Category Archives: genshiken

Kio Shimoku Twitter Highlights September 2021

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Much of Kio’s tweeting this month has had to do with the fact that Hashikko Ensemble Volume 7 went on sale on the 22nd, and Spotted Flower Volume 5 is out on the 30th…on top of Chapter 44 of Hashikko! There are lots of inevitable scheduling woes, but he’s actually also been responding to and retweeting readers in a concerted fashion for the first time.

Even I got a retweet!

Hashikko Ensemble and Spotted Flower Releases

Hashikko Ensemble Volume 7 cover check. Kio seems fine with it.

All Spotted Flower volumes have a plastic cover jacket with characters in clothes that obscures a second paper cover jacket with the characters in underwear. Kio gives a sneak peek here.

Kio mentions that there are store-exclusive extras for Spotted Flower.

Kurotaki Mai in a bunny outfit, as a late celebration of Bunny Day, but also to promote the new release.

The next chapter of Hashikko Ensemble has a ridiculous amount of lyrics and musical effects, but while the work seemed to never end, it’s finally almost over.

With the work on both upcoming volume releases more or less over, Kio decides to do some cleaning.

Kio discusses with 18+ manga artist Ikuhana Niro (who also publishes in Rakuen: Le Paradis) about ways to abbreviate Hashikko Ensemble and Spotted Flower in Japanese. Ikuhana uses HashiAn and SupoHana, while Kio originally uses Hashikko and SupoFura, but also Spotted in hiragana or katakana. Supote is brought up, with the idea that it sounds like Ponite (ponytail).

The Rakuen: Le Paradis Twitter account chimes in that Supote is one sale 9/30.

Kio responds with thanks to those who tweeted about supporting the release of Hashikko Ensemble, Volume 7. He doesn’t quote tweet readers all that much, so it feels special. 

A fan mentions that they’ve always liked Genshiken and stuff, but only recently got into Hashikko Ensemble and wish they did so sooner. Kio tells them to enjoy it at their own pace.

Kio mentions that there are store-exclusive bonuses for Volume 5 of Spotted Flower. (I’ll be getting the Ogino-sensei ones from Melonbooks and Animate.)

A drawing used for promotional store displays for Volume 5.

Kio talks about how intense the Basso Masters from Hashikko Ensemble are.

Kio talks about how he couldn’t find any footage of a three-girl group singing “Zenryoku Shounen.”

Showing his drawing of the Chorus Appreciation Society performing “Etupirka” versus an actual performance.

Other Works

In response to a TSUTAYA bookstore showing its display bookshelf for manga artist panpanya, Kio responds that it’s sandwiched in one hell of a place, given the shelves on each side (Blue Lock, Demon Slayer).

Kio up until recently still was not a fan of Kurita Kan’ichi as the voice of Lupin III ever since he took over the role in the 1990s. However, he’s noticed that rather than sounding like an imitation, Kurita’s performances now have a weight and seriousness that has allowed Kio to finally accept his Lupin.

Fanart of Isako from Dennou Coil. (WATCH DENNOU COIL!)

Kio sees Five Star Stories models and reminisces about when he built his first resin-kit Akatsuki from that series.

Kio retweets an article talking about a journey with toy soldiers that began from a panpanya manga.

Unknown

Kio talks about the good work an “Akio-san” did on photos. What it means is still unclear.

Looking Ahead

This was a pretty tweet-heavy month for all the reasons above. I get the feeling we’ll be seeing less for October, but you never know.
I also posted these highlights right before the 9/30 release date of Spotted Flower Volume 5, so I’m sure I’ll be covering a lot just from that!

Kio Shimoku Twitter Highlights August 2021

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Not a ton of tweets this month, but if you’re interested in Kio’s thoughts about Rebuild of Evangelion (as well as his bout with work exhaustion and illness), here they are!

Works-Related

During a sale on the Kujibiki Unbalance manga, Kio talks about how this came before Jigopuri and Nidaime. “In a sense, it’s an original work closest to being a Genshiken spinoff.”

