with Sailor Moon Eternal, we probably won't know until it goes up, and it'll most likely be the Viz dub actors. Who else is excited to finally watch this movie?!

[fishuus]

i guess this is a rec list of stuff i liked in 2024?? no particular order, i just wanted to yak about some things i had a good time with.

bang brave bang bravern: maybe this isn't a legit comparison but i keep thinking of it as "what if samurai flamenco had a significantly tighter story (tomokazu sugita is also there)". if you like giant robots, you might like this. if you like a completely straight-faced commitment to the extremely funny bit of contrasting hard military scifi with the absurdity of classic giant robots, you might like this. if you're interested in sugita playing a robot who's a bottom, and also there's a lot of gay shit and the earnest power of true love, you might like this!

digimon story cyber sleuth & hacker's memory: a really fun set of turn-based jrpgs. cyber sleuth took me a while to warm up to (the localization could be better, to put it generously), but i came to enjoy its slightly offbeat sense of humor. hacker's memory, otoh, i loved from the start. it does a great job showing how cyber sleuth's story beats happened in parallel while still keeping the focus on a fantastic new cast and their own plotlines. the first game is a more standard digimon story about saving the world, while hacker's memory widens the perspective and shows a bit of the systems at play in the background. just a super satisfying game on every level for me.

shin godzilla: personally i love logging off work and my many meetings and watching a movie about a guy who has to go to even more meetings. i'm kidding, this was really fun (on account of all the meetings). i'll get to his kamen rider and ultraman movies too at some point.

gilgamesh (gardner & maier, also the david ferry version): paying my respects to the original yaoi 🫡

judgment: i wanted to try a rgg game without committing to playing 8 of them in order. turns out this is a perfect standalone game. it's such a tightly written story and character study, and it's really fun to play. kimutaku is so good at playing yagami so low-key, so tamped down, that when he explodes you really feel how angry he's been all along. the english cast is also great -- i enjoyed greg chun's take on yagami as well. (i played lost judgment too but wasn't quite so high on it. alas)

siren: watched sgf's excellent lp and loved this horror stealth game. the motion-capture work for the faces is a pretty cool workaround for the rendering limitations at the time while adding to the off-kilter vibe. i'm also a huge sucker for when studios lean into mixed media and use photos of real props (magazines, IDs in wallets, letters, etc) in their games. the story is kinda obtuse – and literally requires you to read extra official content to get some of the answers – but for something with such vague, stilted cutscenes with equally vague and stilted dialogue, especially with the added layer of a classic ps2-era english dub, i became attached to the entire cast stuck in this extremely bleak and scary scenario. i guess the best way i can sum it up is that it's a game that knows exactly how to play you.

digital devil saga 2: finished right before the world is actually set to end in 2025 in the game lol. it's so good!! i'm grateful that even after all this time, i managed to go into this mostly blind, because the way the plot reveal recontexualizes so much about the first game and the absolute rank relationship dynamics between some of the characters just blew me away. probably has some of my favorite character designs of all time, and i also think it's sooo fun to play thanks to my having turn-based long jrpg brain sickness. such an all-timer of a duology.

nine sols: i'm still not done with it on account of it being a parry-focused metroidvania and me sucking shit at both platforming and parrying, but it's great! it feels so confidently produced, kinda wild considering how different it is from their previous two games, devotion and detention (both of which i also highly recommend). the art and design work are beautiful, and i'm really enjoying how bleak the plot is. you can tell they made two horror games before this lol. i also love story mode. thank you, story mode.

風林火山韻雷 -bring it back-: lmao. anyway, it's a super fun song and mv that packs in everything i like about akyr (mixing traditional with modern both in the song and the imagery, high energy, everyone's great ofc but takayuki kondo especially killing it with that bridge, akyr making aggro songs about murdering their enemies).

[aquamarine-oceanfront]

Unofficial Bunny Maloney FAQ

Since Saberspark's reviewing the show today, I figured it would be in everyone's best interests to write this up now - people new to Bunny Maloney can get answers to several common questions in one go, while people already familiar with it can send this to others whenever necessary. (For what it's worth, I honestly think even the biggest fans of the series might learn something new here.) I know the show's creator posted a short FAQ of his own about a month ago, but I figured it was worth treading some of the same ground while going more in-depth.

