Spring cleaning AKA "Git yer anime orffa ma land!"

A Word From Some Jabroni

Wow, a whole bunch of stocks dissapeared from the index this week. For one it was a bittersweet farewell, but for the rest..? Ehh, not a whole lot of complaints (go read the weekly recap for more details).

I wish I could sit back and enjoy this newfound spare time, but according to Baka-updates I already have the replacements for these four all lined up and rearing to go. *sigh* It ain't easy playing the market like such a man.

The other big news this week of course is all the AAT (someone wanna explain to me what this means btw? I can get the AA bit.. but what of the T?) anime/manga licencing going on:

One of the licencees may or may not be this series.

Black Lagoon was announced. Speedy, but not much of a surprise considering how awesome it is.

Some oldschool mecha show called Gunfluffer or something got relicenced. I'm sure I won't be buying it, but lots of other people are happy.

And the big shock is Pani Poni Dash! getting picked up by ADV for licence of the year. Not the first title I would have guessed. In fact, you may as well licence My Ballsac and get Crispin Freeman to voice the dubtrack for all the mainstream appeal PPD! has.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for being able to own Pani Poni on DVD (better make sure you have some kickass covers though), but it really makes me beg the question: you'll press Rebecca Miyamoto and pals to disc, but we're still waiting for a Rozen Maiden release, whatsupwitdat?

Oh yeh, they're making Ichigo Mashimaro OVAs. Kick ass!

Crayotic Rockwell

The Week In Recap

AIR GEAR 10

Christmas came early this Saturday for yaoi fans as Air Gear branched out into the promiscuous world of B&D and public toilet handjobs. Agito was the major thrusting force behind this new company movement, and investors found themselves clamboring to grab a piece of this action faster than Ton-chan selling out her students.

Agito chuu'ed AIRG into a full 2 point jump.

BLOOD+ 33

Blood+ discovered that it's easier to just magically make Kai omega tuff than show him progressively become less of a wimp when they skipped forward several years (presumably) during their time away from the exchange. BLDP stock price rose significantly with Dark Julia, and it's new epic feel, which was less planned than it was a given considering the timelapse.

Oh Blood+, your blinding wit kills me.

Analysts were wondering where Riku was, until they remembered that he was written out. They're still uncertain if this was a genius or stupid move, given the unrealised potential yet sheer ballsiness of the descision.

David-san used his BLDP bonus bonds to go on a crazy bender during Blood+'s hiatus.

ERGO PROXY 14

Ergo Proxy put forth it's best episode yet, by setting it's distribution somewhere other than a crappy, barren plain of dirt for once. A weak ending threatened to weigh it down, but an abundance of Pino offset such problems, allowing the stock to come through in the green.

Real Mayer can't afford to sleep if she wants to keep EPROX's trade on a roll.

GUN X SWORD 22

Endless Illusion's favourite company should have failed huge on Thursday. After all, there was no action or progression of plot; just a whole bunch of team building exercises.

It should have failed.

But somehow it was exactly what the doctor ordered, and investors were happy to have this downtime and enjoy seeing everyone kick back with a brewskie. Hell, we were even okay with Gun X Sword phoning in a lazy cliched segment where the gang builds a go-cart.

This newfound dynamic between employees gave GSX a positive boost, but analysts are skeptical of how this price will hold for the company's final weeks to come.

The meat may not have agreed with Carmen, but GSX agreed with investors this week.

HIGURASHI NO NAKU KORO NI 13

Holy crap, Keiichi is Goku! At least that's what it first appeared as, until people realized that Goku has a better poker face and wouldn't run around telling everyone he unsuccessfully tried to kill their relatives.

This week finally bucked the trend and explained everything in large doses of nothing. But despite the fact that Higurashi now has more unofficial theories than 9/11, HIGU failed to maintain it's price after pulling out such a cheaply convoluted chain of events to set him up for Rika's murder.

The ASX appreciates a man who's willing to take off his shoes when coming into your house to kill you.

HIGU got murdered by HRHI on the charts this week. Will they taste a ressurection in seven days?

HIMAWARI! (DELIST)

After months of inactivity, the female ninja school drama skulked back into the dark of the night; to the dismay of very few, as HWARI saw a large adjust to the red in it's very moments on the exchange.

Himawari! could never have hoped to break new barriers or play amongst the top tier, but investors did consider it to have promise. This promise was never shook upon, and instead the series made sure to deliver the most miscast/irritating seiyuu lineup of the season—a fatal flaw which they never recovered from.

As we flip it off goodbye, we try to think of some nice things to say but find ourselves drawing a blank. At the end of the day Himawari had the makings, but seemed content to dish out mediocre character pieces with unappealing characters, and the market responded acordingly.

Himawari! doesn't even deserve it's own screencap.

KASHIMASHI 11

KASHI was the stock to buy anyone who wanted some emo with their hot sauce. For the rest of us who found Kashimashi at their best when hitting the comedy, it was a mixed bag. Also adding to this security's instability is the fact that investors were never quite sold on Yasuna in the first place, and now it looks like everyone is just pussing out.

Thank god for Ayuki finally stepping forward and putting everyone in their place though! Now we just need her to convince Yasuna and Tomari to forget Hazumu and make with the HLA.

KASHI dropped 1/4 and Tomari got no hot lovin' on this weeks exchange.

MAGICAL POKAN 12 (DELIST)

Uma's magic spells actually worked for once, which could only signal one thing; Tuesday was the final day for Magical Pokan's projected business strategy.

