Cross Game: Story

Mitsuru Adachi is often overlooked by English-speaking fans. Though the majority of his manga is available translated in French, a mere two books of short stories have been released in English by Viz (Short Program and Short Program 2) and are long out of print. Such an attitude is an absolute shame, as Adachi is the master of simple, emotional storytelling as demonstrated by his epics Touch and H2 as well as shorter works such as Slow Step (which inspired a four episode OVA, subsequently released subtitled on VHS in the UK.)

Cross Game is no exception to Adachi’s overall standard of excellence. Kitamura Kou and Tsukishima Wakaba are the closest of elementary school friends, with Kou being the gentle if uninspired half and Wakaba the domineering wife to be. When tragedy strikes at the end of the first episode, their entire circle of friends and family are changed and Kou still lacks the motivation to excel, the remaining survivors do their best to persuade him otherwise.

From the description, Cross Game sounds like a generic series of any form, and fans familiar with the Adachi formula (sports, death, and realisations) will see it in full force here. The truth, however, is that it doesn’t matter: Adachi does it so well that it’s always a joy to watch him pull heartstrings and give the audience clear cut heroes and villains while even managing to explore the darker side of the so-called glory years of Japanese youth.

Read more: "Spring 2009 Anime Roundup - Cross Game: Mitsuru Adachi's newest manga adaptation supplies baseball bliss | Suite101.com" -
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Anime mangga

Lucky Star is a Japanese four-panel comic strip manga by Kagami Yoshimizu. The strip has been serialized in Kadokawa Shoten's Comptiq magazine since January 2004. Cameo strips were published in other magazines such as Shōnen Ace and others. Like many four-panel comic strips, it has no ongoing plot, and typically focuses on the daily lives of the characters.

In August 2005, a drama CD based on the series was released, and in December 2005, a Nintendo DS video game entitled Lucky Star Moe Drill, was released। A sequel, also playable on the DS, called Shin Lucky Star Moe Drill was released in May 2007, and a PlayStation 2 visual novel was released in January 2008. In September 2006, it was released to the press that Kyoto Animation would be animating an anime based on the series; it contains twenty-four episodes. The anime first aired on the Chiba TV Japanese television network between April 8, 2007 and September 16, 2007, though aired concurrently on other networks. A light novel was released in September 2007. The anime has been licensed in the USA by Kadokawa Pictures and distributed by Bandai Entertainment; the first and second of six DVDs were released in North America, respectively, on May 6, 2008, and July 1, 2008, with the third to be released on September 2, 2008. An original video animation episode will be released on September 26, 2008 accompanied by a drama CD.