Disclaimer: I'm trying my best to be as factual as possible here, but I cannot completely rule out the possibility that I am wrong or misleading about something here. Please let me know if something's amiss, or if you've seen other common questions that could be added! Similarly, for authenticity's sake, all quotes are presented exactly how they were originally written.

I've divided this post into short and long sections - they cover the same questions, but the latter is more in-depth and is replete with source links. If you're in a hurry, then here are the brief answers:

"Was Bunny Maloney really meant for children?" No, not originally. Original creator Nicolaï "Méko" Chauvet intended for the show to be aimed at teenagers first and foremost (with some appeal to younger children), but MoonScoop insisted it be targeted solely at kids. Director Stéphane Stoll fought to keep true to the original intent, hence why the final product still has a lot of adult content.

"Does Méko have any missing English episodes?" No. All he has are 8-10 episodes of (an early version of) the French dub that MoonScoop gave him back in the day.

"What species is Charlotte?" While many sources (including her English voice actor and two lines in the show itself) assume she's a cow, Méko actually intended for her to be a goat.

"Is Jean-François's English voice actor the same as the main character in Hatred?" I'm not so sure about that. Tom Clarke-Hill was definitely part of the English cast, but the credits don't specify which characters he voiced, and I haven't found anything that would definitively prove he voiced Jean-François. (For that matter, Hatred uses a pseudonym while crediting its player character's voice actor - it's commonly believed Clarke-Hill did it, but I haven't found any hard evidence otherwise.)

"Will there be a season 2?" There's no definitive plans just yet (and please don't bother Méko about it). Not much to add here - he's stated many a time that he'd love to revive Bunny Maloney, but there's nothing concrete at the time I'm writing this.

Below the jump are my full answers to the same questions:

(V1.1 [12/14/24]: Lightly edited to correct some errors I missed)

Was Bunny Maloney really meant for children?

This is surprisingly complicated to answer in full, even if the short answer seems simple enough.

While Méko first came up with Bunny Maloney (the character) in 1998, the history of the TV series specifically began with L'attaque du poulpe rouge géant ("Attack of the Giant Red Octopus" in English), a short Flash animation he directed in the early 2000s. As he wrote in an email to YouTuber Li Speaks earlier in 2024:

l'attaque du poulpe rouge geant, and it's total freedom of speech, references and mature content was aiming only 2 targets in my mind : Internet of course, free content, like my friends pushed me to do, and anime conventions, where it have a big succes because it was clearly dedicated to all we loved in japanese pop culture.

He did not originally intend for it to be a pilot, mind you. Méko only decided to try and rework the concept into a full TV series after the short won the "Netsurfers Award" at the 2003 Annecy Festival, producing a pitch bible for what was then called Pinpin le Lapin. In the aforementioned email exchange, he clearly states twice that he intended for the show to target a teenage audience. (He does say at one point that "we wanted to keep an interest for the big brothers and sisters and make them watching buny too, like the simpsons at the beginning." Tying into this, the cover of the pitch bible gives the intended audience as "8 year olds and over" - Méko later explained that "'over' was more important than '8'" here.)

However, these plans were repeatedly challenged as the series entered production. According to the tweet I just linked, the primary investor insisted that they exclusively target teenagers & adults, forcing the bible to be rewritten accordingly. MoonScoop, the primary production company, had the opposite problem - their management was equally insistent that the series target kids and kids alone, watering down Méko's original intent. (He claims in the same email exchange as before that the company was "a real army of 40 years old parisian mothers at that time." They were also the ones responsible for renaming the series Bunny Maloney - they reasoned that English-speaking audiences would find it funnier, ignoring Méko's warnings about potential confusion with the singer of the same name.)

However, director Stéphane Stoll spent a significant amount of time and effort sticking to the original target demographic (according to Méko's emails). His work certainly paid off, as evident by the amount of adult humor in the final product. MoonScoop, for the most part, seemed to continue treating Bunny Maloney as a children's program - their official site billed it as being for ages "6 and up," for instance. (The lone exception is an official PowerPoint presentation that gives the show's genre as "adult-escent’ comedy, action adventure!") The tension between the disparate target audiences actually impacted its premiere in France: originally scheduled to debut on Canal+ Family near the end of March 2009 (specifically as part of Cartoon+, a then-new series showing episodes of various contemporary cartoons), it was pulled at the last minute because the channel decided it was unsuitable for children. (It ultimately premiered on the network three months later, albeit in the early afternoon instead of its original evening timeslot.)

