#mr. tonegawa: middle management blues episode

[lorillee]

finished mr. tonegawa: middle management blues. in short the conclusion i have come to is that every series ever with some sort of evil corporation desperately needs a really stupid episodic sitcom. forever

[nelfs]

it just so happened that I watched the flu episode of Mr. Tonegawa: Middle Management Blues when news of the covid pandemic was beginning to spread and i dont think the timing could possibly have been better

[doglike-devotion]

I began watching Mr. Tonegawa Middle Management Blues in earnest today (I've seen a few episodes here and there, but not the whole thing yet). Here are some of my favorite screenshots from the first episode.

I can't get over how handsome he is... His strong side profile is just so gorgeous. 💘 I'm very excited to continue the series.

[pharoosh]

Middle Maid Tonegawa

[anita1tupatrona]

Been watching  Mr. Tonegawa: Middle Management Blues tm Recently and couldn't stop thinking about that episode where they DID NOT SHOW US young Tonegawa so I made a silly edit, enjoy

[animenostalgia]

The Anime Nostalgia Podcast ep 81 - Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji with Tricia

It's Thanksgiving time in North America, and what better way to celebrate than talking about a cult classic full of tears and despair?! That's right, returning guest and Fukumoto fan Tricia is back to talk with me all about Denpa's new English release of the infamous fan-favorite manga Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji! Started in the 90s, this title started growing a Western fanbase after it's '07 anime adaptation, and now at long last--a physical edition of the original manga is available! We talk about what we love about this new release, why it's worth picking up even if you've already seen the anime, and how a story with such a seemingly simple premise tackles some surprisingly heavy themes in unexpected ways. Also in this episode: what Kaiji adaptations are worth checking out, which Kaiji gambles terrify us, and why Michael Douglas is now officially Anime. Minor corrections/updates for this episode: The ebook company that did the original eBook release is actually a company close to Mr. Fukumoto! Also, the sound effect ZAWA wasn't quite invented by Fukumoto, but popularized by him. It's derived from the Japanese ZAWATSUKU or ZAWAMEKU. And while the bubble bursting in Japan & debt has a lot to do with the themes of the story, there's also the fact that Japan went through about 15-20 years of stagflation, which lead to many being disillusioned and feeling they had no future since many jobs available were just "dead end" ones. Denpa currently has two full-time staff members, and currently only has the rights to the first arc (13 vols) of Kaiji....though that may change in the future! Thanks Denpa for reaching out and letting me know!

Stream the episode above or [Direct Download] Subscribe on itunes | Stitcher | Google Play | Spotify Relevant Links:

Buy Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji vol 1 at Rightstuf, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository, Amazon

PRE-ORDER Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji vol 2 at Rightstuf, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository, Amazon

PRE-ORDER Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji vol 3 at Barnes & Noble, Book Depository, Amazon

PRE-ORDER Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji vol 4 at Book Depository, Amazon

Check out season 1 and 2 of the 2007 Kaiji anime adaptation on Crunchyroll!

Check out the comedy spin-off Mr Tonegawa: Middle Management Blues on Crunchyroll

Check out the 2018 Chinese live-action adaptation called Animal World on Netflix

Follow Kaiji publisher Denpa on Twitter for updates on more Kaiji (and other great titles) releases!

My theme song is performed by Kerobit! Find more of Kerobit’s music on InazumaKick.com!

Support the work I do on this podcast by leaving me a tip on Ko-fi! Want to have your name read in the special thanks segment on the next episode? All you need to do is buy me 2 or more “coffees” on Ko-fi! As always, feel free to leave me your thoughts on this episode or ideas for future episodes here—or email me directly at AnimeNostalgiaPodcast@gmail.com. Thanks for listening!

