Crowdfunding anime

Hey, everyone! Welcome to the Hobby Haven: Anime News edition!

I don't chat about my love of anime as much as I do with dolls or other toys, but I thought this was something that I'd like to bring some exposure to. It's pretty rare for the U.S. anime and manga industry to become involved with Kickstarter, but given the explosion of high-profile campaigns (like the MST3K campaign not too long ago), there are now some cropping up!)

Full disclosure: I have donated to both campaigns, albeit with differing amounts.

Funimation: The Vision of Escaflowne Director's Cut English dub

Escaflowne is a classic gem of fantasy anime. It's the story of a young girl named Hitomi who finds herself inexplicably transported to a strange world called Gaea and finds herself embroiled in a political conflict that could determine the fate of not just Gaea...but also Earth! Oh, and there are giant robots, too. :)

This is a licence rescue; Bandai USA, who held the home video rights, went out of business years ago. Funimation managed to secure the rights to the brand spanking new HD-quality Director's Cut version of the show, which was released not too long ago. But because this Director's Cut version contains new material that wasn't in the original, the original English dub track won't match up with the new video. Hence why Funimation is making a new dub from scratch. It's already met its goal (and is ending soon), but if you want to get in on some of the Kickstarter-exclusive bonus material, this is your chance! (And for the curious, the original series and its original English dub from Bandai will be made available as "bonus materials" on the Collector's Edition of the Director's Cut.

Pied Piper: Skip Beat! Home video release and English dub

For those curious about the show, you can watch it here on Crunchyroll for free; it's the story of Kyoko, a hard-working young girl supporting her egotistical love interest as he becomes a star in the music industry. But he cruelly betrays her, and she seeks to beat him at his own game by becoming the biggest star in show biz. She's a strong, plucky heroine, and it's enormously satisfying to watch her grow as an actress and a person.

This show has never before been released on home video outside of Japan. This Kickstarter campaign is aiming to finally make that happen! The requirement, per the Japanese licensor TV Tokyo, is that it must have an English dub...which is of course, very expensive. Hence the crowdfunding! The stretch goal is to make this available on Blu-ray as well as DVD.

If you're interested in anime, I hope you'll consider checking out either of these campaigns, especially Skip Beat (given how niche it is).

Media Review: Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun Limited Edition

(Sorry, everyone! I meant to have this up on the 18th, and it just slipped my mind.)

Welcome to the Hobby Haven, everyone! Today's entry is a review of the recently-released collector's edition of one of my new favorite shows, Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun! I'm pretty stoked to share this with you guys, I'm so excited.

For those unfamiliar with the show, Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun is a loving parody of the shoujo manga genre. It's full of warm fuzzies, gut-busting laughs, and some of the most engaging characters I've ever watched. We follow the exploits of a high schooler named Chiyo who is crushing majorly hard on the tall, dark, and handsome Nozaki. She screws up her courage to confess her love, only to receive in return...his autograph. Turns out the stoic and manly Nozaki is secretly a popular manga artist who draws Chiyo's favorite shoujo romance series, "Let's Fall in Love." She winds up getting roped into becoming his assistant, and things just devolve from there in the most hilarious way possible. It's also surprisingly informative about the process of creating manga.

Sentai Filmworks, the NA licensor, has been putting out more and more collector's editions over the past few years, which I'm very grateful for. There's nothing quite like getting a deluxe edition of a favorite show! They also made it clear how highly requested this was from their customers, so it's also good to see that fans are willing to put their money where their mouth is. It's been a long time waiting for this; they announced that the show would be getting a CE all the way back in November, and I've been on pins and needles ever since seeing the details of the set.

Now, for the initial details. I pre-ordered this from The Right Stuf during a sale they held on all anime published by Sentai Filmworks. This will retail for $84.49 normally, but between the sale and my Right Stuf "Got Anime" club membership, I snagged it for $70. Now, this does not "officially" release until the 29th. But if you pre-order something from Right Stuf, they will ship it to you as soon as it arrives at their warehouse. In my case, that was over two weeks early. Shipping was free since my order was over $49, and the turnaround was very quick, about 5 days.

You do get an awful lot for that amount, though! Let's go through it piece by piece, after the jump.

Odds and sods

Happy weekend, everyone! (It's almost over, but I hope what's left of it is happy, at any rate.)

My next media review will bill published tomorrow; I actually was hoping to get it finished last week, but RL happened, so that got postponed. I'm hoping that I'll have some downtime at work to work on some more posts. Fingers crossed!

Convention season has begun! C2E2 was this weekend, and Anime Boston and Sakura-Con will be held next weekend. We've already got some announcements from Viz (they have all kinds of rights relating to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure now, plus they licensed another Yoshitaka Amano artbook, and another Ghibli artbook. I'm happy for the latter, at least! I'm looking over the schedules for both, and it looks like all of the usual suspects: Funimation, Crunchyroll, Sentai, Viz, and Dark Horse. I'm hoping for a good amount of license announcements (Viz, you can let us know when the Sailor Moon S box set is coming! Any day now, y'know! Not like fans have been waiting months for that news or anything...), plus hearing who picked up which spring anime.

