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Show Notes
0:00: After Helen explains why TheOASG Podcast took a small break (possibly involved hopping on an April Fools podcast episode to talk about many Trials and Tribulations), the hosts jump right into the news they’ve missed over the past month, which is MyAnimeList getting sold to a Web3/AI company.
News
2:16: After they still held on to having their books be handled by Diamond, Udon has moved on to Simon & Schuster, which means very few manga pubs are under Diamond distribution.
4:16: Haigakura is back! Reminder that it had to stop following clear quality issues throughout its run in the Fall anime season, and it’ll now return in the summer.
5:17: Rie Takahashi will need to have surgery for vocal cord nodules so she’ll be out for a month; talent agency Kawadon Entertainment announced on Monday that voice actor Shiki Aoki has gone on hiatus due to health reasons; and Ai Fairouz has returned from her partial hiatus from PTSD, but she will be working with a new agency.
7:26: William Bassett, who is more known for his voice in the Whataburger ads but has had roles in a number of video games and anime, passed away at 89; and voice actress Yoko Kawanami passed away at 67 of peritoneal metastasis.
Licenses
9:42: Yen Press announced some more works at the end of March:
- I Don’t Know How to Love
- Lilies Blooming in 100 Days
- Lycoris Recoil Official Comic Anthology: Repeat
- My Beloved Supper
- Rock is a Lady’s Modesty
- What Do You Call This Trash?
And we even got some KADOKAWA announcements for some of their chapter part releases, including them releasing the light novel To Sir, Without Love: I’m Divorcing You in parts.
12:15: Seven Seas somehow had just one Wonderful Wednesdays while this podcast was on break, the hosts can’t believe they’ve stopped:
- Hokkaido Gals Are Super Adorable!
- Romelia War Chronicle: The Count’s Daughter Rallies an Army in the Wake of Mankind’s Victory
- HOOL!GAN’S
- Makina-san’s a Love Bot?!
- Audiobooks of Adachi and Shimamura (Narrated by Analise Scarpaci) & I’m the Evil Lord of an Intergalactic Empire! (Narrated by Cliff Kirk)
13:29: Kana of all publishers will be releasing Tsukasa Hojo’s City Hunter and Cat’s Eye in print — that’s right, this series will finally get a print release from a somewhat shocking publisher; A few more Titan manga are coming in 2025, some announced exclusively on ANN, some not.
15:33: Kodansha is continuing to double down on re-releases, as they’ll be putting forth a new deluxe edition of the Gundam: The Origin manga and a black & white edition of Parasyte. Helen is certain the new Deluxe books of Gundam can kill a man!
17:09: Captain Tsubasa is now on MANGA Plus, which has Justin go deep into the well of eBookOne, which he totally forgot about.
Streaming News
18:10: The Lycoris Recoil shorts will stream on the Aniplex USA YouTube channel!…(and yesterday it was announced it’ll also stream on Crunchyroll too!);
19:00: Netflix will stream the Rose of Versailles film April 30; a few anime have been added to Crunchyroll, which includes a 2000-2001 Bones anime; and RetroCrush will be streaming Future Boy Conan, which is a very good get for them.
20:19: Justin has to talk about how somewhat painful it is that Umamusume: Cinderella Gray, a new anime for the spring season, is streaming officially (in the US at least) on the It’s anime YouTube channel and Amazon Prime.
22:15: Though as painful as it is Umamusume is streaming on YouTube, at least it can be watched conveniently; for Your Forma, it is the very opposite of convenient. Helen and Justin discuss one of the bigger streaming faux pas in recent memory, as for those in the US and Canada, you can watch this anime…on Samsung Plus. (Also ignore Justin mentioning it took a year for Girls Band Cry to be added on Crunchyroll, not even close to true.)
Main Topic: Winter Anime 2025 Final Thoughts
28:45: Justin and Helen finally share what they thought about a generally quiet anime season for the two this winter. More shows that continued from the Fall dominated Justin’s watchlist this season, including Blue Box and Orb to name a few, while Helen spent some time watching Dad’s Been Reincarnated and Season 2 of Toilet-bound Hanako-kun. Justin also addresses the one anime that essentially (?) had a Zom 100 situation happen in terms of having to air on TV every other week (just not as bad) in My Happy Marriage Season 2, which as of this post still does not have its last two episodes on Netflix.
Weird News
1:22:03: As said many times, the AI movement is not going away anytime soon, and it really reached levels of annoyance when Ghibli works got picked up for the OpenAI program. Not great!
1:25:26: As always, April Fools Day means anime and manga companies making as many jokes as they possibly can…and possibly inspiring them to become real, like what happened when Kaleido Star’s April Fools post got popular to the point that they also hope a new anime can come out for the work.
1:26:57: Kodocha has returned after 10 years…10 years! Helen and Justin wonders why it’s back; the Gundam Hollywood Live-Action might just be real; and one leaker found out that Japanese ego-searching is very real.
1:29:06: And finally, yes, if you thought Demon Slayer and MLB was the only anime project that was in mind, no, as it turns out, anime and MLB will be a thing this season!