AnimeNext 2016: First It Was Anime, Then It Was Not: A History of Retro Anime Video Game Alterations

At AnimeNext 2016, I had the opportunity to do my very first panel ever, talking about anime video games that were altered when brought over to North America.

I was added to the convention at the last minute, so things went pretty well, all things considered.

Review: Bikini Warriors

The United States has a history of cartoons designed to promote toys. With properties like Transformers, G.I. Joe, and Mighty Max, the hope of the shows’ producers is that you buy the toys seen in the series. But there aren’t a lot of anime specifically based on any type of toy or figure line. I’m sure the producers would like you to buy a figure based on one of the characters, but more times than not the anime is based on a manga.

Which brings us to today’s subject: Bikini Warriors. It’s a short anime series based on a line of ecchi figures, which typically doesn’t instill confidence in the show’s quality. In fact, when I first saw the show’s listing on Anichart, I immediately thought show was just going to be nothing but fanservice and trash. But then I noticed that the show’s logo looks a lot like the logo for Dragon Warrior a.k.a. Dragon Quest.

“Is this show a parody?” I thought. Turns out it is. And it’s not trash.

Review: Ai-Mai-Mi Mousou Catastrophe

Last year, I wrote a review of Ai-Mai-Mi, a short length comedy series about three schoolgirls in a manga club. Except, of course the show was actually about anything but three schoolgirls in a manga club. While I thought the first half of the show was bland and uninteresting, it did start to win me over in its second half. So when its sequel Ai-Mai-Mi Mousou Catastrophe was announced, I was interested to see if the show would continue to improve.

Let’s see if that happened, shall we?

Review: Wakakozake

Sometimes the elevator pitch of a show can be a really hard sell. For example, let’s look at the elevator pitch of the subject of today’s review, Wakakozake. The elevator pitch is “Woman eats food and talks about it.” Not exactly the most exciting pitch in the world. There aren’t any ninjas, pirates, or giant zombies to be found! So when I’ve talked about this show to my friends, it’s been really hard to sell them on the show. With that said, let me tell you why I love Wakakozake and why you should absolutely check it out.

Review: Pupa

The largest problem short anime face is trying to create a complete episode in 5 minutes or less. In theory, comedy series are the easiest to write for this format as punch lines can be set up and delivered in a very short amount of time. But what about the horror genre? Typically, horror requires time to build up mood and atmosphere in order to create a scary experience. So can a horror show with 5 minute episodes achieve that goal? Well the anime series Pupa tried to do just that. Although, that may not have been the show’s intention...