News

My Hero Academia S2, Momotaro Released Monday

On Monday April 2, Sony Pictures will release Season 2 Part 1 of My Hero Academia on Blu-ray and DVD. The Blu-ray has several exclusive on-disc extras, including an interview with Yoshihiko Umakoshi at Anime Expo 2017.

Broadcast in 2017, the story takes off directly after the last episode of the first season. The school is temporarily closed due to security. When U.A. restarts, it is announced that the highly anticipated School Sports Festival will soon be taking place. All classes: Hero, Support, General and Business will be participating. Tournaments all round will decide who is the top Hero in training. Wills and strengths will be tested, as weaknesses will be overcome in this new season of My Hero Academy.

Anime Limited will release a Collectors Blu-ray/DVD edition of Momotaro's Divine Sea Warriors. Released in 1945 in the last weeks of World War II, this black and white propaganda film is the first Japanese feature-length animation ever made. The set also includes the short film Spider and Tulip, and a book, Sacred Sailors: The Life and Work of Seo Mitsuyo by Jonathan Clements.

The film is described on the Anime Limited website as follows:

'Momotaro, Sacred Sailors played a major role in setting the stage fo the rise of anime and was Japan's first feature-length animated film. A notable accomplishment for its time, the project was funded by the Navy Ministry of Japan during World War II.

'This infamous 1945 black-and-white propaganda film that saw Japanese fairy tale hero Momotaro leads a squad of heroic animal soldiers against evil British demons, was funded to promote recruitment and Japan's military agenda in the South Seas. Believed destroyed after Japan's surrender, the film was rediscovered in a warehouse in 1983 and digitally restored from the sole surviving negative.

'Along with another early masterpiece, Spider and Tulip, these films have been restored into HD so a whole new audience can see the milestones of the industry and historical artifacts from World War II.'

Manga Entertainment is releasing a Blu-ray edition of the 26-part first TV season of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. The set also includes a 160-page art book. Amazon describes the set:

'In England during the 1880s, Jonathan, only son of the aristocratic family Joestar, strives to become the perfect gentleman. But when his family adopts a mysterious young man of a similar age, his life takes a new turn. This adoption is a result of an old promise between their two fathers: Dario Brando had saved George Joestar's life in their youth, and on his deathbed, asks that Joestar take care of his son. But Dio is sneaky, ambitious and unscrupulous: he would do anything to get a hold of the Joestar fortune and destroy Jonathan's life. Their fratricidal struggle will lead them down a dark and dangerous path, and follow them from generation to generation like a curse.

Broadcast in 2012, the series adapts the first two arcs of Hirohiko Araki's epic multi-generational manga, entitled Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency.

Manga Entertainment is releasing Volume 1 of Occultic;Nine, carrying the first six parts of the series, on Blu-ray and DVD. The "paranormal science" story follows nine idiosyncratic individuals, linked by the "Chōjō Kagaku Kirikiri Basara" occult summary blog run by 17-year-old second-year high school student Yūta Gamon. Little incongruities that occur around these nine eventually lead to a larger, unimaginable event that may alter what is considered common sense in this world.

While Chiyomaru Shikura created Occultic;Nine, he emphasized that it was not the fourth science-adventure title from 5pb. However, he did say that the novel can be considered the fourth Chiyomaru Shikura title after Chaos;HEAd, Steins;Gate, and Robotics;Notes. (Shikura eventually announced the fourth science-adventure title, CHAOS;CHILD, in 2013.)

Anime Limited is releasing the 12-part series The Testament of Sister New Devil as a Collectors Blu-ray (pictured) and a standard DVD. The "rather risque battle action" story centers around Basara Tōjō, a first-year high school student who is flustered by a sudden question by his eccentric father, "Hey, didn't you used to say you wanted a little sister?" His father announces he is getting remarried, and brings over two beautiful step-sisters, but then embarks overseas. The two sisters Mio and Maria Naruse are actually a novice devil and succubus.

MVM will release a standard DVD edition of the ecchi/comedy series Monster Musume. A Blu-ray edition will follow on Monday April 9.