Kio has two volumes coming out in September (Spotted Flower v5 and Hashikko Ensemble v7), and he expressed that the amount of work he needs to put in to draw all the extra stuff was a challenge. However, he eventually managed to finish more recently.

Kio planned to take a 20-minute nap that turned into an hour. However, because his hands were feeling great, he called it a win.

Hase-san’s eyes quickly draw you in. (I think this is referring to Hasegawa Kozue from Hashikko Ensemble, but I’m not 100%.)

Kio makes a joke about his LCD tablet being really “hot,” except he means literally high-temperature. He realizes that he’s always used the tablet in air-conditioned environments, so he never really noticed it until now. He then decides the next day to use the AC after all.

Sick Kio

Kio was all prepared to hold a “lavish party” (which might just be “getting more work done”), but between his schedule and the side effects of this medicine (vaccine side effects?), he wanted to cancel. As he went back and forth between at least trying to work, he realized it wasn’t possible.

Evangelion, etc.

Last month, I left this tweet untranslated because I hadn’t seen Evangelion 3.01+1.01 yet. Now I have, and it’s time to delve into it. WARNING: SPOILERS

Kio was apparently a fan of the theory that Asuka and the other characters in Evangelion 3.33 were all from the old The End of Evangelion timeline, and the Rebuild characters were all imprisoned.  He also came into the final film ready to not be surprising by anything, but it was the gentleness of the movie that got to him.

Kio was too busy to go see Evangelion 3.0+1.01 in theaters again, so he listened to the soundtrack while working, and mentally recalled scenes from the film.

Kio commiserates with someone else about needing to pee partway through Evangelion 3.0+1.01—the nature of a movie that’s two-and-a-half hours long

Kio reacting to this month’s Five Star Stories. According to him, the designs can be disappointing in some ways, but the contents of the story are so rich. He seems to really feel the Shinnomaru and the Akatsuki. He had originally gotten some of Volks’s “Mighty Series” model kits, but didn’t build them. When someone he knew gave him the Akatsuki, though, he ended up finishing that one.

Music

A recounting of his experiences at the Secondary Culture Choir Festival, previously mentioned in the July tweet roundup. He’s not super knowledgeable about music still, but he enjoyed the sense of freedom with which they sang, and is grateful for the experience. He was announced as a “manga creator,” which he’s flattered by.

Kio has listened to this chorus before, but thinks they probably sound even more impressive in person.

…And that’s all for now. See you next month!

Kio Shimoku Twitter Highlights July 2021

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Once again, here are more interesting Kio Shimoku tweets for the past month. Not many drawings in July!

Works-Related

This is a small honor for me: Kio Shimoku quoted one of my tweets!

VIZ is releasing a Japanese Star Wars tribute artbook, and Kio’s work is in it. Kio mentions that his vision for his drawing was “What Kio Shimoku would like to draw.” The result is a bunch of Episode I characters.

Quoting this anatomy drawing, Kio recalls working on Kagerowic Diary. At the time, a friend asked him why he drew the girls with such muscular backs, and Kio’s response was that he just thought it’d be a good idea.

Kio announced the latest chapter of Hashikko Ensemble with a picture of Mai (good taste).

To fight off exhaustion, Kio went to the convenience store to buy a Red Bull only to discover that they have extra-long Red Bull cans now. Not only that, the long cans were actually sold out.

Other

Kio was invited to be a critic for Day 1 (August 14) of an otaku-themed music event called the Secondary Culture Choir Festival. He’s honored and flustered.

This is a tweet thread about Shin Evangelion. Because I haven’t seen this movie, I’m hesitating to translate it without proper context, but one thing Kio mentions is that he was really into the theory that Asuka and all the other characters from Evangelion Q were the characters from the old Death, Rebirth, and End of Evangelion films. I will probably revisit this once I’ve seen the film next month.

Kio is looking forward to Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid

He also likes—no, loves—KonoSuba.

In light of the death of Nasu Masumoto, the author of the Zukokke series of children’s books, Kio reminisces about his own experience reading them. He talks about how as a kid, they were the greatest: a mix of the real and the absurd that went between horror, fantasy, science fiction, and the everyday. He and his classmates would get caught up in imagining their own adventures.

A photo Kio took of some clouds.