I haven't examined every single non-French channel that aired the show, but all the ones I'm aware of were definitely meant for kids. The two most familiar ones definitely were: Kabillion (in the US) is dedicated to children's cartoons, while Kix (in the UK) specifically targeted 7 to 12 year-old boys.

Does Méko have any missing English episodes?

He does not. All he has are a few early French episodes (between eight and ten) that MoonScoop gave him back when the series was in production.

What species is Charlotte?

She's a goat. I don't blame people for getting confused, since Bunny and Candy explicitly call her a cow in two separate episodes - even Phillipa Alexander, her English voice actor, once described her as such on her website. However, Meko originally designed her with a shorter tail than in the show as produced - closer to a goat than a cow. (His own artwork also refers to her as a goat quite frequently.) But don't take my word for it - take his:

HEY, YANKEES : CHARLOTTE IS A GOAT !

Is Jean-François's English voice actor the same as the main character in Hatred?

I can't give a definitive answer to this either way. In case you didn't already know: Hatred is a video game released in 2015 that attracted massive amounts of controversy because of its extraordinarily violent content. Its player character, officially named "the Antagonist" but popularly known as "Not Important," is voiced by someone credited as "Clint Westwood" - a pre-release interview with the developers confirms the actor used a fake name to stay anonymous. Many people believe his real identity is Tom Clarke-Hill, but to my knowledge he has never confirmed this (perhaps unsurprisingly) - it's just speculation rooted in comparisons to his other roles. (As an example, this Steam forum post notes that "the Antagonist" sounds similar to Clarke-Hill's performance as Karl Fairburne in the Sniper Elite series.)

As for Bunny Maloney: Tom Clarke-Hill was 100% part of the English voice cast, as you can see below.

However, there's no mention of which roles these six actors took on. While some of them have provided that information elsewhere (like their own websites or, in Matt Wilkinson's case, a demo reel), I haven't been able to find a credible source saying that Clarke-Hill voiced Jean-François. (If you find or already know one, please let me know!)

Also, there's another, possibly more important question to consider: since Jean-François's lines sound exactly the same in French, does he even have an English voice actor? I'm genuinely not sure - he is the only character who always uses the French pronunciation of his own name (while the others tend to say it more like "John-François"), but that's hardly definitive evidence.

Will there be a season 2?

I think Méko answered this succintly in his own FAQ:

For now, i would be more than happy to do season 2, it has been in my dreams for years and i will do everything in my power for that, but there isn't anything official yet. Please don't ask me "when" […] but be sure i will do an announce when the time has come!

[lupincentral]

It’s that time again - the next classic Lupin III television special is coming to YouTube in the United States, for free, for a limited time!

From August 2nd through to September 5th, 2024, Memories of Flame: Tokyo Crisis will be available to watch for those living within the United States. First released in July 1998, the tenth television special will replace The Secret of Twilight Gemini, which has been streaming on the service since July 5th, 2024.

The upload will only be available with English dubbed audio, which stars the mid-2000s Funimation cast (Sonny Strait as Lupin, Christopher Sabat as Jigen, Mike McFarland as Goemon, Meredith McCoy as Fujiko, and Phillip Wilburn as Inspector Zenigata.

[operafantomet]

The Romanian / Norwegian / Greek / Middle East + European Tour version is really starting to hit many countries and cities now. Along with some photos of the current cast (from the respective webpages I have linked to underneath), here's a complete overview to where it has played so far, and where it will play in 2024-2025 (*):

JAN 2015: Teatrul National de Opereta, Budapest, ROMANIA. This was the prototype, directed by Stephen Barlow and designed by Andrew Riley. Leading trio was Adrian Nour, Irina Ioana Baiant and Florian Ristei, and it was performed in Romanian.

SEPT 2018 - MARCH 2019: Folketeateret, Oslo, NORWAY. This was a much updated version of the original Romanian production, with new costumes, and revamped sets and effects. Leading trio was Espen Grjotheim, Mira Ormala / Astrid Giske and Carl Lindquist, and it was performed in Norwegian.

