Crunchyroll and Funimation Team Up, Bringing Joy to Everyone

Today, anime streaming service titans announced that they were going to work together. Crunchyroll now offers titles from Funimation's summer simulcast. D. Dray-man Hallow, First Love Monster and Puzzle & Dragons X will be available on Crunchyroll. What's so awesome is that Cowboy Bebop, PSYCHO-PASS and Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash will follow suit. Dub-centric Funimation will host Crunchy summer anime 91 Days, Mob Psycho 100 and Orange. Later down the road Free -Iwatobi Swim Club and The Testament of Sister New Devil will follow suit.

This is all amazing, right? Yes it's incredible that anime viewers won't have to sway from different websites or services for their subbing and dubbing needs. Although both services are working together this is not by any means a merger. Funimation COO Mike  DuBouise said, “No. Funimation and Crunchyroll have entered into a distribution partnership. Our goal was not a merger. We will still continue to be separate companies serving the anime industry.”

This is pretty cool news. I am a super big anime fan. I wouldn't call myself an otaku or nerd about it but all my friends would. It's my favorite thing to watch other than comedies on Netflix. It's just so relaxing and chill late at night after work. I've had a Crunchyroll subscription for over a year now and I've seen so much great anime there. They stay super updated to all the latest stuff. It's great.

I'll write about some of the better anime I've seen on Crunchyroll sometime. Good day for anime fans.

Anti-Magic Academy: The 35th Test Platoon

     Anti-Magic Academy: The 35th Test Platoon is one strange name for an anime. This anime is a harem which basically means that the main character is a guy and he's surrounded by all these girls who are fighting for attention and affection. Some people don't like this kind of anime because sometimes it can be kind of lame. But this show was awesome! The best thing about it is that its only 12 episodes, perfect for people who don't have a lot of time to put into an anime. I would say this is a great newer anime (from 2015) and I would recommend it to any anime fans out there. But first, what is this about? 

     As the name suggests, the show is about a platoon of young people (not quite kids, but not quite adults) who are studying at a school how to take out witches and stop magic from harming people. Basically its like Harry Potter except these platoons use guns, swords, and special magic things like the main character's samurai mecha armor and one of the girls uber guns that absorb blood from her body the longer she uses them. So there's some interesting ideas here and some of the fighting gets gory (a little blood, not too much). As far as plot lines go the show is pretty much all over the place. We don't really get if the Platoon is secretly like the best platoon in the entire Anti-Magic Academy. Because they take out all these magic baddies and witches yet they're labeled the worst platoon in the academy. Then suddenly everything changes when Kusanagi (the male lead character) gets this power armor that he uses a sword with (he uses a samurai sword in a world of magic and guns, comes from a samurai family) and the whole show changes. The platoon is able to tackle anything that comes across their path. The fights were okay but not great. They were short and often unsatisfying. But I still liked them because of the characters. That's where this show really shines. All the characters are interesting and you care about each of them. The platoon becomes like family. And yes it is a harem. So there's a lot of scenes where the girls are trying to hit on Kusanagi and they love his attention and affection. But I felt that this show doesn't have too much of that. I mean Tenchi Muyo, now that's a true harem. A better word to describe this anime is action and ecchi-basically playfully sexy or erotic, but not all-out sex or something vulgar. I found this element of the anime to be great! The show has a couple waifus in addition to them having great personalities and being interesting characters. In terms of cute waifus there's even a swim suit beach episode! One of the girls is a sniper on the team. Another joins the academy as the first witch. Another one uses special dueling pistols that absorb blood the longer used. And another one is the brains of the whole operation and handles technology stuffs. And then there's Kusangi leading the team into battle. And is always victorious. 