Kio Shimoku Twitter Highlights June 2021

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These are tweets from manga author Kio Shimoku from June 2021 that I found notable and informative. They include a number of early sketches from Genshiken, and his dreams of having a vacation home just for building model kits.

Genshiken and Related Drawings

Though he can’t quite remember, Kio presumes this is Ogiue practice from Genshiken. He thinks he made her too loli in these drawings.

Original Sue design from Genshiken. Kio thinks she comes across differently here.

Early Madarame. Kio thinks he captured the spirit of the character well. Character descriptions on the drawing include: close-cropped hair, thin, lolicon, high-energy, glasses, and likes fighting games. Originally, he was supposed to be the best at fighting games among the group, and his preferred main was Nakoruru from Samurai Shodown. The notes also describe him as being essentially the leader of the club despite being a second-year, and also that he likes to tease others.

(What I find interesting is that the fighting game skills went to Kohsaka, and that the character gained a lot more vulnerabilities in the actual manga. Those flaws are part of why people like Madarame, and here we see sort of what could have been.)

Ogiue autograph boards, the purpose for which Kio doesn’t remember.

By the way, if anyone has the actual final versions of these, I would like to make a deal.

Sketches of anime directors Ikehata Takahashi and Mizushima Tsutomu. Both worked on Genshiken anime.

A rough manuscript of a manga Kio was planning before Genshiken. It would have been an action series featuring magical sage powers (senjutsu).

The wife’s ex from Spotted Flower, crossdressing as part of a prank on the editor character.

Giant Robots and Model Kits

A custom design for a Zeong. Kio feels like he still doesn’t have what it takes to make this work.

A 20-year-old photo Kio took of a model kit he built. The robot is the L.E.D. Mirage from Five Star Stories, and the photo was taken with a non-digital camera. Airbrushing was probably involved.

Kio saw Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway’s Flash. Even though the Universal Century timeline has been around for a long time, the film is full of imagery he’s never seen before: what first class looks like for civilian space travel, a military mess hall that’s like a food court, the terror of having to move around the legs of mobile suits in combat. He was glued to his seat while watching..

A 1/144 model kit of the Waff from Gundam: The Origin. It’s the only airbrushed Gundam model Kio has, and he likes how it’s small but still looks chubby. 

Kio’s first tank model kit: the Panzer IV Ausf.D from Girls und Panzer. Kio mentions not really knowing how to do weathering, and that he used the darkest paint from the Waff on this kit as well. He also likes how sharp the details are.

The first thing that Kio thinks of when he sees the term “plastic model training camp” is Plamo Kyoushirou, the proto–Gundam Build Fighters manga. He recalls wanting to be like the characters taking the kit boxes out and saying, “I’m gonna make the Dougram!” and “I’ve got the Real-Type Zaku!” 

After he became an adult, he started collecting them to his heart’s content. It’s why he wants an extra vacation home, so he can have room for all the kits—though actually, he has so many he can’t add any more. But model kits keep on evolving, and he wants to keep up.

Kio continues to describe his dream of a lodging just for model kits that would have all the equipment and features needed to build kits, and stacks of manga to read. Then, he and the others there would go out at night for drinks.

After someone mentions that the possibility is closer than he might think, the conversation mentions a Wonder Festival dealer named “Backyennew.” Kio responds that he knows this garage kit maker.

Responses to Other Works

Kio recalls this crossover drawing between different Shounen Sunday characters. After trying to remember what happens on the next page, a follower answers that it was a kind of fourth-wall breaking moment where they mention that the other manga authors said to do this.

Kio watched the anime film Pompo: The Cinéphile, and thinks it’s a really interesting movie. He talks about how important the editing process is, and recalls that back when he worked on Gonensei [The Fifth-Year], he tried to cram every idea in. For that reason, the progress the character Gene makes as a first-time director is impressive.

By the time of Genshiken, Kio knew how to edit down better, though he actually just took the cut material and turned them into extras in the collected volumes.

