Hey, everyone!

Every year the world of anime changes, even if just slightly. Whether it’s stunning new breakthroughs in animation or staple anime writers being fired, there’s always something new to dive into.

Here’s what’s going on in the world of anime today:

• Streaming industry bigshots are cutting deals, but things may not be as bleak as many content creators say.

• There’s an abundance of returning titles and new releases for this Spring season.

• The live action adaptation world might finally be taking off.

The issue (and solution) to Crunchyroll acquiring Funimation

Now there’s some real apprehension in the community about the merging of Crunchyroll and Funimation, mostly due to fears that Crunchyroll is jacking the prices way up now that they’re going to be the streaming industry’s monopoly. Some people are even reporting their yearly payments skyrocketing from $54.95 to $99.00. But is it true?

Short answer: While true, it’s all only a form of misinformation

The main issue stems from Funimation’s previously phased out “legacy tier,” that allowed a yearly subscription of $54.95. This tier hasn’t been an option for years, and was only a way to pay tribute to long term customers and appreciate their loyalty. With Funimation’s time drawing to a close, it’s only natural that legacy prices would end.

Fans outside of the legacy subscription will have no effect on their yearly pricing. Crunchyroll will still offer its $7.99/month deal for casual anime fans as well as its $99/year plan if you prefer any of Crunchyroll’s added features.

So don’t fear April 2nd, soon enough anime fans will have twice as much content on one streaming service!

Browsing the aisles of Spring 2024 Anime

Spring 2024 is going to be one of the most action-packed seasons in anime in a long time, with returning titles such as:

1. My Hero Academia, Season 7

2. Mushoku Tensei, Season 2 Part 2

3. Demon Slayer, Hashira Training Arc

4. Konasuba, Season 3

5. Black Butler: Public School Edition

6. Code Geass: Roze of the Recapture

7. Blue Lock: Episode Nagi

But in case you weren’t sold on any of these series, here’s two new anime to get hype for this Spring.

First up is “Mission: Yozakura Family”. The story centers around a super shy high shool student named Taiyou. The only person he has the courage to talk is Mutsumi but it turns out that she is the daughter of some crazy ultimate spy family. Looking at the trailer, it seems like this action-packed anime will be filled with all sorts of twists and turns.

This second pick isnt as much of a sleeper as the first (considering its first trailer has over 600k views on YT) but it needs to be mentioned as some people are saying that it will be the best anime of 2024. The anime is “Kaiju No. EIGHT”. The story follows Kafka, whose job it is to pick up the corpses of monsters called Kaiju. Kafka seems like a nice enough guy and his dream is to join the force responsible for taking down these monster. Ironically, Kafka ends up turning into one of them but he still wants to find a way to fight against the Kaiju. The first epoide will air on April 13th and you can check out the second trailer here.

Live action adaptations are finally good?

Ever since Netflix’s adaptation of One Piece, hopes have been high that live action adaptations are finally on the come up. This has been further confirmed by the overwhelming popularity of Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Often in anime we see live actions, for example the Death Note movie, that are so far removed from the source material that it isn’t surprising how disliked they’ve become. But with One Piece and now in A:TLA following the plot of their anime counterparts to a tee, maybe the spell is finally broken.

Quiz Time!

Eiichiro Oda, original author of the source material for One Piece, claims to have based his character Nami on what influential figure in his life?

1. Marilyn Monroe

2. A photo of his deceased grandmother

3. His wife

4. Asuka from Evangelion

And the answer is…

An Otaku’s Commentary

Thanks for reading!