[arcaneranger]

Final Thoughts - 2018 Long Shows

It’s finally here! I’m so close to being done with 2018 (...mostly. We’ll get to it) that I can taste it, but in the meantime, this list is gonna be weird, because there will be things that were already on other lists since I revised my rules of what should be classified how. This post is specifically for any show that ended in 2018 and lasted longer than 13-ish episodes (including shows that aired a second season during the same year or within six months of finishing the previous one), which means that there’s about as much on it as a usual season of shows, but they all had more time to impress - or disappoint me. I’m doing a better job in recent seasons of getting to everything, but last year there were unfortunately things that I missed (I was burned out in the winter) and just have to leave aside for now because I can’t wait any longer for these lists.

Anyway! As usual, let’s start with what I skipped!

* The Seven Deadly Sins: Revival of the Commandments, The Disastrous Life of Saiki Kusuo S2, Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card, Garo: Vanishing Line, and Mr Tonegawa: Middle Management Blues because I haven’t seen their previous seasons or parent works. (Yes, even Cardcaptor Sakura. Y’all can shoot me later.)

* Hakyuu Hoshin Engi, Beatless, and Basilisk: The Ouka Ninja Scrolls because by the time I was rounding things up, I hadn’t heard a single positive thing about any of them.

Next comes what I dropped -

WORST OF THE YEAR: Steins;Gate 0 (4/10)

What a fucking mess this show was. Aside from a very noticeable downgrade in production talent from its predecessor, the plot meanders and flirts with maybe actually happening this time before just dropping out again, over and over, to the point where I was perfectly willing to drop it two episodes from the finish line because it was such an insult to fans of the original. (Also, continued disgusting mistreatment of the transgender character.)

Gundam Build Divers (4/10)

Taking the Build series from being a well-written kids show to an averagely-written kids show that hides itself in decent mech designs.

Katana Maidens (4/10)

I remember so little about this show, and granted that I did drop it after one episode almost nine months ago, but what I did remember was that it gave me strong KanColle vibes with laughably inconsistent animation and flat characters. Meh.

Darling in the FRANXX (5/10)

This should probably be lower on the list, but I got out of Darling while the getting was good, sixteen episodes in. I understand that future episodes of the show cemented it as crappy right-wing nonsense in addition to pushing worldbuilding out of its fortieth-story window, but the moment it lost me was much sooner, when the crazy yandere female lead was reduced, almost instantly, to Good Anime Waifu as a reward to the protagonist for going against his friends with his selfish motives.

Persona 5 the Animation (5/10)

In addition to not actually finishing in 2018, Persona 5 just did not give me a single reason to watch it when I’d already finished the source game, with middling-to-bad visuals (thanks to the switch from Production I.G. to A-1 Pictures, and not even the team that created the much better-looking Day Breakers OVA before the game was released in the U.S.) and phoned-in music, which is especially unacceptable in a Persona adaptation. Also, we all absolutely called that the studio couldn’t tell the story of the entire game in just 26 episodes.

Record of Grancrest War (6/10)

There’s people that like this one a lot, but I didn’t see much that interested me in the first two episodes. I’ve heard better things about the manga.

Golden Kamuy (6/10)

I had problems with the first half of Golden Kamuy that the second half simply didn’t fix, and it became difficult for me to keep watching - the show still interrupted almost every fight scene with a dick joke, but still wanted to maintain a serious and occasionally frightening tone - and those things simply don’t go together. It needed to either spend more time being funny, or keep its lowest-common-denominator humor out of the fights.

Next, I have two shows that are (potentially permanently) On Hold, simply because it’s time for me to move on and I don’t have the time or energy to marathon them when the Winter shows are starting to wrap up:

Kakuriyo: Bed & Breakfast for Spirits, because even though I initially dropped it, I’ve heard a lot of good things since and I want to eventually give it another shot.

Yowamushi Pedal Glory Line, because despite the fact that I still enjoyed the previous season, this one started right in the middle of my burnout and I only heard bad things about it. I’ll get to it eventually, but it’s a shame that this series has been on a clear trend downwards since its revival.

And finally, the stuff I finished!

The Ancient Magus’ Bride (6/10)

Keep in mind that this is here entirely on the merits of its aesthetic and its side characters - in the end, Ancient Magus’ Bride is a Beauty and the Beast story where the beast gets what he wants without learning to be less of a dick or even apologizing for his clearly wrong actions.

