It\u2019s always nice when a series turns out to defy expectations. I watched the first few episodes of Invaders of the Rokujyoma!?<\/em> at the beginning of the season, and wasn\u2019t impressed enough to keep going. A review assignment for another site dragged me back into it, and I\u2019m glad it did. As it turns out, this series has evolved into a surprisingly entertaining comedy.<\/p>\n Take an average guy with a tiny but affordable apartment. Add a ghost, an alien, a magical girl, and a priestess, all of whom are trying to take over the apartment for one reason or another. Stir it all together, and you\u2019ve got Invaders of the Rokujyoma!? in a nutshell. It pokes fun at a wide variety of classic character archetypes, but delivers some unexpectedly strong drama along the way. While it\u2019s not the best at any one thing, it\u2019s a solid piece of entertainment on all fronts. It\u2019s also remarkably tasteful for a series with harem comedy elements, and even viewers with a serious aversion to fanservice will find it an easy show to watch.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It technically came out during this column\u2019s off week, but who cares? Anime just wouldn\u2019t be anime without a regular dose of completely bonkers science fiction. Gatchaman Crowds<\/em> does just that, combining eye-popping visuals with some genuinely interesting musings on the nature of heroism. It\u2019s a very energetic series that can be a little tough to get into, but it\u2019s absolutely worth the effort. You can order it from RightStuf.com here<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Crowd-funded anime project Under the Dog<\/em> wrapped up its Kickstarter campaign with plenty of donations to spare. A late run of publicity helped the sci-fi OVA reach its goal, and it\u2019s moving into production. A couple of US streaming companies have expressed interest in distributing the finished product, so we should be able to see how it turns out soon enough.<\/p>\n We covered it here in the most recent Kawaii Overthink<\/a>, but it\u2019s worth mentioning again: Yen Press has announced several new licenses for its Yen On line of light novels. From fan favorites (Log Horizon<\/em>, No Game No Life<\/em>) to personal favorites (The Devil is a Part-timer!<\/em>), there\u2019s plenty to get excited about. Bring on the books!<\/p>\n For boring scheduling reasons, this column will be moving from Sunday to Monday from here on out. See y\u2019all next week for more two-dimensional antics.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This Week in Anime\u00a0is hastily cobbled together by Paul Jensen. You can follow his ramblings about anime and manga on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>. Check back every Monday for new articles.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nothing like a long weekend to provide a convenient excuse for taking a week off from a regular column. In any case, This Week in Anime is back for more news and reviews, so sit back and enjoy. We\u2019ve got plenty to catch up on, and a delightful little underdog of a show to review. [Read more…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1479"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1479"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1486,"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1479\/revisions\/1486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Rokujyoma\"](\"http:\/\/sharkpuppet.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Rokujyoma.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nPhysical Release of the Week: Gatchaman Crowds<\/em> Complete Collection<\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nIn the News: Under the Dog<\/em> Makes the Cut<\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n