JAN - MAR 2020: Thessaloniki Concert Hall and Christmas Theatre in Athens, GREECE. This was pretty much the Oslo production, but with some changes for tourability. From Greece on it has only been performed in English, regardless of the location. The original leading trio in Greece was Ben Forster, Celinde Schoenmaker / Amy Manford and Nadim Naaman. The production closed earlier than announced due to Covid.

FEB - MARCH 2023: Christmas Theatre in Athens and Thessaloniki Concert Hall, GREECE. Back in Greece, still in English, still an international cast, even more set and costume changes. This time the leading trio was Tim Howar, Harriet Jones / Georgia Wilkinson and Nadim Naaman.

OCT - DEC 2023: The Arena, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Continuing most of what was the case in Greece, except Nadim Naaman took over the role of the Phantom from Tim Howar, and Dougie Carter took over as Raoul. Was now dubbed "The Middle East Tour". It was the first time a full-scale production of Phantom of the Opera was done in Saudi Arabia.

FEB - MARCH 2024: Dubai Opera, Dubai. Same cast and overall set-up as Riyadh. This production followed in the footsteps of the World Tour (original version), visiting Dubai in 2019.

APRIL 2024: National Palace of Culture, Sofia, BULGARIA. Same cast and overall set-up as Riyadh and Dubai. This was, I think, the first time a city has housed two different non-replica productions. Not at the same time, mind you, as this version touring has meant the local productions are now allowed to perform for some time. This was at least what was announced from the producers in Bulgaria, Serbia and the Czech Republic. Curious.

AUG - SEPT. 2024: National Palace of Culture, Sofia, BULGARIA. The production has announced its return to Sofia this autumn. This due to the sold-out initial run.

OCT 2024: Sagros Campo Pequeno, Lisbon, PORTUGAL. The production has announced a run there from October 15-27, 2024. A concert version has previously been performed in Portugal, but it will be the first time a full-scale production is done.

NOV - DEC 2024: Musical Theater Basel, Switzerland. The production has announced a run there from Nov. 6 to Dec 22, 2024. The original Swiss production 1995-1997 did a hardcore thing of perfoming in both German and English. It will therefore not be the first time POTO is performed there, nor the first time it is performed in English. But it is the first time this exact version visits, and the 1995-1997 one was the original version.

FEB - MARCH 2025: Stadsschouwburg, Antwerp, Belgium. The production has announced a run there from Feb. 6 to March 7, 2025. The original Belgian production ran from 1999-2000, and was performed in the local language, but it will be the first time it is performed in English. It will as such also be the 10th anniversary for this specific touring version, as it premiered in Romania in January 2015.

MARCH 2025: Kongresove Centrum, Prague, Czech Republic. The production has announced a run there from March 19-27, 2025. This means the local production 'Fantom Opery' at Goja Music Hall has been paused. According to the official website the Phantom will be Nadim Naaman, the role of Christine will be shared between Georgia Wilkinson and Bridget Costello, and Raoul will be Dougie Carter.

(*) More dates will likely follow. Kuwait was announced some time back, but cannot be found anywhere now. Also, the local Serbian production announced a break because another version was visiting, so I won't be surprised if Belgrade is added to the list later on.

[snapscube]

it was announced that LAD:the man who erased his name won't have english dub at launch and will be added later If the same happens with Infinite wealth, will that effect your enjoyment? like would you stay away from the game until you can play it the way you want?

Hard to say actually! I'd be really surprised if they didn't have the english dub at launch for Infinite Wealth, as it's a mainline title rather than a spinoff, but truth be told yeah I honestly would probably wait if that ends up being the case. Kaiji Tang and Ichiban Kasuga are inseparable to me, personally, as well as everyone else in the Y7 cast. I would not want to experience a big new story with these characters without the voices that made them shine for me in the first place. The english dub performances are genuinely one of my favorite things about Y7. Also to be honest as much as it would pain me to wait, it would sure make my stream plans in early 2024 a lot easier LOL. I'll take as much of that as I can get right now.

