2020 - Series and Authors to Look Out for 1

I have in this blog mostly on analysed champion stuff but I decided to branch out, after all I do read more manga than just the ones in champion magazines. It was then that i stumbled on the idea of waiting about  authors that still not have a series yet have shown potential in one-shots and the likes.
Perhaps to follow through in this process I will also look at new series that might be worth looking out for in 2020.

I will explore first two promising authors with origin in Champion magazines.

Fukuyama Hana - Sweet and Bitter Drama

After a short serialised of omnibus love stories usually homosexual but not always. They were not sweet love stories either and without spoiling some are rather bleak and saddening. It is not the topic of her work that makes me think of her as a very promising author but also the way it was presented and constructed. Her omnibus stories had a realistic touch because they were not overtly happy but also not overtly dramatic either, it had a balance. It was through this balance that most stories did manage to touch me in a real sense, not as tear jerker or a cute story but as a real human romance drama.

The panelling and perhaps the lack of bold emphasising lines in facial expressions for dramatic purposes made the series seem more easy to read, in a way that it was the reader role to read the characters subtle expressions. Similarly, the story is not told to the reader but are visually presented it, and by doing every chapter is more satisfying and surprising at the end.

From my research on her, she is openly lesbian, it is listed in her twitter profile. In addition, she was an assistant of Shinobu Seguchi towards the end of Shuujin Riku, and Ittan no Ko was her first publication. I believe she has a lot of talent for any genre but in the short term possibly I see her making a very good mature romance manga.


Arai Shuntarou - Subverting Expectations

Arai Shuntarou, first publication was Hoshi no Kyoudai in Bessatsu Shonen Champion, it came when he won the encouragement award of in the 5th edition of Next Champion. Since then he has penned down many one-shots in Bessatsu as well as Weekly Shonen Champion.

He is very creative and can write pretty much anything but his work have his own special vibe which originates from his sketchy style that adds a mysterious touch. In his most recent one-shot Ishumemuri, the mysterious mood the peculiar background creates is incredible.

His creativity is present not only in his art but also on his writing, this was shown in his short series 3, a yankee series.  In it every character had special shadows that stood out behind them which expressed an inner felling of the character. It is one of the uniqueness of his style.

His art has improved over the one-shots and his knack for writing one-shots with punchlines at the end that subvert expectations is incredible. In series this would be more difficult and perhaps a series that would allow him to express all that creativity would be the for the best. This is perhaps why I do not see him sticking to shonen manga specifically but delving in various other demographics and genres.

For today, it is these two but next time I will have more and perhaps a few series as well on top of promising authors.

Houkago Teibou Nisshi - Introduction, TV Anime Details and Expectations.

Houkago Teibou Nisshi - Kousaka Yasuyuki
Serialised in Young Champion Retsu
Genre - Slice of Life

Setting and Synopsis -
Houkago Teibou Nisshi starts off with the main character, Tsurigi Hina, who favours indoors activities, she has a love for knitting. Hina and her family move to the small beach town of Ashiya-machi in Fukuoka, Kyushu. She and her family had previously lived in Ashiya-machi as it happens to be the home town of her father. After a meeting with a member of the Teibou club, she gets pressured into joining the club and involved in outdoor activities like fishing.

Story and Comment

There is no story as such in Houkago, after all its a series about a girl coming out of her shell and discovering new things and various different ways to have fun that might have otherwise been difficult if not impossible in Kanto. I do believe there is both a fulfilment and a role in the development of the person in trying different things such as fishing and other activities of leisure but i do feel perhaps a bit irked is that it might be subtly saying indoor activities are not as fun and fulfilling as outdoors. Indoor activities like knitting, playing board games like chess and the likes can not only help with the development of motor skills but also help in the development and maintenance of the brain.  This might perhaps not be the intention of the author at all but It was just something that I felt like highlighting.

In addition, the plot device of that leads to the Hina joining the club seems to me like bullying, it is especially highlighted by the unwillingness of Hina at first to go to the club. Her enjoyment of the activities does eventually mean it is forgotten but it leaves a bitter taste of a poor plot device that is commonly used.

In other aspects like the technical side of fishing, the series seem to be well researched. So it can be something that could get people interested in fishing, in a similar way that Yuru Camp got many people into camping.