Speaking of which, I am pumped for this spring; the lineup is particularly epic. There's the second seasons of Ushio & Tora and Kagewani, the anime adaptations of Ace Attorney and Haven't You Heard? I'm Sakamoto, the third season of Sailor Moon Crystal, and some interesting-sounding new shows: Mayoiga, Kuma Miko, Bungo Stray Dogs, and Flying Witch. I'm hoping that Crunchyroll can get the majority of these shows; I have a paid subscription, so I can watch the shows right as they are released. (If Funimation gets any, they'll show them on their own site, and I'm not getting a subscription for their site for just a show or two.) I'm hoping that we'll get home video releases for all of these!

Well, that's all for now. Miss Scarlett, signing out!

Toy Review: Ever After High "Dragon Games" Raven Queen doll

Hello, it's me...I was wondering if after all this time you'd like to...see the next Ever After High review! (Welcome to the Hobby Haven, Totally-Not-Adele version.)

I reviewed a doll from Ever After High's latest extravaganza, "Dragon Games," back in January, with everyone's favorite Princess Knight, Darling Charming. Today, I'm offering you a look at the original rebel, Raven Queen! My review is after the jump.

Odds and sods

I haven't been keeping up with Monster High news since they announced the franchise "reboot," but here's some info that I picked up: "Welcome to Monster High: Dance the Fright Away" looks to be the first line with the new faces. It's a dance-party themed line with the five original girls (minus Ghoulia). New "How Do You Boo" basic dolls of the main five girls, as well. Definitely *not* picking this up, the faces look way too Barbie-like. Lady Gaga will be designing a special Monster High doll available this fall, but no further details are available yet. A picture of the doll's concept art silhouette is up on the MH fan page, though. More toy versions of the characters are available: MegaBloks playsets and mini-figs that look like the Funko Pop figures. And finally, there will be another deluxe doll, following in the footsteps of the deluxe Draculaura doll. This time, it's Skelita's time to shine. (Which to me is a little odd...I don't begrudge Skelita's time to shine, but what about the main characters like Cleo, Clawdeen, and Frankie?) She's nice, but I don't love it.

My takeaway from all of this is that Monster High is becoming less interesting to me...not sure if I will continue to support the series at all. I might end up even switching exclusively over to EAH and DCSHG permanently...we shall see.

Also, my collector's edition of Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun arrived, waaaaay ahead of schedule! I'm hoping to find some time to make the review this week, but my schedule is pretty busy, so no promises.

Miss Scarlett, signing out!

Miss Scarlett Cooks! Cheeseburger Pie

Hi, everyone! Today's recipe is an old favorite of my family's. We got the recipe off of the back of a Bisquick box years ago. It's very easy, is quite thrifty, and is pretty quick. It's the first dinner recipe that I learned to cook from scratch as a teenager, so it's a bit nostalgic. Try it for yourself and see!

A look ahead at 2016

Spring is aaaaaallllllmost here, I just know it! So I'm doing a bit of "spring cleaning" here on the blog, so to speak. Here's what's coming down the pipeline for this year.

• The last entries in my craft posts, coming in March and April.
• At least two of the DC Super Hero Girls doll reviews, in April and most likely July.
• More recipes, as always. Lots of them during summer, since I'm going to trying a bunch of new recipes out for Easter, Mother's Day, and Father's Day.
• Related to the above, the first-ever Hobby Haven Holiday Cookie Blitz in December.
• At least one more Sailor Moon Collectibles Roundup, maybe two. (My Sailor Moon Collectibles wish list is getting pared down!) Looking at May for the next one.
• I'll do a Media Review of the Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun Limited Edition at the end of March, assuming it gets shipped to me on time. More Media Reviews in store for the Sailor Moon Limited Editions, whenever Viz gets around to announcing the release dates/Right Stuf puts up the pre-order links.
• Figure reviews scattered throughout the year. Two more Sailor Moon Figuarts, and one more Nendoroid, at the very least. These will be sprinkled throughout the summer, maybe into September.
• Some special Halloween posts! (Not gonna tell you, neener neener~~)
• I'm going to finally get around to picking up a doll off of my Monster High Doll wish list, but I have no idea when that will be. Maybe September?
• There's not gonna be many reviews near the end of the year, I can tell you right off the bat. I'll be saving up money for a big anime purchase during TRSI's Holiday Sale, plus in November, I'll be going to the city with my friend Ariel to see a play and try some new restaurants, soooo...not as much money earmarked towards toys, etc.
• And fair warning, there will probably be radio silence once Persona 5 releases. If it's getting released at the end of the year, I will do my best to get a few months' worth of posts put up ahead of time and have a schedule for Blogger to auto-post them. I'll totally do a write-up of Persona 5 at some point, though.

That's all for the present moment, but remember: this is very early on in the year. New merch is announced all the time, so plans can change.