[astoundingbeyondbelief]

Kaiju Week in Review (January 14-20, 2024)

Ultraman Blazar's finale aired on Friday. It was a solid capper to what's easily the best entry in the Ultra Series since I was an undergrad, full of heart and pyrotechnics. There were a few major loose ends—Captain Gento is better at keeping secrets than most hosts—which I'm hoping the movie, due in late February, will address. If you're looking for a place to start with the long-running franchise, it would be one of my first recommendations. Great effects, great cast, tons of new kaiju, and a blend of novelty (lots of focus on the tensions between the defense team and the larger monster-fighting organization; a host who's in charge of said defense team) and returning to form (Blazar yowls plenty but is an Ultra of few words; the power-ups and goofy weapons are kept to a minimum). And even if you don't want to commit to a whole show, episode 22, focusing on a hapless salesman of kaiju insurance, is a must-see for any fan of the genre. There seem to be no worlds left to conquer at Tsuburaya for lead director Kiyotaka Taguchi, so as I've been saying since around 2015: Toho, are you paying attention?

Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color, the regraded black and white version of Godzilla Minus One, is coming to North American theaters for one week starting January 26. Toho's yanking both versions from theaters after February 1—puzzling considering that the film is likely going to be nominated for the Best Visual Effects Oscar tomorrow. Takashi Yamazaki led a Godzilla delegation to the Academy's visual effects "bakeoff", in which voters watch highlights from the ten shortlisted films and their VFX teams explain their work. IndieWire reports that Yamazaki's presentation drew the most applause, describing Minus One as the "potential frontrunner." The Hollywood Reporter likes its chances too. Nominations will be announced starting at 8:30 AM EST. The Creator seems to be its biggest competition.

Godzilla Minus One also recently cleared $50 million at the U.S. box office, in the process passing the first Demon Slayer as the highest-grossing Japanese-language film ever released in the U.S. Some outlets are reporting that it's the highest-grossing Japanese film ever released here, which isn't accurate; the English-dubbed Pokémon: The First Movie made almost $86 million back in 1999. (And I think it's plausible that something like Rodan or Godzilla vs. Megalon would be the champ if you figured out how much they grossed and adjusted for inflation.)

Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong #4 brought Godzilla and Tiamat to Atlantis, forcing Aquaman to release the Kraken to defend his city. Incredibly, this is the third Kraken associated with the Monsterverse, after Na Kika (called Kraken when it was introduced in the King of the Monsters novelization) and the main antagonist of the Skull Island cartoon. I'm guessing it's going to have a shorter lifespan than either of them though.

In other Godzilla comic news, IDW will be putting out another intriguing one-shot in May, titled Godzilla: Mechagodzilla 50th Anniversary. Past comics from the publisher have included multiple Mechagodzilla models, but this one seems to be going above and beyond. Rich Douek is writing; Andrew Lee Griffith is illustrating. The logline:

For 50 years, the King of the Monsters, Godzilla, has gone toe to toe with its robotic doppelgänger, Mechagodzilla! As an intrepid reporter profiles the history of Mechagodzilla and its creator before the launch of the newest model, he finds himself entangled in a much deeper conspiracy. A decades-spanning adventure celebrating the mechanical monster's milestone!

One of master kaiju illustrator Shinji Nishikawa's books will receive an English translation courtesy of Titan Books. Awkwardly titled Godzilla: The Encyclopedia of Godzilla, the Japanese edition included over 100 full-bodied illustrations of various Godzilla series kaiju and analyses of their designs (alongside plenty of Nishikawa's trademark chibis). I'm sold, suffice to say.

Ryo Momota, director of the short tokusatsu film Revive! Smile Rock Giant God, has put the whole thing on YouTube with English subtitles for your amusement. It posits that a real rock formation outside of Tamano City will come to life to help its citizens in their hour of need. Very low-budget.

Kaiju Brooklyn is a one-day con that began filling a longtime void for East Coast kaiju fans last year. Here's the first major piece of news about their June 1 event: they'll be screening The Return of Godzilla outdoors at day's end. Consider me highly tempted.

Kaiju United has a new, wide-ranging interview with Barry Goldberg, webmaster of the legendary Barry's Temple of Godzilla. That fan site was my first window into the wider world of Godzilla in the early 2000s, and it's only been updated a few times since, so I was pretty interested to read how its creator was doing. Don't get your hopes up for a revival: he's still a Godzilla fan (loved Minus One, Shin not so much), but has moved on to other things. Great insights from a Big Name Fan who stayed humble.

