Comments on: Saikano review part 2: here is a (last love) song from the wrong side of town

By: Martin

Martin — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:52:40 +0000

@Chris: thanks. It seems to be in their Signature line, same as Monster, so the books should be well-presented and nicely bound too. I’ll add it to my ‘plan to read’ list.

@kauldron26: hey, it’s good to see you’re still around. I’m not sure what to suggest in regards to your ‘anime burnout’ - I’ll start looking at the new season’s offerings in a week or so. Hopefully there’s something to catch your interest, what with the likes of Ghost Hound and Kaiji coming up to the ends of their broadcasts.

By: kauldron26

kauldron26 — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 22:15:41 +0000

Sup Martin! loved Saikan saw it couple of years ago, its like green mile, the passion and Schindler’s List to me in the sense that its depressing as effing hell yet i love every minute of it. will i watch it again anytime soon? its the kind of thing u have to be emotionally ready for. over in bateszi’s blog i was talking about how i’ve sort of lost interest in anime… we all go through those phases right? hopefully mine is temporary…

By: chris

chris — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 22:29:31 +0000

The Saikano manga is published in the west by Viz, it was 7 volumes in length, I'm pretty sure that it's still in print, you can pick it up online for between $5-$6 per volume. To me the manga had a much different feel to it, oh by the way the manga ending is totally different from the anime. Some of the other manga that I have seen from Big Comic Spirits manga are Dance until tomorrow, Crying Freeman, and Uzumaki are all very mature and include sex and violence in them, they defiantly aren't for your typical Japanese teen audience.

By: Martin

Martin — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 17:40:12 +0000

@intro: yeah, Akemi’s a great character - it’s a shame that so many bad things happen to her really! I really enjoyed the series but I still feel it’ll be a while before I can bring myself to rewatch it.

@kdp: I’ve always wondered what sort of pressure the manga-ka was under, but I think the story fulfils those pressures while still portraying the characters and their action realistically, even the less admirable ones.

@Chris: if the manga had a largely seinen audience, it certainly explains the ‘grown up’ themes and the approach that the story took. Actually, I really want to read the manga now. I’m not sure who’s publishing it in the West, but I think it’s widely available.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 02:16:46 +0000

In think that kdp had it right about Shin Takahashi having to include some sex in the Saikano manga, the manga was serialized in Big Comic Spirits monthly. That manga had a readership of (Seinen)young men, that ranged in age from their early to mid twenties, and i don’t think that they would have bought the whole staying chaste with your girlfriend even though you’ve been dating for years, or even living under the same roof thing that so commonly in current manga and anime. Even though these series might feature high school aged characters the targeted audience of these manga/shows are really junior high school aged or younger kids so you get all the longing for sex but you really never get any. I was really surprised when I first saw this anime because I thought they would never follow the original intent of the manga. Martin, your so right about actual sex or going all the way occurring in a meaningful way in anime, my DVD collection is well over a thousand, and the actual number of times sex actually occurs or is blatantly implied probably numbers around ten, so as far as I’m concerned, for all the fan service anime has in it, anime as a whole is very conservative when it comes to sex.

By: kdp

kdp — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 22:53:03 +0000

Shin Takahashi mentioned in the manga that he knew he was going to have to throw in some sex and infidelity due to the nature of the magazine Saikano was being published in. He sounded apologetic about it.

However, I will say that the infidelity is probably also pretty realistic. Sure, it’s nice to say everyone will remain pure to the end, but any look at history or psychological studies of people say it’s pretty unlikely. Especially people under stress. The doctors like to joke that 9 months after a big scary event, like an earthquake, you see a lot of babies. No real surprise, I think. Given the way things were going, it made total sense to me.

Thanks for these posts. Really enjoyed Saikano, and good to see it reviewed some more.

By: intro

intro — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 22:10:33 +0000

Akemi’s story was the high point of the series, but for me it was generally a slog to get through.