Lucky Star's story portrays the lives of several girls attending a Japanese high school named Ryōō with a very loose sense of humor। The setting is mainly based on the city of Kasukabe in Saitama Prefecture. main character is Konata Izumi, an athletic and intelligent girl who, despite these attributes, is not in a sports club and has to resort to all-nighter cramming for tests. Her laziness at school is due to her love for anime and video games and lack of interest in anything else. The serialization began with the four main characters in their first year of high school: Konata Izumi, Kagami Hiiragi, Tsukasa Hiiragi, and Miyuki Takara. As the story progresses, they move on to their second and third years. However, the anime starts the story with them beginning their second year. The storyline usually includes numerous references to popular past and present manga and anime series. Konata Izumi (泉 こなた, Izumi Konata?) Voiced by: Ryō Hirohashi (drama CD), Aya Hirano (anime), Wendee Lee (English) The very representation of an otaku, Konata (or sometimes called 'Kona-chan') is the childish but good-natured leader of the Lucky Star girls. Usually a lazy girl who is 'occupied' with video or online games, manga, anime, or all of the above, Konata is actually capably intelligent and athletic, but does not join any school clubs because of her otaku interests. Konata works at a cosplay café with underclassman Patricia Martin due to her hobbies and often deals with Kagami pestering her for not working hard enough on her studies. She lives with her widowed father (an otaku who often buys adult games for himself and Konata), as well as her younger cousin Yutaka Kobayakawa, who goes to her school (although she is even shorter than Konata). She has a comedic friendship with Kagami, Tsukasa, and Miyuki, although at widely varying degrees. Kagami Hiiragi (柊 かがみ, Hiiragi Kagami?) Voiced by: Ami Koshimizu (drama CD), Emiri Kato (anime), Kari Wahlgren (English) Kagami is Tsukasa's older fraternal twin sister and is occasionally referred to as "Kagamin". In school, her grades are excellent because she studies very hard. She was even the class president in her first year. She is in a different class than Konata and Tsukasa, but she frequently comes to their class during lunch time to eat with them. Kagami is often shown wishing she could be in the same class as everyone else. Kagami chose the humanities course in her second year so that she could be with her friends, but she was separated into a different classroom; the same thing happened in her third year. Kagami is also a bit egotistical, and is somewhat weak in cooking. Kagami is a stereotypical tsukkomi character, however, she is prone to becoming shy and emotional at times, making her appear as a tsundere character as well. Much like Konata, Kagami likes video games, but plays a different genre than Konata; Kagami likes to play shoot 'em up games. She loves to read light novels, but she feels lonely because no one around her shares this interest. Tsukasa Hiiragi Voiced by: Mai Nakahara (drama CD), Kaori Fukuhara (anime), Michelle Ruff (English) Tsukasa is the younger fraternal twin sister of Kagami and lives in a six-member family household with her parents. She is in the same class as Konata. While she is not good at studying or sports, she excels in cooking. She is portrayed as the stereotypical friendly, good-natured but clumsy person. She is often portrayed as an airhead who is unreliable and is always compared to her twin sister, who generally does better than her in most areas. It is often implied that Tsukasa is unable to follow the gist of complex conversations. Tsukasa will often ask her older sister for help on her homework, though it usually does not make much of a difference. She is also known for having her hair in the same style as Akari Kamigishi from To Heart, something hinted at frequently in the series. Miyuki Takara Voiced by: Erina Nakayama (drama CD), Aya Endo (anime), Karen Strassman (English) Miyuki is a young lady from a wealthy family who is beautiful, smart, and well-mannered. She always uses extremely polite Japanese, even when talking with her closest friends. She was the class president for her grade level in her first year, at the same time that she became good friends with Kagami. Now Miyuki is in the same class as Konata and Tsukasa, and is nicknamed "Yuki-chan" by Tsukasa. Miyuki's classmates often rely on her for help with their studies, and she is often shown giving impromptu but highly-detailed, encyclopedic definitions or explanations on diverse and obscure matters. She is described as a stereotypically friendly meganekko, or glasses-wearing girl. She is scared of contacts, and of putting them in her eyes, thus why she wears glasses. Her vision is less than 20/200, though it had been good until elementary school, when she began reading books in the dark after her mother dozed off while reading to her in bed. She likes to read books, but does not read light novels. Miyuki loves to sleep, and she always goes to bed fairly early. She hates visits to the dentist, but frequently has to go to fix a loose crown or because of tooth decay. On the rare occasion that she plays video games, her personality changes. Due to her embodying such a large number of moe archetypes—as Konata said it—Miyuki is the frequent-victim of Konata's playful bouts of verbal sexual-harassment. The four-panel comic strip manga version of Lucky Star started serialization in the Japanese magazine Comptiq on January 2004 and is still currently running. There are currently five bound volumes of the manga, published by Kadokawa Shoten. Volume one was released on January 8, 2005, volume two on August 10, 2005, volume three on July 10, 2006, volume four on April 10, 2007, and volume five on September 10, 2007. Besides Comptiq, the manga was also featured in other Kadokawa publishings including Shōnen Ace, Newtype, CompAce, Dragon Magazine, Mobile Newtype and Kadokawa Hotline for various lengths of time. The manga has been licensed by Bandai Entertainment for release in English in North America.[6] Lucky Star also has a manga called Lucky Star Pocket Travelers which has the four main characters waking up one morning to discover they have shrunken to doll size. A video game, entitled Lucky Star Moe Drill (らき☆すた 萌えドリル, Raki☆Suta Moe Doriru?), was released on December 1, 2005 on the Nintendo DS. A limited edition game with many extras was sold called the "DX Pack" along with the regular version. A sequel, with the title of Shin Lucky Star Moe Drill: Tabidachi (真・らき☆すた 萌えドリル~旅立ち~, Shin Raki☆Suta Moe Doriru ~Tabidachi~?) was released on May 24, 2007. The first game tests the player on various subjects and memorizations. The player's main objective is beating other characters in quizzes. There is also a "Drama Mode" where the game plays like a mini-adventure game as you make your way to Akihabara. Math quizzes and mini games (about five in all) pop up as you play along. There are two different types of one-person games: "Hitasura Drill" and "Drama Mode". The player can also link the game with another person. When this occurs, the player can use the character that is built up in Drama Mode as a choosable character. Additionally, if the player wants to use a special battle skill against his or her opponent while in link mode, the player must shout out the name of the skill into the microphone. In Drama Mode, the player partners with one of the characters, and tries to increase her parameters and have her learn new battle skills. There are five different types of "drills". One of the quizzes called "Ondoku" requires the player to shout out the answer into the microphone. Several mascot characters of large anime and dōjin shops (like Broccoli's Di Gi Charat, Animate's Anime Tencho and Toranoana's Miko-chan) make cameo appearances.