[animesavior]

Clark: “One week ago, Earth faced an alien invasion. You’ve heard different versions of what happened, but we at the Daily Planet have a duty to bring you the truth.” Jimmy: “The truth is that Superman and his cousin [Supergirl] saved us. But they weren’t alone.” Lois: “The people of Metropolis came together to help them, putting aside their differences to protect our home.” Clark: “The invader was defeated, and justice came to those who those who tried to benefit from fear and pain.” Lois: “But even as this brought out the best in many, it brought out the worst in others. And there will always be new threats to face.” Clark: “No one knows what will come next for Metropolis, but there’s one thing we at the Daily Planet know for certain…” Jimmy: “No matter what the future holds…” Lois: “No matter what is thrown at us…” Clark: “We will face it together.” -          My Adventures with Superman (Season 2, Ep. 10)

The Toonami Trending Rundown for the month of July 2024. During these past few weeks, fans got to enjoy the final two episodes of My Adventures with Superman season 2, among other great moments. And as July is the month of San Diego Comic-Con, Toonami viewers got to enjoy some big announcements in regard to several upcoming shows.

During the night of the airing of the penultimate episode of My Adventures with Superman season 2 on July 13-14, #MyAdventuresWithSuperman would trend on the USA on Twitter, while One Piece trended on Tumblr. And during the night of July 20-21, where we saw the season 2 finale of My Adventures with Superman, #Toonami would trend in the US alongside #MyAdventuresWithSuperman and #NarutoShippuden. #Toonami also trended on Tumblr. The night of July 27-28 did not see any trends, as Toonami showcased a MAWS marathon of season 2 during SDCC week.

As for Toonami Rewind, #ToonamiRewind would trend in the US during the broadcasts of July 12, 19, and 26, though on July 19, Sailor Moon and Naruto would also trend in the US, while Naruto also trended on Tumblr. Which isn’t bad, especially considering that on July 26, both the Olympics opening ceremony and Comic-Con were occurring at the same time.

As mentioned, San Diego Comic-Con took place at the end of July, and in case you missed it, Toonami fans got to enjoy several announcements during the convention. The big news was that we got a brand-new show announcement in Rooster Fighter by Shū Sakuratani.

Adult Swim announced that the English dubbed version of Rick and Morty: The Anime will premiere on Thursday August 15 @ midnight EDT/PDT, while the Japanese (with English subtitles) version will air on Toonami on Saturday, August 17 @ midnight.

Also, towards the end of the Rick and Morty panel, Jason DeMarco also revealed that we finally have a release date for Junji Ito’s Uzumaki after several years of delays: September 28, 2024 at 12:30 a.m., following premiere episodes of Rick and Morty: The Anime. Back during Anime Expo 2024, the Uzumaki cast was revealed by Production I.G, with Abby Trott as Kirie Goshima and Robbie Daymond as Shuichi Saito. In addition, Lazarus, the newest work of Shinichiro Watanabe, will be scheduled to premiere in 2025.

Finally, during the Demon Slayer panel on Saturday night, Aniplex announced that Demon Slayer’s third season, the Swordsmith Village arc, will begin airing on Toonami this August 10.

Meanwhile, for those who have been wanting to see more Lycoris Recoil, it’s been announced during the show’s second anniversary program that there are six short films in the works, that will depict the daily lives of Chisato, Takina, and others in the LycoRico cast. While Director Shingo Adachi will return in supervising, each of the six movies will feature different people handling direction and storyboarding, including character designer Imigimuru will be in charge of some of the scripts. A release date is to be announced.

Of course, this won’t be the end of My Adventures with Superman, as DC is hard at work creating the show’s third season, so stay tuned. In the meantime, we’ll have the trending rundown for the first few weeks of August, including the premiere of Demon Slayer's Swordsmith Village arc and the premiere of Rick and Morty: The Anime, out in the coming days, as with other articles and interviews from San Diego Comic-Con coming soon. Until next time, Be sure to register to vote for this year’s elections if you’re eligible and haven’t already, and let’s go Team USA.

Legend: The shows listed are ordered based on their appearance on the schedule. Show trends are listed in bold. The number next to the listed trend represents the highest it trended on the list (not counting the promoted trend), judging only by the images placed in the rundown. For the Twitter tweet counts, the listed number of tweets are also sorely based on the highest number shown based on the images on the rundown.