Major 2nd (7/10)

Always pleased to have even just Good sports shows around, and this one is a very effective reboot of a classic series that’s never made its way stateside (man, the underperformance of Big Windup! really did a lot of damage to this genre in the West). With good character development and a decent second-generation premise, Major 2nd has the potential to be the beginning of a solid baseball story, assuming that it gets a needed followup.

IDOLiSH7 (7/10)

I dropped IDOLiSH7 when it first aired, and though I wound up enjoying it after I was very strongly urged to revisit it, the problems it started with never quite left it behind - that is, it has an okay cast of characters but doesn’t present even passable performance sequences, and if you’re going to include big song-and-dance numbers, they have to be good, or you may as well just be UtaPri.

ClassicaLoid Season 2 (8/10)

In 2017, I gave the first season of ClassicaLoid a near-perfect 9/10, and while this season gives us a satisfying conclusion to the story, it does things both a little better than the first, and also not quite as great. It’s story is much more well-integrated over the runtime so it doesn’t happen all at once in a few chunks, and the jokes that work are still absolute genius, but there’s simply too much that doesn’t quite land correctly, and a little too much immature humor, for it to reach the same lofty Hall of Fame heights as the first season. Still, one of the most underrated shows I’ve ever seen.

My Hero Academia Season 3 (8/10)

God, Izuku in that onesie is too damn cute.

My problems with Hero Academia are frustratingly persistent - the show is at its best when the students are competing with other students, because outside of last season’s Stain (a villain whose motivation is specifically related to the world of MHA), the villains are just not at all compelling and they all seem a little too generic for their own good. I just want Horikoshi to be a little bit less predictable of an author and do a little less reading of the Standard Shounen Playbook. Luckily, when it works, it works magnificently.

March Comes in Like a Lion S2 (8/10)

March remains director/auteur Akiyuki Shinbo’s most accessible work, and one of his masterpieces, as a well-paced and marvelously moody story of a depressed shogi prodigy learning to be a normal teenager before his youth completely passes him by, and the fantastic characters that surround him with their own complex problems and motivations. I just really, really hope it gets a third season eventually, because this one did not leave off on a satisfying conclusion.

Speaking of which...

Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma S3 (9/10)

It’s almost a shame that My Hero Academia became hugely popular purely based on its accessibility to American audiences, because Food Wars pretty squarely deserves to be the reigning Shonen Jump king - each season has only improved on the previous one, and this one was based entirely on a continuing arc that could only have happened in the universe of this show, Fighting Food Fascism. That being said, it also leaves off right in the middle of the arc (because it had almost caught up to the manga), meaning that we have to hope that it can remain relevant long enough for there to be enough source material for another season. I’ll be crossing my fingers until they snap.

Banana Fish (9/10)

Yes, this has risen a point since my review, but Banana Fish still deserves to be thought of as both a complete masterwork of crime fiction, being fantastically paced and expertly plotted in the use of its many, many twists, and a work that disappointed the side of me that hoped that, in adapting it into the modern day, MAPPA could have managed to get the author to let them depict what is clearly a queer relationship with the authenticity and legitimacy that it deserved. It’s still amazing, though, and Amazon should be pushing it with their most lavishly-made originals. At least it was the last noitaminA show they’ll get to totally bury.

And, finally, the one you all saw coming.

BEST OF THE YEAR: Lupin the 3rd Part V (10/10)

Lupin is, quite simply, one of the pinnacles of the medium. A simple idea that can (and did) go in thousands of different directions, handled by highly creative writers and an animation staff that has been knocking it out of the park for years, despite the fact that it is criminally (heh) unrecognized in the West. To put it simply, there’s a very, very good reason that it’s been around since the 70′s.

Okay! All I have left to do is finish Dragon Pilot (waiting on a friend) and we can get the last two lists out of the way! We’re almost done...

