Spring 2009 Anime

While many anime fans are avidly anticipating the premiere of Kyoto Animation's new television series, Sora o Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai, or "The World Reflected in the Eyes of a Girl Looking Up at the Heavens" (which is based on the Munto OVA they released in 2003-2005), I'm actually looking forward to a much more mainstream looking series...Mainichi Kaasan ("Daily/Everyday Mom").


A picture of the Munto OVA (for some reason it reminds me of Air). Everybody who knows about the upcoming series is probably either drooling with anticipation, or planning to boycott it since it means another Haruhi Suzumiya-free season. I'm willing to watch this new series, but I'm growing tired of waiting for new Haruhi Suzumiya. ^^;;

The Mainichi Kaasan anime is based on a gag manga of the same title that has been running in the morning edition of the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper every week since 2002. Interestingly, the mangaka behind Mainichi Kaasan is a woman named Reiko Saibara, who bases the manga on her own real-life experiences with her two kids.

Better still, although Reiko Saibara won the Japan Media Arts Festival Award in 2004 and the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 2005 for Mainichi Kaasan, she got into a dispute with her son's school, due to some less than flattering obervations she made (drawing five children in one comic that was printed in 2004, labeling them "the five class dummies"). I could understand the principal or Saibara's son's teacher or somebody just asking her to be careful not to make it obvious which specific kids she's talking about (because of course that would be a pretty nasty thing to do, even though she has the right to it), but they went further when her son's class teacher asked her to refrain from depicting any school scenes. Rightfully, Saibara refused, saying that she has the right to freedom of expression.

Here are a couple of images from the Mainichi Kaasan manga:


Mainichi Kaasan looks like Sazae-san on acid. I'm looking forward to it. ^^