July 12, 2024 Toonami Rewind Trends

United States Trends:

#ToonamiRewind [#25]

Tweet Counts:

#SailorMoon [2,303 tweets]

July 13-14, 2024 Toonami Trends

United States Trends:

#MyAdventuresWithSuperman [#26]

Tweet Counts:

#MyAdventuresWithSuperman [2,539 tweets]

Tumblr Trends:

#one piece [#8]

July 19, 2024 Toonami Rewind Trends

United States Trends:

#ToonamiRewind [#17]

#SailorMoon [Trended with #ToonamiRewind]

#Naruto [Trended with #ToonamiRewind]

Tweet Counts:

#SailorMoon [3,307 tweets]

#Naruto [14.3k tweets]

Tumblr Trends:

#naruto [#9]

July 20-21, 2024 Toonami Trends

United States Trends:

#Toonami [Trended with #MyAdventuresWithSuperman]

#MyAdventuresWithSuperman [#7]

#NarutoShippuden [Trended with #MyAdventuresWithSuperman]

Tumblr Trends:

#Toonami [#8]

July 26, 2024 Toonami Rewind Trends

United States Trends:

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Only Toonami on [adult swim] on Cartoon Network.

[okayto]

Mini-Review: Summer Time Rendering

To attend the funeral of his best friend and part of the family that took him in after his parents died, Shinpei returns to his small island home for the first time in two years. Hearing whispers that her body showed bruises around her neck inconsistent with the story of a tragic drowning while rescuing a child in the ocean, Shinpei becomes suspicious. There may be something brewing under the surface of this warm summer...

This is the perfect show as the northern hemisphere heads into summer: atmospheric, intriguing, balancing action and mystery.

STR first piqued my interested when I saw it referred to repeatedly as a show that didn't get the attention it deserved (a reviewer for Anime News Network referred to it as "among the best anime of 2022") due to being locked in "the Disney+ jail."

And having watched it, I agree: if this had been on a bigger anime-watching platform and released (in the US, at least) close to when it came out in Japan, it absolutely would've made a bigger splash. For some inscrutable reason, Disney got the rights but didn't release this in the US until months after it finished its run in Japan, without fanfare as a Hulu exclusive.

The upside to this is that you can more easily go in blind, and this is a show that benefits from knowing as little as possible ahead of time. Watching it weekly would've been an experience, but it lends itself to bingeing, as each episode advances the story--and mystery--even more, leaving the viewer hooked and hungry for answers.

That does, of course, make it difficult to talk about specific things I liked! The mystery is suspenseful, but it keeps up a good pace, balancing revealing more of what's going on with introducing even more questions. There wasn't a single episode where I got frustrated because it felt like the show was just playing up the tension; you're right there with Shinpei piecing things together, even if the thing is just "I can affect this even if I don't know what the outcome is."

Shinpei is a good main character, intelligent but not overbearing, and balanced with a cast that can variously match or surpass him in strength, intelligence, and relevant skills; if it weren't for the Plot Reason he's the protagonist, this would have just as well worked as an equal-ensemble show. Even Ushio, whose death was the catalyst for Shinpei's return, plays an active role in the story, helping prevent this from just being about a boy doing stuff in sad service to the memory of a dead girl.

As Shinpei uncovers more information about what happened, and through judicious use of flashbacks, Ushio's character develops, and she is a great character. In a show where scenes are sometimes sorting through the equivalent of two simultaneous chess games, it's nice to have at least one character who, while not stupid, uses her scenes to be refreshingly straightforward.

Verdict

English dub? Yes!

Visuals: Very nice! The story takes place equally during the day and after dark, as well as in a variety of locations, and it does a good job setting the stage, as well as balancing darkness and the need for the viewers to actually see things.

Worth watching? Absolutely. It's 25 episodes and uses all of them, neither feeling like it's dragging things out nor moving too fast. And despite its length, you don't have to wait until the final episodes to get any answers--Shinpei starts working things out quickly, and so the viewer does too. It's a solid suspenseful action show, and it was quickly obvious to me why I'd seen so many people say Disney did it dirty with its bizarre release.