     The ending story arc of the anime is about Kusangi's sister. Apparently she has this magic power that can destroy the entire world unless she's always kept asleep. Sounds like something that doesn't make a whole lot of sense but do animes ever make sense? Back when Kusangi was a kid he could've killed her and that would've meant that the world would've been safe but he choose to run away. And now his sister asks for Kusangi to kill her so that she wouldn't have to deal with the suffering and the idea of possibly killing more people. In the meanwhile there's this evil wizard who's trying to kidnap Kusangi's sister and use her power for Valhala (some evil magic group, the main enemies). So there's a big fight and in the end Kusangi saves his sister. But at the same time its like for how long? And would've he have saved the world if he just killed her? He could've bring himself to kill her but they make it seem in the show when he's going back for her like he was going to kill her to stop her powers from destroying the whole town. Her power was a little bit weird. It was like these giant meats of flesh with eyes that could talk and attack people. And then there were these giant bats that had an eye for a body. Pretty strange stuff but it definitely fits in an anime about magic. There was a lot of sibling love at the end there. And a lot of love with and for the 35th Platoon in general. They rose together as a group and overcame every obstacle through teamwork and by "letting me carry half of your burden", Kusangi's best one liner to all the girls in the show. And they all fall head over heels for it. Came for the magic and fight scenes. Left having had a good time watching a guy and a bunch of girls develop and mature as a the 35th Test Platoon. 

Parasyte the Maxim

    

Parasyte the Maxim was one of the great new anime that came out in America recently. I saw it on the website crunchyroll, which has tons of Japanese anime with subtitles. This anime is about a teenage boy named Shinichi Izumi, who lives in a quiet neighborhood in Tokyo. One night a worm-like parasite tries to burrow through Shinichi's ears to get to his brain, but because he was wearing headphones, makes an attempt to go his arm instead. So Migi, the parasyte takes over Shinichi's right hand and they attempt to coexist and talk, and help each other out to survive in this world where parasites have become commonplace in Tokyo. Not only have they become commonplace, but they are man-eating killers who can disguise themselves as humans. A lot of stuff happens in this anime, I'll try to break it down.
     First, the main thing that happens in the beginning is that a parasite attacks Shinichi at school, killing tons of his classmates, in an attempt to kill Shinichi. Shinichi and Migi have to work together to kill their foe, and they end up killing him. This anime is not for the light-hearted, its very gory and bloody.
      Next, another main part of the storyline was when Shinichi learns that his mother was killed by a parasite while she was out on vacation with Shinichi's father. What happens is the parasite actually figures out where Shinichi lives and stabs Shinichi right through the heart, killing Shinichi instantly. But he doesn't die there. Migi does something to grow a part of him where Shinichi's heart used to be. It was quite something. If Migi didn't do it, he would've died. The parasite Migi plays an important role in this anime, and he's just as important as Shinichi.
    Then, Shinichi finds out that one of his teachers at his school Ryoko Tamiya is a parasite but she says she doesn't want to fight, that she wants to join forces with him and be friends. Little does Shinichi know, that she is part of an elite parasite group where they make decisions about human feeding grounds, and other nefarious parasite stuff. Eventually their club gets wiped out and Shinichi has to fight for his life against their leader, Gotou.
     In addition, there's more to this anime than just fighting parasites and bloody bodies. There are other important characters like Shinichi's girl friend Satomi Murano. The more Shinichi gets caught in the world of parasites, the more he becomes cold, less human, and out of touch with Samtomi. Also, there is another girl who gets infatuated with Shinichi. However, she ends up getting killed by a parasite and Shinichi ends up killing the parasite in a fit of rage. Then, there is the loss of his mother. And Ryoko ends up getting killed protecting her baby in her arms. She gets shot by the cops despite holding a human baby in her hands. Despite her being a parasite, her baby ended up somehow human, which I never quite understood. Also, the relationship between Shinichi and Migi was like brothers. Despite Migi being a burden on him, Shinichi ended up loving Migi.
     Lastly, the fights in this anime are intense. They keep the anime interesting and on your toes while watching. The last fight at the end versus Gotou is an incredible anime fight, where Shinichi barely wins because he doesn't have Migi to help him. Instead he ends up stabbing Gotou with a stick, a stick that has poison in it, thus weakening his state. He didn't know that the stick would poison Gotou, so he thought he was going to die, but fought him anyway, pretty cool right? He did it because he wanted to weaken Gotou before he got to kill any more people. The police end up raiding Tokyo and killing most of the parasites but the main question that doesn't get answered in the end of the show is where do the parasites come from? And what is their purpose of existence? This is kind of only answered through the dialogue of Ryoko. But we never truly learn if the parasites are aliens or what. All in all it was a great anime and I'd highly recommend it to any anime man. The latest anime that I've been watching is Darker than Black, I'm on the second season and it is fantastic.