The director of Pompo, Hirao Takayuki, is happy that Kio “of Genshiken fame” tweeted about the film. Hirao says he read Gonensei, and that the pain from that manga is still with him today. Kio gives him a big thank-you, mentions how young and inexperienced he was at the time of Gonensei, and compliments Hirao for the highly technical edits. Kio also says the movie being shorter is a good thing, and that he still want so get the second half of the limited-edition extra booklets.

…And here he is with both extras.

Kio says that even though he only read a little bit, Uncle from Another World is a manga that made him think that he’d like to see it as an anime.

In order to get all the limited-edition goods, Kio went to see Shin Evangelion four times. The fourth time around, he felt he could just sit back and enjoy the movie.

Hashikko Ensemble

Kio points out that this song, “Ame” (Rain) from “Mizu no Inochi” (The Life of Water) is mentioned in Volume 3 of Hashikko Ensemble.

Kio went to see this mini concert by the Oedo Coraliars. He was blown away by the harmonizing.

Until next time!

Kio Shimoku Twitter Highlights May 2021

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Tweets of interest from Kio Shioku’s official Twitter for May 2021:

This past month saw the unfortunate passing of Miura Kentaro, author of Berserk.

“Whaaaaaa?!”

“I can’t believe it…Berserk is actually…”

 “Whether it was his art, his storytelling, or his characters, he poured his overwhelming passion into everything. I’m trying to find the right words, but I don’t have them…My deepest and heartfelt condolences for Miura-sensei in his passing.”

Shin Evangelion Reaction

“I saw Shin Eva. It wasn’t an illusion. It wasn’t, right…?”

Kio watched a recording of The Professional: Anno Hideaki where Anno says, “I’m okay with dying for my creations.” This made Kio’s head spin. (Having come so soon after Miura’s death, it seems to have hit Kio extra hard.)

Art

A rough nude sketch of Ogino-sensei from Spotted Flower and a preview of the next chapter out.

Kio’s first drawing of first-generation Kasukabe Saki from Genshiken in many years.

Kurotaki Mai from Hashikko Ensemble.

Otaku moments with Hasegawa, previously posted on the @hashikko_music account. She worries about having accidentally outed herself as an otaku, but when asked if she’s a fujoshi, Hasegawa responds, “That isn’t the setting this time.” Also, when Shion expresses interest in Miyazaki anime, Hasegawa considers going into the deep end: Horus: Prince of the Sun, Panda Go Panda, Heidi, 3,000 Leagues in Search of Mother, Anne of Green Gables.

More previous art. Orihara loves the “AMEN”s, and Hasegawa does a pose from what I believe is Hellsing?

The pet tortoise

Miscellaneous

Kio explains that the “broken Gouf leg joint” incident from Genshiken wasn’t exactly based on reality, but he had a similar experience as a kid. In a later tweet, though, he realizes that the reason it happened to him is because model kits in those days didn’t use polycaps on ball joints, which made for a less maneuverable limb.

Kio quit his habit of downing energy drinks before starting his work.

That’s all for this month!

Spotted Flower and Fusion Characters?

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Spotted Flower is Kio Shimoku’s refracted-universe version of his hit manga Genshiken, but as the series goes on, more and more major differences crop up. Recently, I realized that one major change might be that a few characters are, in essence, fused together from different Genshiken characters.

Since her first appearances in Spotted Flower, there has been a certain character who looks and behaves much like Sue Hopkins from Genshiken. Outside of age—Spotted Flower characters are all far into adulthood as opposed to being roughly college age—the major difference between Sue and Not-Sue is that the latter has much wider hips and larger breasts. From the neck down, she’s much closer to Angela Burton, the other Genshiken American character.

I originally chalked up Not-Sue’s physical qualities to just being another way to slightly bend the details of Genshiken to make it “different enough,” but a recent side chapter of Spotted Flower, 35.5, makes me think that the merging of characters might be a recurring aspect of the series.

In it, Not-Sasahara racks his brain over trying to interpret Not-Sue’s signals, and the possibility of a threesome. As he’s trying to shake off the mental image of Ogino-sensei (aka Not-Ogiue) and Not-Sue together nude, he has an expression that is very uncharacteristic of Sasahara but makes him look just like Kuchiki, the annoying guy from Genshiken who has issues with boundaries. The resemblance to Kuchiki is further enhanced by the character’s hairstyle. This leads me to believe that Not-Sasahara might actually be better described as a kind of “Kuchihara,” though mostly dominated by the Sasahara side in terms of personality.

