subCulture - The Bitter Taste of Defeat...

Apparently Hell has frozen over and Kodocha Anime has finally released the next volume in the widely adored shoujo series Kodomo no Omocha. Nobody's celebrating this release more than I am, but there's something special about the release of another volume of Kodocha that sets it apart from other fansub releases - the bitter taste of defeat. With each new fansub volume, the feeling that this show will never get licensed grows a little stronger in the hearts of otaku everywhere. Kodomo fans are probably the most ravenous fans out there when it comes to getting their favorite obscure shoujo comedy on track for a US release. They've been petitioning AnimEigo (The company they think is most likely to license the show) for years now, but to no avail. A few months back the enthusiasm was at a feverous pitch when AnimEigo said they'd be announcing their newest TV series acquisition at a con back in August. As it turned out, the new series they'd licensed was the 1996 You're Under Arrest TV show and not Kodocha like so many people had expected (I made a little money on that one…). I have to admire the fans' perseverance in the face of such incredible odds; after all, they're trying to get a US company to license a 104 episode TV series that's aimed at young Japanese girls. Stranger things have happened (Like the fact that someone licensed Don't Leave Me Alone, Daisy and expected it to sell) but the odds that anyone, including AnimEigo, will consider buying Kodomo no Omocha and releasing it here in it's entirety are ridiculously low. Good luck, Kodomo fans.

In other fansub news, Elite Fansubs is making considerable progress on the new Gonzo TV series Vandread. They've been doing a fantastic job with this show and my thanks goes out to them for providing this excellent series to the community. They're subtitling the episodes almost as fast as they can air them on TV in Japan - we're all very lucky to be living in a time when the turnaround for some of these shows is less than a week. Inu-Yasha is seeing a similar release, with episode 6 just hitting the newsgroups over the weekend. As for tape releases, Sachi Gumi recently released the next volume of Hana Yori Dango, one of the many shoujo series that require a fansub release to see the light of day in the US, and Sachi's is doing a bang-up job subtitling it. Naresome Studio is plowing right along with the fantasy/romance/action/adventure/sci-fi hybrid beast show Eden's Bowy, with the 3rd volume being released a week or two ago. Keep an eye on Naresome; they may have closed distribution for now, but I predict big things from this studio in the near future.