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Ben-To, Good Luck Girl, Onimonogatari Released Monday
posted on by Andrew Osmond
On Monday March 16, Manga Entertainment will release the series Ben-To. The American company Funimation has previously described the story, based on Asaura's "school serious/gag action" light novel series, as follows:
Every day an epic struggle rages in grocery stores across Japan—the battle for half-priced bento boxes! Once the discount stickers go on, ravenous brawlers start throwing punches in a knockdown, drag-out war over who gets to take home the cheap eats. When a young, broke high school student named Sato joins the Half-Priced Food Lovers Club, he proves to be a rising talent in the world of insane food fights. But does he have what it takes to become the king of clearance cuisine? From the director of Black Cat comes a very different type of hunger games. Welcome to the world of Ben-To, where chopsticks are lethal weapons, the supermarket is a battleground, and there's nothing more delicious than a deep-fried win.
Shin Itagaki (Devil May Cry, Mayoi Neko Overrun!) directed the 2011 anime, and he was also responsible for story editing (with Kazuyuki Fudeyasu of Bleach, Monster and Gunslinger Girl) and design works. Katsuzō Hirata (Cosplay Complex, Hand Maid May) served as both the character designer and the chief animation director. Taku Iwasaki (Black Butler, Gurren Lagann, Soul Eater) composed the music.
Manga Entertainment will also release the series Good Luck Girl!. In the show, Sakura Ichiko has it all, good looks, excellent grades and a amazing fortune,. However Ichiko soon discovers that this is due to her natural ability to suck the good fortune away from those around her. To correct this imbalance of good fortune the gods dispatch Momiji, a god of misfortune, to 'treat' Ichiko and bring balance to her life.
Originally published as a manga by Yoshiaki Sukeno, Binbougami ga! was serialised in Shueisha's Jump Square magazine between July in 2008 and concluded in August this year. The 13 episode anime adaptation was produced at Sunrise under the direction of Yōichi Fujita (Gintama) with Kento Shimoyama (Bleach) handling series composition. Animation director Kenji Tanabe (Naruto Shippūden the Movie: Bonds) also designed the characters alongside art direction by Yukihiro Shibutani (Case Closed).
MVM is releasing Bu-ray and DVD editions of the four-part Onimonogatari, part of the Monogatari franchise. From the Anime-on-line website:
"After time traveling to the past with Shinobu Oshino, Koyomi Araragi meets Mayoi Hachikuji and returns her backpack which she left in Koyomi's room. That is when they witness something unidentifiable – something that can only be expressed as the darkness.
Koyomi, instinctively feeling danger, sits Mayoi on his bicycle and attempts to escape, but the ever elusive "darkness" tries to swallow the two of them. They barely manage to escape with the help of the young shikigami girl, Yotsugi Ononoki, and they evacuate into the ruins of the cram school. There, Shinobu tells him that she encountered the "darkness" about 400 years ago. Then a woman named Izuko Gaen, who says she knows Meme Oshino, explains to them the nature of the "darkness." And Koyomi has to face Mayoi's tragic fate.