Anime:
Fushigi Yuugi
Anime:
Fushigi Yuugi

The anime world today

Anime listen in Japanese, but typically pronounced in English is animation in Japan and considered Japanese animation in the rest of the world. Anime dates from about 1917.

Anime is widely viewed in Japan and is now widely viewed throughout the world. Anime itself is considered a form of limited animation. Anime can be broadcasted either through television or released directly to video, which are often called OVAs or OAV (Original Animation Video).

Anime can be hand drawn or computer assisted. It is used in television series, films, video, video games, commericals, and internet-based releases, and represents all genres of fiction.

History

The history of anime begins at the start of the 20th century, when Japanese filmmakers experimented with the animation techniques that were being explored in France, Germany, the United States, and Russia. The oldest known anime in existence was screened in 1917; it was a two minute clip of a samurai trying to test a new sword on his target, only to suffer defeat.

By the 1930s, animation became an alternative format of storytelling compared to the underdeveloped live-action industry in Japan. Unlike America, the live-action industry in Japan remained a small market and suffered from budgeting, location, and casting restrictions. The lack of Western-looking actors, for example, made it next to impossible to shoot films set in Europe, America, or fantasy worlds that do not naturally involve Japan. Animation allowed artists to create any characters and settings.

The success of Disney's 1937 feature film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs influenced Japanese animators. Osamu Tezuka adapted and simplified many Disney animation techniques to reduce the costs and number of frames in the production. This was intended to be a temporary measure to allow him to produce material on a tight schedule with an inexperienced animation staff.

During the 1970s, there was a surge of growth in the popularity of manga—which were often later animated—especially those of Osamu Tezuka, who has been called a "legend and the "god of manga". His work and that of other pioneers in the field, inspired characteristics and genres that are fundamental elements of anime today. The giant robot genre (known as "Mecha" outside Japan), for instance, took shape under Tezuka, developed into the Super Robot genre under Go Nagai and others, and was revolutionized at the end of the decade by Yoshiyuki Tomino who developed the Real Robot genre. Robot anime like the Gundam and Macross series became instant classics in the 1980s, and the robot genre of anime is still one of the most common in Japan and worldwide today. In the 1980s, anime became more accepted in the mainstream in Japan (although less than manga), and experienced a boom in production. Following a few successful adaptations of anime in overseas markets in the 1980s, anime gained increased acceptance in those markets in the 1990s and even more in the 2000s.

