Spring is in the air! Theoretically. It snowed last week where I live. But soon, the flowers will bloom, the weather will warm, the spring anime season will start. And until then, we’ve got VIZ news and new releases to entertain you! This month we’re covering new volumes of some series we’ve discussed before (including a new Beast Complex! Thank you Paru Itagaki!) and a new series I thought sounded promising, Insomniacs After School. But first, news!
Spring Anime Digital Sales
There are more places you can buy anime digitally now than ever before, and a lot of those places are having sales this spring. The thematically appropriate Pluto TV has all of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon available for free, including the movies, and several other streaming services I was mostly unaware of have sales on popular shonen series happening right now. Get the full scoop on the VIZ blog!
Right Stuff Anime Madness Tournament 2023 In Full Swing
Fan votes decide which of 32 franchises across anime, manga, and light novels reign supreme in this tournament of five knockout rounds, including many Viz titles, from Fullmetal Alchemist to Chainsaw Man. Tough matchup, that one. Fans who correctly predicted the winner ahead of time might win a huge bundle of anime, manga, light novels, and art books. If, like me, you found out about this just now, you can still vote for the honor and glory of your favorite little cartoon. The featured franchises are also all on sale now, so good opportunity to grab a book or Blu-ray if you haven’t yet!
Sailor Scout Voice Actresses Pose As Their Characters
Congrats to VIZ media for embracing Tiktok marketing, I guess! To promote Sailor Moon R: The Complete Second Season’s new availability on Blu-Ray, some of the voice actresses of the English dub are doing poses for VIZ’s social media feeds. The voice of Sailor Moon herself drew Usagi for the channel as well. Very cute all around.
Enough about anime, this is Women Write About COMICS, dammit! It’s time to talk about…
What I’m Reading
Blue Box, Volume 3
Kouji Miura
March 7, 2023
We’re checking in on our friends-turned-secret-housemates Taiki and Chinatsu again this month! This volume goes further into Hina’s feelings and shows us the gap between Taiki and Chinatsu in the lead-up to everyone’s prefectural qualifiers. Chinatsu and the girl’s basketball team are extremely good, but Taiki and the boy’s badminton team are nothing special. Will his hard work pay off? As I mentioned in my review of volume 1, this comic is a very slow build, and reading it all at once instead of week to week makes it less engaging to me. There is something motivating, though, about how dedicated the characters are to pursuing their goals.
Beast Complex, Volume 2
Paru Itagaki
March 21, 2023
Haru and Legoshi are back, guys! I’m so happy to see them again! And their friends! But mostly my adorable little blorbos from my manga Haru and Legoshi, in a cute one-shot at the end for Haru’s Coming Of Age day ceremony. Volume 2 of Beast Complex focuses on telling the stories of the various animals that live in Legoshi’s apartment building after he leaves Cherryton Academy in the main BEASTARS storyline. I really love getting a look at the world outside of the main focus of BEASTARS. Showing how all these kinds of animals we don’t get to see in Legoshi’s story live makes the world feel richer and more developed, and lets Itagaki explore themes and ideas that aren’t really touched upon in the main comic. I thought the different stories in Beast Complex were funny, cute, and occasionally heartwarming. Also the taxidermist pig and peacock story the volume opened with was somehow even more homoerotic than whatever Louis had going on with carnivores, which is impressive. Itagaki’s really good at having big, visually striking moments for her story climaxes, and you get to see a lot of those in this largely unconnected collection of short stories. It’s a real treat.
Insomniacs After School, Volume 1
Makoto Ojiro
March 21, 2023
“There’s a lot of het romance manga in my life this month,” I realized abruptly about halfway through this volume. After Blue Box and Beast Complex, I think my patience for teenage boys and girls slowly falling in love had waned significantly. Anyway, Insomniacs After School follows a boy and a girl at school with insomnia who take refuge from their sleeplessness at their school’s observatory. The art style was a little offputting to me until I learned this was serialized in Big Comic Spirits originally and not, like, Jump+. Awkward-looking teenagers make more sense for the older audience of a seinen magazine than for something marketed to teenagers, who tend to value prettier art. The lead characters are fine. I sympathize with their insomnia and the problems it causes them. and the helpful teacher is pretty funny, but the rest of their classmates kind of blend together and it’s hard for me to remember anyone else’s names. I also found myself wishing for more… stuff to happen? Like Blue Box has the characters focusing on their sports tournaments outside of each other, but the astronomy angle in Insomniacs is almost an afterthought. We also don’t really get to see much of their home lives as of this volume, and I feel like that’d have an effect on their insomnia too. Overall thoughts: not bad, but it didn’t make me super interested in watching the anime starting next month.
That’s all I’ve got for you this month! Tune in next month for more VIZ news and reviews!