Where to watch (USA, May 2024): Hulu (sub and dub)

Click my “reviews” tag below or search “mini review” on my blog to find more!

[bearofohu]

since level-5’s localization branch closed down a couple of years ago, im honestly wondering how this will affect the english release of nwos

dont get me wrong im not at all concerned for its existence—its going to exist most definitely. not only is nwos included in christopher robin miller’s business website (he lists 8 games hes worked on, when his voice only appears in seven), but nobody is more aware of layton’s incredible popularity in the west than level-5 themselves. professor layton was inspired by the west, after all. it would be franchise suicide to not localize it and that’s the last thing l5 is trying to do after making a reboot so crappy that it nearly bankrupted the franchise

but since there’s no localization branch anymore, it’s likely level-5 is for the first time ever outsourcing their projects’ localization, and that’s what kinda concerns me. the reason a lot of anime and games have shitty dubs is bc they get outscored to companies that can’t be fuckin asked (funimation is a good example)

localization divisions of game companies specifically can be shit too (treehouse is a good example) but level-5’s branch always made a genuine effort to produce good dubs. thats why all of their voice actors fit the setting; they're all bri'ish, and most of if not all of them did genuinely good jobs (im not tolerating slander against lani she did her best. i blame whoever casted her she was not designed to be voicing a 11 yr old cockney child)

and that's why it worries me to see nwos be outsourced - we have no way of knowing how the dub quality will change. obviously christopher robin miller is not going to stop voicing layton, we're not going to get any kind of chris pratt mario shit bc hino is not a backstabber

but what DOES worry me is the possibility of nwos getting outsourced to one one of those companies that dont give a shit. i should note that the the likelihood of this isnt very big just given how aware level-5 is of layton's prevalence in the west. layton is not like most anime/anime games, its not going to have its dub be unceremoniously flung to some low-effort team to hire the same non-union white man you recognize in every fire emblem game

but still, just because its unlikely doesnt mean its completely impossible. in the second l5 vision hino mentioned that inazuma eleven's next game is getting internationally released, which means the same is almost certainly happening to nwos (the fact this is happening is actually kind of huge - every other layton game before this has had to wait up to a year after the game releases in JP for the localization)

as much as it pains me to give any non-hershel level 5 game anything but my cold and dismissive scorn, i will be checking out inazuma eleven victory road's english version when the game releases in 2024 (its not guarenteed that victory road and nwos will be outsourced to the same people btw, but that kind of thing is common)

and unless victory road's localization ends up sucking some seriously crinkly ass, i dont think we have anything to worry about

[demifiendrsa]

Uzumaki | SDCC 2024 Teaser

The 4-part Uzumaki anime mini-series will premiere on Toonami on September 28, 2024 at 12:30AM (effectively September 29, 2024), followed by streaming on Max.

Cast

Japanese/ English Dub cast

Uki Satake/Abby Trott as Kirie Goshima

Shinichiro Miki/Robbie Daymond as Shuichi Saito

Toshio Furukawa/Doug Stone as Yasuo Goshima

Takashi Matsuyama/Aaron LaPlante as Mr. Saito

Mika Doi/Mona Marshall as Yukie Saito

Mariya Ise/Cristina Vee as Azami Kurotami

Katsutoshi Matsuzaki/Max Mittelman as Katayama

Wataru Hatano as Okada

Tatsumaru Tachibana as Tsumura

Kouichi Toochika as Yokota

Ami Fukushima as Shiho

Gen Sato as Boy 1

Shunsuke Takeuchi as Boy 2

Anna Nagase as Girl

Kōsuke Okamoto as Attendee 1

Staff

Director: Hiroshi Nagahama

Script: Aki Itami

Original creator: Junji Ito

Music: Colin Stetson

Animation Production: Studio Drive, Studio Akatsuki

Production Producer: Production I.G

[animenostalgia]

News - The trailer for the new Ranma 1/2 anime dropped yesterday! The series will be done by Studio Mappa, with almost all of the original Japanese voice cast reprising their original roles. The series begins on NTV in Japan October 5th, 2024, with each episode going up on Netflix Japan the next day.

No news yet on how much this anime will cover story-wise, if it's Netflix broadcast will be world wide, or if the series will be dubbed in English. I'll update with more info as it's released!