Endou, the “original character” who’s actually closer to Yoshitake than anyone else is probably not a fusion, but she feels like she belongs in a similar territory. In her case, it’s almost like she’s a mix of Yoshitake and a Genshiken character who never made it off the drawing board.

Not every character in Spotted Flower is a mash-up, as plenty map onto their Genshiken characters pretty comfortably. However, I’m keeping my eye out for any potential combos from now on.

Kio Shimoku Twitter Highlights April 2021

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Another month of Kio Shimoku tweets is here! The guy has finally learned how to thread tweets, which makes things easier for me. A lot of the month was promoting his books, as well as other titles in Rakuen: Le Paradis, where Spotted Flower runs.

Crossover Images Featuring Genshiken, Hashikko Ensemble, and Spotted Flower

A crossover between Jin and Madarame.

Image 1:

“Stand like you’re being held by a string from the sky!” [a way to teach proper posture for singing]

“It’s normal for me to be hunched over, you know. *mutter*”

A duo who will never see eye to eye.

Image 2:

“So what was like in high school?”

“Well, it was pretty ordinary. I was in an otaku club…and I had long hair…”

“Ahh, Hashi Tech has one of those too. It’s called the Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture.”

“……Huh?”

I find this amusing because I sort of think of Jin and Madarame as similar characters, but they’re actually quite different. Jin is almost like if you mixed Madarame and Kohsaka.

Also, it turns out that teenage Madarame, Tanaka, and Kugayama doppelgangers (in an actual Genshiken club) actually did make a cameo in Hashikko Ensemble!

Old drawings from the @hashikko_music Twitter. In the first, Hasegawa is commenting that Sue has a nasty expression. In the second, Himari is about to make the same comment about Ogino-sensei, but is struck by their similarities.

More old drawings from the other account. This time, it’s Not-Sue holding Himari, only to realize it’s not Ogino-sensei.

Ohno and Mimi-sensei…and also Shion, who wants a grab.

More Tortoise!

Sleeping Tortoise Pose Series. Pose: Manji

Kio recalls a moment from 10 years ago, where a stray cat was curiously poking at the tortoise as the latter slowly tried to scuttle away. He remarks that, amazingly, this is the same tortoise who now actively rams the window asking to be let in.

Here’s how the turtle crawls in.

Miscellaneous

Thanking Taniguchi Jun’ichirou for his animation work on Genshiken. This includes Nidaime and the original series, where Taniguchi and Mizushima Tsutomu (who would later go on to direct Nidaime) worked on the infamous “nose hair” episode.

And another old drawing about washing your hands. I believe this was from early on in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kio bought an L-Gaim model kit!

Kurotaki Mai from Hashikko Ensemble with extremely realistic bunny ears.

That’s all for this month!

Genshiken’s Kio Shimoku Is Now on Twitter!

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In one of the biggest pieces of Genshiken-related news to come out in a long time, author Kio Shimoku finally has a Twitter account, @kioshimoku1!

He’s genuinely new to the platform, as he seems to not even understand how to thread tweets. He also doesn’t really respond to fan tweets. Even so, it’s become a great place to learn things about the man that were previously unknown. But in recent years, he’s been willing to open up more (and has even done a couple interviews), and now he’s providing valuable creator insight and even a bit of personal history.

While I would love to translate everything, I don’t have the time for such a time-consuming endeavor. Instead, what I’m thinking of doing is just sharing some highlights from Kio’s account once a month or so. 

Here’s one group of noteworthy tweets, as well as a summary below.

After having watched the Professional episode on Anno Hideaki, Kio reminisces about past Anno works, like Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind [where he was an animator] and Nadia: Secret of Blue Water. Aim for the Top! he couldn’t watch as it was coming out because it was an OVA, and his family only had Betamax, so he couldn’t rent tapes. Years later, after winning the Afternoon Four Seasons Award for manga while in college, he used his prize money to buy a VCR.