[burgers-in-anime]

Mr. Tonegawa: Middle Management Blues, episode 14: “Excursion” (2018)

[recentanimenews]

Comedy is a Crime in Mr. TONEGAWA Middle Management Blues

  As both the summer and another anime season come to a close, here at “Cruising the Crunchy-Catalog”, our minds turn from thoughts of play to thoughts of work. Of course, our work here is also watching anime, and we'd like to close out the “Summer 2018 Revival”—a look back at some of the titles that made last year's Summer anime season special—with a series that's brimming with professionalism.

  That's why this week, we're focusing our laser-like gaze on a series about doing your best even in the strangest of situations, regardless of little things like ethics, morals, or laws. Hurray, capitalism! Hurray, crimes! We're talking about Mr. TONEGAWA Middle Management Blues.

    What's Mr. TONEGAWA Middle Management Blues?

  Based on the manga written by Tensei Hagiwara and illustrated by Tomohiro Hashimoto and Tomoki Miyoshi, Mr. TONEGAWA Middle Management Blues is a Summer 2018 TV anime with direction by Keiichiro Kawaguchi and animation production by MADHOUSE. Crunchyroll describes the series as follows:

  An executive at the Teiai Group, Tonegawa Yukio, is ordered by the company president Hyodo Kazutaka to plan out death games for debtors. Awaiting Tonegawa at these planning meetings are ordeals, agony, and despair! The demonic spinoff about the anguish inflicted on Tonegawa by the president and the company suits is now getting an anime adaptation!

  Serving as both a prequel and a spin-off to Kaiji, the gambling manga and TV anime created by Nobuyuki Fukumoto, Mr. TONEGAWA Middle Management Blues plays fast and loose with the genre, swapping in situational office comedy in place of psychological suspense.

    The Elephant (Debtor) in the Room

  With such a drastic change in format, the million dollar question becomes: do I need to watch all of Kaiji in order to get the jokes in Mr. TONEGAWA Middle Management Blues? The answer, dear readers, is no. Much like its titular anti-hero, Mr. TONEGAWA Middle Management Blues stands on its own two feet in terms of bringing home the bacon and frying it up in a pan with regards to humor.

  If you are nominally familiar with Kaiji, Akagi, and the rest of Nobuyuki Fukumoto's gambling manga ouvre, the jokes in Mr. TONEGAWA Middle Management Blues take on a deeper, more satisfying texture, but it's not a requirement to enjoy the show. In fact, even though voice actor Masato Hagiwara reprises his role as Kaiji Ito for this series, he doesn't have any significant lines. This is a Tonegawa vehicle, through and through.

    Another Normal Day at the Office

  The central conceit in Mr. TONEGAWA Middle Management Blues is about the banality of evil, i.e. the idea that being a cartoon super-villain can be just as monotonous, bureaucratic, and soul-crushingly dull as any typical white collar job. For Kaiji and his fellow debtors, events such as Restricted Rock Paper Scissors and the Steel Beam Crossing of Despair are a harrowing, once-in-a-life time horror, but to the men in black of the Teiai Group, they're just another Tuesday.

  Mr. TONEGAWA Middle Management Blues spins comedy gold out of Tonegawa's attempts to motivate his team of faceless goons and to appease the increasingly insane demands of his tyrannical boss, Hyoudou Kazutaka. That the heinous misdeeds of a criminal syndicate are so funny and relatable is a testament to the talents of the show's creators.

    Hidden Humor

  Although it generally lets the audience in on the joke, Mr. TONEGAWA Middle Management Blues also has gags that are hidden in plain sight. For example, Jay Kabira does an outstanding job providing a counterpoint to the famously dramatic style of narration in Kaiji, with the joke being that his overwrought delivery is invariably referring to something extraordinarily ordinary, such as a Power Point presentation, a Twitter post, or a mid-day meal.

  One of the cleverest hidden gags involves involves the “Zawa Voices”. In Fukumoto's work, the sound effect “Zawa Zawa!” represents the sound of a human psyche straining under intense emotional pressure, a sort of anxiety made verbal. Mr. TONEGAWA Middle Management Blues employs nearly a dozen voice actors as “Zawa Voices” to recreate this iconic sound effect, including Kana Hanazawa, Shiori Izawa, Ari Ozawa, and Masako Nozawa.

