It looks like there will be a bit of a disruption in the School Rumble manga translation project, as the founder and lead translator for Manga! Inc. has thrown in the towel, and professes to not want to translate comics for us, the leeching public, anymore. Translating comics can be a tedious, tiresome, thankless job sometimes. Of course, tedious, tiresome, and thankless are characteristics of many jobs, but scanslation projects have no paychecks attached to make the tedium, energy, and indignity worthwhile. At this time, the futures of the School Rumble, Genzou Hitogata Kiwa, Higanjima, Jaja Uma Grooming Up, GacchaGacha, and NHK ni Youkoso are up in the air.

Thanks for over a year of fun manga, man.

As mentioned previously, there is a glut of moe anime hitting the television in Japan right now. One of which is a re-hash of a re-hash of a re-hash of the classic Go Nagai series Cutey Honey. The first remake emphasized the fanservice aspects of the title, the second tried to readjust the theme to better fit the Magical Girl craze of the mid-1990’s. This time around, in three 90-minute chunks of OAV glory, we see more of an emphasis on the seventies-nostalgia take on things. The magical-girl elements are still there, and it just wouldn’t be Cutey Honey without fan service, but stylisticly I must say that this one outpaces all previous incarnations of the title.

The story revolves around Honey Kisaragi, the perky daughter of Doctor Kisaragi. After his daughter died, the brilliant doctor created an android in her image. Now this android simulacrum of Honey Kisaragi battles the forces of evil, running around in tights with a sword, occassionally “transforming” into alternate forms. Mostly this involves her current outfit exploding off of her and a new outfit re-forming around her, giving her new abilities. The villains amount to a bunch of monsterous “bosses” and mobs of cookie-cutter henchlings that enjoy wrecking havok on Tokyo.

Add in an uptight police detective, a mysterious-but-charming man claiming to be a newspaper reporter, and a lot of bold, retro colorschemes and background music, and you have an enjoyable, if somewhat shallow 90 minutes of fun. Anime Forever is a group that is fansubbing it for us beigokujin.

Editorial note: at some point, the creators of Cutey Honey material started spelling it “Cutie Honey.” For the purposes of consistency, I am using the spelling I was originally exposed to.

Toei finally came out with the second episode of Interlude, and the kind folks at Triad were nice enough to provide free English versions to a western public that is starved for quality entertainment. I was first exposed to this title around the same time as Samurai Champloo, and had high expectations for both. I’m pleased to report that both haven’t let me down. Interlude continues to show the nature of the stange world that the protagonist has been catching glimpses of. He soon discovers that getting back out of the strange shadow-world may not be so easy.

I understand everything in this series will be wrapped up next episode, at least according to the fansubbers.