Kio believes he first heard of Nadia from the very first info about it in Animage, and thinks (but isn’t certain) that he knew Anno’s name at that point. Kio was all about Miyazaki Hayao’s anime at that time, and believed anime should be all about big adventures, so he recorded Nadia on Betamax every week. He certainly did notice the production issues that anime faced, though.

After trying to remember if he drew any Nadia fan works at the time, he remembers that one of his drawing submissions was actually published in Animage. [Note: I wonder if we could find his drawing…] He’s also pretty sure he drew some Nadia doujinshi, but can’t remember what it was about (other than it was not pornographic).

But then…

Kio is reminded by his Twitter followers that he not only drew a Nadia fan comic in 2012 as part of an anthology, but that he made the exact same response of having drawn doujin but having no recollection of the contents.

Finally, Kio drew this picture of Nadia in a plugsuit.

Speaking of drawings, it’s one of the best reasons to follow Kio on Twitter.

Sue vs. Hasegawa

Sue vs. Hasegawa aftermath

People have been saying she reminds them of Yajima from Genshiken, so Kio provided these notes.

Hasegawa Kozue, first-year Architecture and Construction major at Hashimoto Technical High School.

  • She was introduced unceremoniously to Hashikko Ensemble, but she has such a powerful presence that she became one of the central characters. She became the group’s conductor so easily that she feels broken.
  • She’s the only one who can fight Sue toe-to-toe.
  • Despite being only a 1-dan in Judo, she can toss her 2-dan older brothers (and others of that level) around with ease.
  • She sometimes acts as the author’s avatar.

Ogiue! Kio practiced drawing Ogiue in an older style for the Twitter introduction image at the top of this post.

Kio Shimoku has a pet turtle.

Orihara and Shion

And that’s all for this time. Look forward to next month, maybe?

More Like “Protoculture Festival”: Hashikko Ensemble, Chapter 31

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After months of focusing on the same song, the musical possibilities explode.

Summary

Still at their summer training camp (of sorts), the Chorus Appreciation Society decides that they will do four songs for the school culture festival. The only catch is that they’re having trouble narrowing down a final list, even after listening to a wide variety of options.

Ultimately, the group decides that the songs will be chosen by three of the singers plus Hasegawa choose, with Orihara abstaining. To everyone’s surprise, despite his previous objections, Jin actually chooses a song with piano. What’s even more surprising, then, is that Akira doesn’t. While the gentle and harmonious tunes of Akira’s pick resonate with the whole group, Shion is clearly upset and calls Akira a traitor for the second time, despite having forgotten about the first incident.

Songs They Didn’t Choose

Normally, I leave the song list to the end of the review as a bit of extra fun. However, since there’s so many this time and they’re such a central part of this chapter, I thought it best to list them all from the beginning, to split the list up, and to make it the main focus of this review.

Part of the fun is also in looking up what all of these sound like to get a better understanding of why they were or weren’t picked. There’s also the inevitable hurdle of manga being a non-audio media, and I think Kio still hasn’t figured out a way to make the visualization of each song feel different, so it can make the reading experience feel a bit incomplete.

“Daitokai” by Crystal King, aka the Fist of the North Star singers. I actually wish they picked this one!

“Ame” (“Rain”) composed by Tada Takehiko

“Gekkou to Piero” (“Moonlight and Clown”) composed by Shimizu Osamu

“Composition for Men’s Chorus” composed by Mamiya Michio

“Kareki to Taiyou no Uta” (“Song of the Withered Tree and Sun” Ishii Kan

“Kotoba Asobi Uta 2″ (Song Playing with Words 2” and “Kabe Kieta” (“The Wall Disappeared”) composed by Niimi Tokuhide

“Koi no Nai Hi” (“A Day Without Love”), “Itsu kara Ya ni Tatte”, and “Hakobune” (“Ark”), composed by “Kinoshita Makiko” 

“Mizu no Inochi” composed by Takata Saburou

Gabriel Foure’s “Requiem Op. 48” (This wasn’t a choice, just a song Orihara wants to listen to on top-of-the-line audio equipment.)