TV Anime Staff -

The series will be animated by the studio Doga Kobo. A studio that has a lot of experience with similar series to Hougkago Teibou Nisshi like Yuru Yuri and other series which are primarily slice of life and have no overarching plot.

Ookuma Takaharu will be the director, it will be his first time directing a series. He has previous worked as animation director, assistant director in various series like Sabage-bu, Mitsudomoe and Yuru Yuri. Similarly to the studio, he has vast experience in slice of life series.

In a similar vein comes Shimo Fumihiko with the series composition, she has also worked before in various slice of life series like Stella no Mahou, New Game, Anima Yell and many others.

Next is Kumagai Katsuhiro with the character designs which from visuals seem to replicate the original work's art style perfectly. His backlog of works is thin when compared to the others, but the visuals do look good so far.

It is in safe hands but what can it achieve?

Houkago is in a genre that is kind of a stable nowadays, series with a similar mood are present in almost every anime season with hits like Non Non Biyori, Yuru Camp and Gochuumon Usagi desu ka?  in recent years. Thus it might be a question of whether Hougako Teibou Nisshi provides something that slice of life series that were not too successful did not. It is the fishing element that for me makes Houkago stand out, fishing is not typically the topic of a lot of anime, specifically casual fishing. Houkago represents it as exciting activity in itself but it also shows the aftermath by showing different fishes and ways to prepare, cook and eat them. Fishing is after all a fun activity that can be practiced leisurely and competitively in addition it can be done socially in groups or alone. It is this that can be the standout feature of Houkago Teibou Nisshi, so i do believe it can be successful anime.

Darwin's Game TV Anime Details and Expectations.

Darwin's Game

Darwin's Game TV anime will start airing in Tokyo MX in January 2020. It began serialisation in 2013 and has been one of the biggest hits in the relatively new manga magazine : Bessatsu Shonen Champion. It currently has 3.6 million copies in print with 19 volumes out at the moment. In addition to this it is the first anime adaption of a series in Bessatsu Shonen Champion.

The studio in charge of the series is Nexus, a relatively new studio with few works under their name. like Granblue Fantasy. However, they have collaborated in a numbers of series before such as SHIROBAKO.

The staff is as following

Director - Yokumoto Yoshinobu
Series Composition - Shu Miyama (FLIPFLOPS MEMBER)
Music - Kenichirou Suehiro
Character Design - Kazuya Nakanishi

A relatively unexperienced director in charge of the series, his only previous work directing was Comics Girls another series by Nexus. He has ,however, a lot of experience as episode directors of various series. In this case, there is not a lot to expect but it is an upcoming director with significant experience in direction episodes and his only previous directorship over a series was a slice of life, comedy series, a rather different genre from Darwin's Game.

Series composition will be done by one of the members of the original author of the series so there is not much that could go wrong in that aspect. After all, the author himself should have a greater understand of his work than anyone else in distinguishing the right pace of the series.

Music is rather important for me and the person in charge seems to have a lot of experience working in series with a similar vibe, so this should not be an area of concern.

Character design is from the visuals rather similar to the original work and perhaps that is for the best. The person in charge does not seem to have a lot of experience character design but the visuals do not show any problems.

Darwin's Game story wise is reasonably far into its story, a recent announcement said it will soon enter its last arc. Its sales have not shown any particular upwards trend in volumes sales and it has been that way for the past few volumes at least when it comes to oricon and shoseki, depending on how seriously one takes them for. This has in fact make me hold a particular negative view of the potential of the anime in bringing about a surge in popularity of the series.

The death game genre is a trend that has gone down in recent times, it was a highly saturated  genre in animation a few years ago, with various series like Ousama Game, Killer bites and many others. Many of these series were not really popular. Darwin's Game at the beginning seems very much like a death game but it gradually develops into a battle series involving factions and various scenarios in which life and death are not always at stake. Whether this is something different enough for it to stand out is questionable. It is also not for me to decide this but for the Japanese audience.

In terms of content without going into spoilers, it seems like the series will be relatively fast paced to cover the first major arc and whether this can be made by Shu Miyama to feel natural will be a something hard to achieve.

The PVs do not show too much and judging from that the quality of the animation can be very misleading as it is usually packed for obvious reasons with the 'better' animated parts.