I Accidentally Broke an Expensive Vase and Now the Ouran High School Host Club Wants Me to Pay Them Back with My Body?! (Print)
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If OHSHC was a mainstream isekai webtoon cover featuring:
Haruhi the isekai’d student
Tamaki the crown prince
Kyoya the head butler
Hikaru & Kaoru the servants
Honey the pastry chef
Mori the royal guard
Animes That Fans Are Still Waiting To See Sequels For
With the recent premiere of the second season of Clone High through HBO’s Max streaming service and Netflix’s second season of the reboot of Bastard!; long suffering fans are finally getting more of the animated shows that they have spent over ten years waiting for. Hopefully streaming services will continue to listen to the people and start doing more reboots and sequels to what fans want to see. Here’s a list of seven other anime shows that anime fans are still waiting to see:
School Rumble
School Rumble is the anime adaptation of the Slice of Life, Romantic-Comedy manga of the same name by Jin Kobayashi. This over 20 episode animated series follows the ditzy but lovable, Tenma Tsukamoto, and the former delinquent who loves her, Kenji Harima. This show was brilliantly written with amazing comedic moments surrounding the typical misunderstandings and awkward moments among teenagers, along with personal revelations. School Rumble was definitely a show that would delight many within the Shoujo or Shonen fan-base, however the ending of the series seemed unfinished and left much to be desired.
Ouran Host Club
Take Hana Kimi and mash it together with Boys Over Flowers, and you get Ouran Host Club. Based off of the 2002-2010 manga by Bisco Hatori, the genderbending reverse harem anime continues to have a dedicated fan base still aching for more episodes. This anime follows the gender non-conforming Haruhi Fujioka who attends a prestigious private school on scholarship, and is forced to pay back a debt working as a host club member. Despite being a comedy this show has compelling character arcs and emotional moments, with positive LGBT+ representation. Since the anime concluded before the manga’s completion there’s definitely still plenty of story to tell and this show could easily follow in the footsteps of FullMetal Alchemist: Brotherhood or Hellsing Ultimate.
Kamisama Kiss
Having an original air date of 2012 this anime is based off the 25 volume long manga series by Julietta Suzuki of the same name. This show followed the recently homeless Tomoe who becomes a minor deity and gets a handsome yet short tempered fox yokai for a servant. This show had a nice concept with many lovable characters in the Supernatural genre with Romantic-Comedic elements to the story. Despite having two seasons, the story’s ending didn’t feel complete and hopefully one day fans can get more.
Utena: Revolutionary Girl
For so many people this 1997 anime was an introduction to the world of anime and manga and is highly regarded for its art style, and LGBT+ and Feminist themes. The anime is based off of the manga written by Chiho Saito of the Magical Girl, Action, and Fantasy genres. This story follows Utena Tenjou, a new girl at school who becomes involved in a secret European-style duel competition for “The Rose Bride.” The bride in question is a quiet and mysterious girl named Anthy Himemiya who is often treated more as a prop and less as a person. Utena fights frequently to defend Anthy yet is sadly betrayed by someone she considered a good friend. The anime ends with Anthy going out to search for Utena but we never know what happens after the fact. Even the anime film adaptation ends with no clear resolution so a reboot or a sequel series to settle people’s questions would be a great form of closure to the old fans while catching the interest of the new ones.
Mermaid Forest
After the success of Inuyasha, Ranma ½, and Urusei Yatsura, Rumiko Takahashi has no shortage of fans who would check out anything with her name attached. Back in the early 2000s there was an anime adaptation of her 1994 manga of the same name. In this anime the show’s two leads, Yuta and Mana, have been given immortality after consuming mermaid flesh which arguably the better of the two possible side effects. For the better part of the series the anime follows these two around during their travels until they run into another, much older immortal, who has developed an amoral personality. Towards the end we never know the fate of the older immortal nor discover if there is any possibility to reverse the side effects of the mermaid flesh. The anime just sorta of ends, so a sequel or reboot would be greatly appreciated.
Nightwalker: The Midnighter Detective
Anime fans who also enjoyed the Buffyverse spin-off Angel could easily adore the original 13 episode show. This late 90s horror-mystery anime follows the bishonen male lead, Shido Tatsuhiko, who fights to protect those from the harm or influence of terrible using vampiric abilities. One of the key figures to his past is the vampire Lord Cain who has semi-obsession with Shido and refuses to accept that he is no longer the killer he used to be and tries to get Shido to come back to him. The last episode ends with Shido experiencing the trauma of having to put down his teenage secretary, Riho Yamazaki, and being kissed by Cain who declares his love for Shido once more before fading away into darkness. This ending would’ve been fantastic as a season one finale but as a show one there just feels like so much that could be told.
Descendants of Darkness
Based on the still on-going manga Yami no Matsuei, or Descendants of Darkness, this 2000 anime adaption is an excellent blend of mystery, dark fantasy, and supernatural with an extra helping of yaoi. The show’s lead is Asato Tsuzuki, a human turned shinigami who solves cases for the Spirit World alongside the recently murdered turned shinigami Hisoka Kurosaki. This anime did a marvelous job at keeping viewers guessing with different mysteries and entertained with action sequences. The artwork is magnificent as well. At the end of the show Hisoka pulls Asato out of a deep depression and they fight off the show’s overarching villain before concluding. However, since the manga has yet to officially end there’s still room to continue the story and there are many who would be eager to watch.
I've always thought it was strange there wasn't any manga about Elisabeth giving how popular she (or at least the musical) is in Japan. Well it turns out THERE ARE. Like, many, in fact.
First we have Elisabeth by Kumi Morikawa! A single volume adaptation of the musical, published in 1996 (I think?). There seem to be two editions of it:
Then we have Tomoko Naka's two volumes-long Uruwashi no Kouhi Elisabeth, published also in 1996 (right and middle pictures). I couldn't find the plot of this series, but I suppose it's just an adaptation of Elisabeth's life. There is also a single volume edition that came out in the early 2000s (left picture):
The art looks pretty!!
Leaving the 90s shoujo behind, in 2017 the empress was once again depicted in a manga (a seinen this time): Cuvie's Erzsébet!
Swords?? Guns??? Yuri vibes???? Whatever this is sign me up!
In this story we follow Ida (not Ferenczy but clearly inspired in her), a Hungarian independentist infiltrated in Elisabeth's entourage to reclute her for the cause. The series ended at the beginning of 2020, closing with a total of three volumes The first chapter is available for free (in Japanese) so I might do a live reading blog of it because just the first four pages are absolutely BONKERS.
And lastly as a bonus, let's go back to the 90s with Hideko Mizuno's Elisabeth!
Now this Elisabeth isn't the Empress, but her granddaughter Archduchess Elisabeth Marie of Austria, Crown Prince Rudolf's daughter. Published between 1993 and 1996, this series covers the infamous life of the "Red Archduchess". Mizuno had years before written a manga series about Ludwig II that sadly got cancelled after only two volumes, so for her this was a comeback to a familiar era.
Now this is the sad part in which I tell you that none of these mangas has an English translation, not even fan translations. The fact that I had not even come across these until I searched "マンガ 皇妃エリザベート " shows how little diffusion these works had outside Japan, which is such a pity. Let's hope that at least a scanlation group gets interested in any of these one day!