Terminology

In Japanese, the English term animation is written in katakana as (animēshon, pronounced [ɑnimeːɕoɴ]). The shortened term, anime emerged in the 1970s. Both the original and abbreviated forms are valid and interchangeable in Japanese, but the shorter form is more commonly used.

The pronunciation of anime in Japanese, ɑnime, differs significantly from the Standard English IPA: /ˈænɪmeɪ/ which have different vowels and stress. (In Japanese each mora carries equal stress.) As with a few other Japanese words such as saké, Pokémon, and Kobo Abé, anime is sometimes spelled animé in English (as in French), with an acute accent over the final e, to cue the reader that the letter is pronounced, not silent as would be expected in English. However, this accent does not appear in any commonly used system of romanized Japanese and is not in frequent enough use to be recognised by the Oxford English Dictionary.

Word usage

In Japan, the term does not specify an animation's nation of origin or style; instead, it is used as a blanket term to refer to all forms of animation from around the world.[12][13] In English, dictionary sources define anime as "a Japanese style of motion-picture animation" or "a style of animation developed in Japan". Non-Japanese works that borrow stylization from anime is commonly referred to as "anime-influenced animation" but it is not unusual for a viewer who does not know the country of origin of such material to refer to it as simply "anime". Some works are co-productions with non-Japanese companies, such as the Cartoon Network and Production I.G series IGPX or Ōban Star-Racers, which may or may not be considered anime by different viewers.

In English, anime can be used as a common noun ("Do you watch anime?") or as a suppletive adjective ("The anime Guyver is different from the movie Guyver"). It may also be used as a mass noun, as in "How much anime have you collected?" and therefore is not pluralized as animes.

Synonyms

Anime is occasionally referred to as Japanimation, but this term has fallen into disuse.[15] Japanimation saw the most usage during the 1970s and 1980s, but was supplanted by anime in the mid-1990s as the material became more widely known in English-speaking countries.[16] In general, the term now only appears in nostalgic contexts.[16] Although the term was coined outside Japan to refer to animation imported from Japan, it is now used primarily in Japan, to refer to domestic animation; since anime does not identify the country of origin in Japanese usage, Japanimation is used to distinguish Japanese work from that of the rest of the world.

In Japan, manga can additionally refer to both animation and comics (although the use of manga to refer to animation is mostly restricted to non-fans).[citation needed] Among English speakers, manga usually has the stricter meaning of "Japanese comics".[citation needed] An alternate explanation is that it is due to the prominence of Manga Entertainment, a distributor of anime to the US and UK markets. Because Manga Entertainment originated in the UK the use of the term is common outside of Japan.[citation needed] The term "animanga" has been used to collectively refer to anime and manga, though it is also a term used to describe comics produced from animation cels.

Anime is commonly referred as an art form. As a visual medium, it naturally places a large emphasis towards visual styles. The styles can vary from artist to artist or by studio to studio. Some titles make extensive use of common stylization: FLCL, for example, is known for its wild, exaggerated stylization. In contrast, titles such as Only Yesterday or Jin-Roh take much more realistic approaches, featuring few stylistic exaggerations.

While different titles and different artists have their own artistic styles, many stylistic elements have become so common such that they are described as being definitive of anime in general. However, this does not mean that all modern anime share one strict, common art style. Many anime have a very different art style from what would commonly be called "anime style", yet fans still use the word "anime" to refer to these titles. Generally, the most common form of anime drawings are "exaggerated physical features such as large eyes, big hair and elongated limbs... and dramatically shaped speech bubbles, speed lines and onomatopoeic, exclamatory typography.

The influences of Japanese calligraphy and Japanese painting also characterize linear qualities of the anime style. The round Ink brush traditionally used for writing Kanji and for painting produces a stroke of widely varying thickness.

Visual characteristics

Anime also tends to borrow many elements from manga including text in the background, and borrowing panel layouts from the manga as well. For example, an opening may employ manga panels to tell the story, or to dramatize a point for humorous effect. This is best demo

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