The Four Culture Festival Songs

What I find interesting about these is how the reasons behind each pick clearly reflect the characters themselves.

“March 9” by Remioromen 

Shinji purposely picks a song that everyone is familiar with, given that the established goal is to attract new members and become a full-fledged club. It has a soft pop rock feel, and I think it speaks to the fact that Shinji has gotten into singing but is still all about exploring castles. Even though I personally didn’t know this song, it just comes across as the most conventional choice.

“Do You Remember Love?” by Iijima Mari (cv. Lynn Minmei)

Last chapter, I predicted that Hasegawa would go for a Ghibli song, but she hit me with the curviest of curve balls, instead opting for the main theme of the film Macross: Do You Remember Love? Incidentally, it’s the only song besides “Daitokai” that I’ve actually heard before. Hasegawa has already shown her otaku side numerous times, but this really clinches her geek status, especially with her infodump about the historical significance of Macross as the first idol anime and the importance of Iijima Mari. I would love to see this animated, just so I could hear a men’s chorus version of this iconic anime song.

“Etupirka” composed by Hirose Ryouhei

While Jin’s song is not a capella like originally intended, it’s still technically difficult and speaks to his desire to show his mom that she’s wrong about him. Even my amateurish ears can tell this song is tough, given its pace. In addition to how “Etupirka” really seems to carry Jin’s will, one of my favorite moments in this chapter is seeing Shion get serious about figuring out how to play it. 

“Kokoro no Tsubasa” (“Wings of the Heart” composed by Kitagawa Noboru

Akira explains that he picked this song because the melody, lyrics, and harmony are all soft and gentle but also supportive. It makes sense, seeing as he also picked “Miagete Goran Yoru no Hoshi o” for the M-Con. It’s certainly a shock that he would not pick a song that includes a piano given how hard he fought for it and his feelings for Shion, but to me, it feels like the song itself was strong enough to him that it actually overrode his prior convictions. There’s a certain strength to Akira, even if it’s not always obvious. Either that, or he did it because he’s still feeling awkward when it comes to Shion.

Fun fact: For this chapter, the team behind Hashikko Ensemble actually got help from the composer Kitagawa Noboru!

Final Thoughts

First, I really want to see this series become an anime now.

Second, check out Shion with the Ogiue hair.

A Farewell to Arms, the Studio Behind Genshiken 2

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Last week, the Japanese animation studio Arms declared bankruptcy. Their legacy is primarily that of sex and fanservice, with titles like Mezzo Forte, Queen’s Blade, Another Lady Innocent, and Ikkitousen from Dragon Destiny on under their belts. But for me, Arms is first and foremost the studio behind the anime Genshiken 2. 

Ogiue Maniax started right around when Genshiken 2 first began airing in 2007, and its DVDs were the second anime I ever imported from Japan. In the photo above, there’s also a CD of Genchoken, a Genshiken 2-related radio show starring voice actors Mizuhashi Kaori (Ogiue) and Hiyama Nobuyuki (Madarame). 

One unique feature of Genshiken 2 compared to all other adaptations of the manga is that Arms treated it like the other works in their library and brought their, er, considerable talents to fore. Not only was artist Urushihara Satoshi (of Langrisser, Plastic Little, and Another Lady Innocent fame) the animation director on the opening, but there were more than a few scenes depicting extremely vivid nerd fantasies. The most famous might just be Ogiue’s fully animated fujoshi imagination regarding Sasahara and Madarame.

In that sense, Arms’s approach felt like an attempt to give Genshiken a more late-night anime appeal, for better or worse, and the DVDs did indeed uncensor the really racy stuff. However, while Arms certainly went places the manga never did (and thus potentially could have turned away fans of the original), I think that their execution of Genshiken 2 in some ways anticipates the sexually charged alternate Genshiken that is Spotted Flower. In fact, Arms probably would have been the right studio to animate that series if it were possible.

So thanks, Arms. Very rarely do my favorite characters get this much love, and you gave fans of the Genshiken boys and girls something unforgettable.

That all said, bankruptcy isn’t always the end. Who knows? Maybe that Spotted Flower adaptation isn’t completely out of the question.