  That's a pretty deep cut there, folks.

    Hang in There, Tonegawa

  Crunchyroll currently streams Mr. TONEGAWA Middle Management Blues in some 205 territories worldwide, and the series is available in the original Japanese language with subtitles in English, Spanish, Latin American Spanish, French, Portuguese, Arabic, Italian, German, and Russian. If you want more Tonegawa in your life, a Bluray release is coming from Sentai Filmworks on October 15, 2019, and the home video version also includes an English dub.

  Both deadpan and grotesquely exaggerated, Mr. TONEGAWA Middle Management Blues is sure to appeal to any anime fan that's ever had to put their nose to the 9-to-5 corporate grindstone. If you're in the mood for an office comedy about bad people trying their very best, and if the series is available in your area, then please consider giving Mr. TONEGAWA Middle Management Blues.

    Thank you for joining us for this final installment of the Summer 2018 Revival. Be sure to tune in next time when we kick off a look back at the autumn anime season of one year ago with the first episode of the Fall 2018 Review, in which we'll get into the Halloween spirit with a story of spooky, scary skeletons... working at a busy Japanese bookstore?

Is there a series in Crunchyroll's catalog that you think needs some more love and attention? Please send in your suggestions via e-mail to cruisingcrunchy@gmail.com or post a Tweet to @gooberzilla. Your pick could inspire the next installment of “Cruising the Crunchy-Catalog”!

    ---------

Paul Chapman is the host of The Greatest Movie EVER! Podcast and GME! Anime Fun Time.

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[mellowjacket]

I finally finished watching 'Mr. TONEGAWA Middle Management Blues' and that was pretty good.

Fun Kaiji spinoff, watching the Twitter episodes at the same time as tumblr was self destructing and lots of people were moving to Twitter was a wild ride.

[thought-bubble-doodly-doo]

I can’t believe we’re now five episodes into Mr. Tonegawa Middle Management Blues, and Mother’s Basement STILL hasn’t done an analysis of the opening theme.   

[animefeminist]

[Review] Mr. TONEGAWA Middle Management Blues – Episode 1

What’s it about? Tonegawa Yukio is the legendary number two of the Teiai Group, a money management firm with obviously shady ties. This is the tale of his daily struggles—to meet his boss’s demand for a thrilling death game, and to remember the names of his identically dressed subordinates.

Are you a middle-aged manager working in an office job? Then this anime might have something relatable to offer you. The rest of us are kind of out in the cold, though.

Middle Management Blues is doing its best to strike an absurd tone: the art is drawn with thick black lines more befitting Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure or Fist of the North Star than a slice-of-life series, there’s a flashforward opening to the survivor of the Death Game who will serve as Tonegawa’s rival, and every event from the murderous to the mundane is narrated by a hyper-intense sports announcer.

It’s all clearly meant to elevate a mundane job to pulse-pounding stakes. Fair enough in concept, if somewhat breathless and grating in execution.

Read it at Anime Feminist!

[uniquestream]

Mr. TONEGAWA Middle Management Blues: Season 1 Episode 24

[ljaesch]

English Dub of the Mr. Tonegawa: Middle Management Blues Anime to Premiere on August 3, 2018

English Dub of the Mr. Tonegawa: Middle Management Blues Anime to Premiere on August 3, 2018

HIDIVE has announced that its English dub of Mr. Tonegawa: Middle Management Blues will premiere on August 3, 2018. The streaming service will also begin streaming the series with English subtitles on the same day. New episodes of both will debut on Fridays.

The stream will be available in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and other select territories.

Mr.…

[animeportalmatome-blog]

Mr. TONEGAWA Middle Management Blues - Episode 24 - End of the Line

Mr. TONEGAWA Middle Management Blues – Episode 24 – End of the Line

Hyoudou’s latest craving for diabolical entertainment is so twisted, people are afraid to talk about it… even the narrator! And then, wedding bells begin to ring for one member of Team Tonegawa.

Source: Crunchyrol

[sadlarry3]

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