Welcome to Japari Park, a futuristic nature preserve where a mysterious substance called “Sand Star” transforms wild animals into affable, anthropomorphic characters called “Friends” who spend their carefree days frolicking for the amusement of the human guests. One day, a lost human child wanders into …Read more »
Kobayashi, suffering a severe hangover, walks zombie-like through her morning routine getting ready for work. Just as she opens the front door to her fourth-story apartment, she’s greeted by the searing yellow eyes and long, green snout of a building-sized dragon staring directly at her. …Read more »
If angels had to work hard to learn their craft, even learning among regular students in the human world, things would be pretty wacky. That’s the premise of Gabriel DropOut, which follows Gabriel, the angel who’s gotten the best grades and had the most impressive …Read more »
The Takakura siblings—triple protagonists of Kunihiko Ikuhara’s Mawaru Penguindrum—have inherited a broken world. As heirs to the leaders of the Kige terrorist group that bombed Japan’s subway lines some 16 years ago, they have been left little by their vanished parents’ beyond their onerous reputations …Read more »
Imagine, if you will, the thundering power of giant robot anime intermingling seamlessly with a dreamy shojo-style narrative. Wait, you don’t have to imagine it, because Sunrise’s The Vision of Escaflowne exists! Whether you remember the series from 20 years ago or this is your …Read more »
Unless you’re an Attack on Titan fan, there usually isn’t too significant of a wait between anime seasons (sick burn, right?). Sure, there are some outliers, but Blue Exorcist is in rare company. Not counting 2012’s anime film, we went from 2011 to 2017 without …Read more »
The world of light novel publication is a fast and furious affair where imitation is the highest form of flattery. When an idea hits it big, you can bet your bottom dollar (or your smallest yen coin) that a slew of series with similar premises …Read more »
If you’ve ever been made fun of, you’ll immediately gravitate to Masamune-kun’s Revenge, the show that pits two very different individuals against each other because of a childhood argument. Masamune Makabe and Aki Adagaki are forever at each other’s throats, thanks to Masamune’s decision to …Read more »
The furballs are back! When we last left them (four years ago!), the tanuki of the Shimogamo family found out exactly how their patriarch came to be the main ingredient in the Friday Club’s hot pot, the heartbroken-gone-mad Soun was banished from tanuki society, and the …Read more »
The season finale at Episode 25 left anime viewers with many unanswered questions, but none more vital than “how long until new episodes come out?” Yet no new Attack on Titan season was even in the pipeline, such that it’s only now—nearly four years later—that …Read more »
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a human, a demon, and a Buddha walk into a temple … in an alternate dimension through a drawing as led by a magical priest and his anthropomorphic rabbit-wife. Wait, you’ve not yet seen the humorous, touching, …Read more »
The dark fantasy realm in which the current anime adaptations of Kentaro Miura’s Berserk unfolds is a turbulent existence, where it’s a struggle for heroes to survive each day as they’re relentlessly assailed by ceaseless hordes of malevolent beings fixated on their destruction. In a …Read more »
Ten years ago, the very first issue of Otaku USA (August 2007 cover date) went on sale in a world that was very different from the one we inhabit today. But how did it all happen? Read below as the staff remembers. Mark Hintz (Chief …Read more »
Live-action adaptations of manga and anime are common—the reverse, not so much. The live action-to-anime adaptation is a rare beast indeed, but one that seems to be of particular interest to popular indie director Shunji Iwai, who, in 2015, used animation to create a prequel …Read more »
Yoshino Koharu has found herself in a bit of bind. She’s on the edge of graduating from college and she’s searching for full-time employment in the sleepless metropolis of Tokyo, because Tokyo is where everything happens. The problem is she’s already had 30 different interviews …Read more »
Paul Thomas Chapman
Ink
Brittany Vincent
Austin Price
Joseph Luster
Daryl Surat
Otaku USA Staff
Matt Schley
Michael Goldstein