Ms. Answerman

The Chronicles of Answerman

Hey Answerman,
Where can I buy (insert anime series here)? I've tried looking online but I can't find it.
Sincerely,
Vash4EVR

I get a lot of emails from people asking me to find a place where they can buy a certain series. Do you need me to clean the baby food off of your face with a bib, too? If you are looking for a series, use google, yahoo, or one of the other billion search engines out there. Try putting the title in quotations for a more accurate search. If it's an English title, use ANN's Encyclopedia and see if there's a Japanese title you should search for instead. If you've already done a few dozen searches on every group of words you can think of that relate to the series and still cannot find it, you aren't going to be able to buy it online. Some series are so old or so obscure that the only people who remember them are you and a handful of others who specialize in knowing obscure series. You might be able to find it if you fly to Japan, hire someone to translate for you, and go store-to-store searching out the lone store that may have it. If you don't have the money to do this, just be glad you've even heard of the series and move on to watch something you can actually buy. Please resist the urge to write in and fill up my mailbox with emails asking only for a website.

Dear Ms. Answerman,
I recently went to a local bookstore to pick up Comic Party volume 1 because it got a good review and because it sounded like a series I'd enjoy. To my surprise there were 2 different Comic Party series one by Tokyopop and one by a different company. I didn't get the other series (especially since it had the phrase yaoi pairings on the back) and couldn't find anything about it in the ANN database. Is it even legal for 2 different series in the U.S. to share a name or am I missing something? So, please give me the scoop!
-Billy

Great column, anyway, onto my question. Recently, I've noticed two Comic Party manga releases, one from CPM and one from Tokyopop. Are these the same manga series? And if they aren't, what chronology do they follow, and which is more closely related to the anime?

They are two different series. TOKYOPOP's version is written by Sekihiko Inui, focusing on the life of a single aspiring mangaka. The TV series, as well as the OVA Comic Party: Revolution, are based on this manga. CPM's version is a showcase of independent manga artists and, from the description of the first book, follows a group of aspiring mangaka. It's extremely unusual for two unrelated manga series to be released here with the same title, but it's possible that the two companies didn't realize that the other had the rights to a manga with the same title.

At the end of episode 13 (of Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi) there is a preview for an Episode 14 called Mystery, is it something hidden on the DVD or nothing at all?

This mystery is so mysterious that it doesn't even show up on the DVD! Well, at least not this DVD. This is a preview for the first episode, since the last episode could tie into the first, causing an endless cycle of Abenobashi madness.

I loved the series (Koko wa Greenwood), but didn't see anything else developed into series by the same manga author. Any luck?
Rowan

I did a bit of searching on the mangaka, Yukie Nasu, but Here Is Greenwood seems to be his only recognized piece of work. He also hasn't played a part in any series that he did not create, so this is the only thing of his that you can enjoy.

Hi, I am a huge Inuyasha fan and I have bought eps 1-138 and the two movies, however, there is more. Can you tell me what the number is to the last eps and where I can go to buy the rest? Also can you tell me if there are more movies besides the two that are out?
Thank You
Fan

Since you've bought what hasn't been released in America (I'm not even sure if they've released that many episodes onto DVD in Japan yet), I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you're purchasing illegal bootlegs to a series that's already been licensed over here. The translations are probably horrible too. A 12 year old with a Japanese-English dictionary could do a better job.

The episode count just reached around 157 (and yes Naraku is STILL alive). Three movies have been released in Japan, with the third movie due on DVD in August and a fourth to hit the theatres at the end of the year. 25 volumes of the manga have been released so far, but with the final shard within reach I'd be surprised (and a little annoyed) if the series made it past 200 episodes.

Hello, Ms. Answerwoman. I wanted to ask a question concerning homosexual/bisexual characters in anime. Overall, I am really disappointed in the lack of actual gay characters in anime, outside of yaoi, yuri, and shonen-ai.
By actual, I mean as the author/creator intended and not fanfiction. I reaize how much more open Japan is about sexuality and I admire them for it but I would really like it if there were more gay characters in mainstream anime just so homosexual/bisexual fans can identify with a few of them. What do you think?

Yaoi, Yuri, and Shounen/shoujo-ai are genres associated to any series that have relationships, even if they're really only friends, between two or more characters of the same sex. The only way you're going to find a series with a gay/bi character in it that wouldn't be labeled by one of the four genres above would be because the character is a friend/family member/etc of a straight character who's in a (or trying to be) relationship with another straight character. Or perhaps if the gay/bi character is the only human in a world filled with monsters that he/she must kill. Relationships are an important part of any show. If the person interacts with others of the same sex, it's going to be labeled shounen/jo-ai.

That aside, there are a LOT of gay/bi characters for anime fans to identify with. Kyou Kara Maou! has two definite gay characters as well as an endless list of males who do not find it unnatural for a man to love a man. Muraki from Yami no Matsuei is gay/bi, though a homicidal psychopath isn't easy to identify with. For the women, you have Utena as well as a few of the lovely girls from Maria-sama ga Miteru. These are just a few from the top of my head. The Japanese are very accepting of gay/bi characters on the TV and on paper.