Their history on the exchange was that of a simple show that offered lots of episodic fanservice and was easy to digest. Time didn't favour this format however, and POKAN quickly lost momentum and started a slide backwards as their already truncated quarterlies flew by.

If there was one shining beacon of awesomeness Magical Pokan had going for it it would be the moe meganeko cyborg of Ai (A.I?). All her not-so-nuanced robotic traits, and weekly misfortune of weighing several tonnes enamored her with us in a way not typical of the Token Girl Who Cooks™ role.

Click for some AI lovin'.

Special note must also go out to the OP, which kicked all kinds of figurative ass. Investors can't help but wonder how much higher POKAN stock would have cashed out at if the title credits reflected the content and story of the series, instead of it's actual fluff filled nature (Buy the OP here, or you could grab the mp3 via nipponsei if you were that kind of scoundrel).

Despite some nice character quirks, Magical Pokan failed to plug itself into the exchange correctly.

THE MELANCHOLY OF HARUHI SUZUMIYA 14 (DELIST)

The day many had been waiting for and many had feared occured on Thursday. The last episode of Haruhi Suzumiya hit the blocks and was the constant time jumping worth it? Thankfully, the answer was "arrgh a real killerloli!" "yes!"

Not only did it spread the action packed content between fourteen outings, so consumers didn't get the wrong idea of what to expect (many were already burned from when things went from episode 00 to 01). it allowed the season a complete storyline to begin and end on, with the filler sandwiched in the middle. Just the way it should be.

Not to say there wasn't a few missteps along the way; the largest faux-pa coming from Kyon's friend, Tamagotchi (Minus? You are a SUX by my ranking). But whatever happened, noone could deny the awesomest power of Kyon x Haruhi kissage, with Kyon spouting the best pre-smooch dialogue since Clark Gable in Gone With The Wind.

To quote a great man in regards to HRHI's market performance:

The thing to note is that in comparison to the other top series of the season, ala Ouran, Higurashi, Black Lagoon; all of those are popcorn’ish and strongly set in a genre. Not to take anything away from them, but when you’re dealing with an actioneer, sitcom, or horror/mystery they’ve got a much easier time to win a specific audience sect over.

Haruhi did something a little more different and harder to define, but it still managed to rock the house. H. Suzumiya was the HBO series of anime this season.

We do still however want to know what happened with the talking cat? Did we just imagine that during episode 00?

Despite it's title, this company had anything but a melancholic performance.

MUSHISHI 17

Forget about Telecom, TelstraClear, and AT&T, because Mushishi has the telecommunications game locked down. Ginko stepped aside this week to allow a larger budget for flashbacks; a descision praised by many who appreciate the fact that loli twins are rad.

Unlike The Third, which announced bankruptcy this week, Mushishi knows how to do narration. Milf > Incessant Prat any day.

MUSHI isolated itself from the crappy stocks with a 1/4 increase.

OURAN HIGHSCHOOL HOST CLUB 13

OURAN opened strong on Monday, and an Alice In Wonderland themed episode seemed destined for a home run. The Host Club gave us everything expected, Mad Hatters, dancing bunnys, bananas, twin Cheshire Nekos, Haruhi in a vase.. but for some reason the whole episode felt extremely flat, and a sharp dropoff was seen by the end of days trading.

Some would also argue that this was a perfect chance for Tamaki's ugly bear to take the spotlight. Biggest opportunity missed, ever.

Investors saw their OURAN stocks take near to a full point freefall at the week's beginning.

ROZEN MAIDEN TRAUMEND 4

While Rozen Maiden had been performing steadily, something was missing from it. What's that? More Suiseiseki! Omega tsundere! The Rockwell squealing like a girl! This week they listened to the fans, and were determined to give everyone exactly what I had been craving for.

Between fishing for Hinaichigos, trying to sell herself by cold-calling, locking a rear naked choke on Kanaria, and becoming power crazed after signing a contract, Suiseiseki proved to investors why this company's record-high stock performance of late depends so heavily upon her cameos.

Love her or hate her, it has to be admitted that she is the only voice of reason concerning this ridiculous Alice Game.

Suiseiseki kicked up such a fuss that RZNT was forced to make the largest gains of the week.

THE THIRD 6 (DELIST)

Shock bankruptcy hit The Third on Monday, causing investors to lose tens of dollars. It was largely expected that the dessert wandering business would not be able to sustain a full financial year, but noone expected them to cash all their chips quite so early.

When all the facts are laid out together, it's easy to see that the mind-numbing narration, Honoka x Ikus undertones, action sequences that never lived up to the only slightly above average pilot, and grating voice of Milly were all large contributors to it's detriment. But the clear turning point where consumers just threw up their hands and said "alright, fuck this!" was when Honoka started reading poetry in the middle of a battle and let her opponant live, BECAUSE OF A FLOWER.

At 5:21pm, Monday, The Third blew away like grains of sand in a storm, proving that it's initial $45 offer price was nothing more than a mirage of a better company.

The Third limped off like a wounded dog. Who cares.

XXXHOLIC 10

XHOLC continues to make minor inroads on the exchange, keeping it afloat in this dangerous season of commercial failure. Investors were sad to see the pipe fox gone, but 100% more Yuuko made certain that Watanuki couldn't stink up the screen too much.

If there's one thing that needs addressing, analysts have decided that this week all things named Himawari needed to be axed ASAP. There is great confusion as to why Watanuki is even attracted to such a black hole of personality in the first place. Some postulate that he's only managing to stave off the red string of fate he has tied to Yuuko anyway.

XHOLC's performance of recent is almost like they've risen back up from the dead.