Time to vote on shows for and build our Winter schedule.
Events this weekend:
Attendance:
Notes: We started with voting, and came out of that with a few questions about some shows. Some folks didn't remember the first episode of Clevatess, so we re-sampled that. Then we watched Shy Hero and the Assassin Princesses ep 2.
We took break then (just after Arthur made it on the call). After break we re-sampled Dark Gathering, then switched to VLC and watched the Undead Unluck Winter Arc, followed by sampling/re-sampling Dagashi Kashi episode 1. We had some time left after that, so based on Adam's request we re-sampled Scavenger's Reign (HBO Max).
Attendance:
Notes: We started with schedule-building, but didn't spend too much time on that. By 7:10 we were ready to actually start watching shows. Alan had previously suggested watching Porco Rosso tonight, but Adam had voted for it and he didn't expect to make it tonight so we were inclined to fit it into the season later.
Instead, we started by sampling Tamon's B-side. Victor made it just a few minutes into the episode. We followed up withJack-of-all-Trades, Party of None. Then we watched Fate/Strange Fake episode 1 (we'd sampled episode 0 shortly after it debuted...over a year ago).
After intermission, we watched the Kaguya-sama: Love is War -Stairway to Adulthood- special. We finished out the night by sampling the hour-long premiere of Sentenced to Be a Hero.
Our Fall planning looked a bit like this:
Last week we put together our Winter 2026 schedule. This week we start it, but not quite with the full, normal schedule since Anime Los Angeles takes place this Thursday, January 8 - Sunday, January 11 at the Long Beach Convention Center (details available on Guidebook's site as well as in the app) and Alan is attending multiple days - that's why he can't host showings at his house (or online) this Friday. Other club members may be attending one or more days as well.
Attendance:
Notes: David streamed up until intermission. Alan arrived then, and because we had a very long intermission we decided to watch only 1 episode of Dagashi Kashi...but then ended up watching 2 episodes after all.
The club bailed on the sampler partway through.
Attendance:
Notes: Alan, David, and Brian all made it to Anime LA; only Alan stayed late enough to be late to showings, arriving maybe 3/4 of the way through Catch Me at the Ballpark!
The club made it through both of the night's samplers, albeit without any particular enthusiasm.
Studio 4C's anime film All You Need Is Kill - Studio 4C's anime film adaptation of the novel of the same name - is in theaters this week. You may have seen some version of this before, either via the manga adaptation or the live-action movie featuring Tom Cruise: Edge of Tomorrow (perhaps better known by its tagline "Live. Die. Repeat"). In any case, it's in a pretty fair number of theaters in the area, mostly in the AMC chain.
Events this weekend:
Attendance:
Notes: David told us he couldn't host showings in person this Saturday and couldn't guarantee he'd be able to stream shows, either.
Attendance:
Notes: 1st paragraph sample notes.
Last week we were unable to hold Saturday showings at David's, so we held them on Discord. In case the same situation comes up this week, Saturday showings can use Alan's as a backup location (for those willing to make the longer drive), or we can remain online-only that night.
Jeapordy had an Anime category recently, which I find interesting both as a sign that anime is now seen as popular enough in America that Jeapordy contestants at least should know it (I imagine Family Feud anime categories are still a couple dacdes away), and also for exactly what questions contestants were able to answer right away and which ones stopped them in their tracks. The ANN article I linked to embeds a Youtube clip, and it gives an idea of roughly what era of anime these folks are familiar with.
A couple days ago, the Crunchyroll Store delisted over 100 Discotek releases out of nowhere. Some were out of print, but a majority weren't - it seems likely someone decided to cull a bunch of titles which were seen as slow sellers. At any rate, MediaOCD/AnimEigo will start carrying Discotek's entire back catalog
Events this weekend:
Attendance:
Notes: David joined remotely tonight, but expected he would be able to host this Saturday.
We had Shiboyugi scheduled as the sampler, but it's double-length. We swapped for the sampler planned for next Saturday In the Clear Moonlit Dusk (CR).
Attendance:
Notes: David was able to host this Saturday. Also, he had cake.
Lunar New Year is in a couple of weeks, but as usual Monterey Park is celebrating a couple weeks early. In other words, this weekend.
Events this weekend:
Attendance:
Notes: Shiboyugi is well-produced but something we pretty clearly do not care to watch.
Attendance:
Notes: Dark Moon: the Blood Altar is pretty dumb, but possibly dumb enough to be very entertaining (though not as promising from episode 1 as Phantom in the Twilight, let alone Dances with Devils). In contrast, Oedo Fire Slayer just isn't very good - it looks quite bad, and it isn't written well enough to make up for other shortcomings.
Samplers this weekend are both remakes of older shows. "Both" because we're only watching 1 each night - we need the extra time Saturday so we can start Ergo Proxy; we'll be transitioning from the front to back half of our season over the next couple weeks.
Crunchyroll followed up on delisting over 100 150 titles from their store over the last week or two with another bold strategy: increasing their subscription prices.
Events this weekend:
Long Valentine's Day weekend. Maybe rainy. And we're still transitioning between front and back halves of our season, finishing off Clevatess and City on Friday, and the 1st half of Dirty Pair TV, Catch Me at the Ballpark!, and SANDA on Saturday. We aren't starting ost of the new shows until next week, but we got going on Ergo Proxy last Saturday and we'll kick off Slayers Revolution this Saturday.
Events this weekend:
Attendance:
Notes: 1st paragraph sample notes
Attendance:
Notes: 1st paragraph sample notes.