Nyarko-san: Another Crawling Chaos!
I’ve written in the past about the Lovecraft-anime connection for io9.com, as well as a sidebar way back when in Michael Dziesinski’s Secrets of Japan Call of Cthulhu supplement.
But now, I’m doing a whole series of articles on the Mythos for the Crunchyroll release of the new anime “Nyarko-san: Another Crawling Chaos”, based on the timeless premise “What if Nyarlathotep took the form of a cute girl with a vaguely tentacle-like forelock of hair hanging down over his/her/its forehead?” It’s based on the light novels by Manta Aisora, and in April Crunchyroll will be simultaneously debuting the English release of the new Japanese TV series. So RUN SCREAMING, don’t walk, over to Crunchyroll to check out my first article, The Nyarko-san Chronicles: What is the Cthulhu Mythos?! I’ve never seen an anime with so many references to SAN points!
Never thought I’d see the day that that anime would be mentioned here.
I worked for a manga company for 10 years, and still write about it every week for various sites and magazines. Anime is my bread and butter!
What fun, Jason.
A few years back I fell upon and excitingly ordered your comic adaption of Dream Quest (paid for a print as well)–one of my favorite Lovecraft tales (being then a fan of Lord Dunsany.
Just recently, by chance, came upon your hardcover edition with additional adaptions and ordered that from you with your Dreamlands map (I admired your inclusion of Dunsany and Myers landmarks but do not share your dismissal of Lumley).
Then I checked your website here and enjoyed your many installments of new art and adaptions and, by mere luck, saw your mention of Nyarko-san and checked it out. I knew of magna, but have never really given it a chance, being a more traditional American comic collector myself. What a riot. Breathlessly paced, irreverent, even scandalous. I’m 2/3 through and enjoying it very much.
Thank you.
@Dr. Bob – I’m so happy you like it! If you’re interested in more manga recommendations, I wrote a book called “Manga: The Complete Guide” which came out in 2007 but is still pretty accurate. There’s lots of good stuff out there!
Thanks, Jason.
With what seems like the potential to be overwhelmed by the extensive choices in manga, I’m hesitant to do more than dip a toe into these waters. Perhaps when I retire in a few years, I’ll indulge myself. However, I did look and was disappointed that the anime “soft novels” are not avaialble to English readers as yet. I would be interesting to see what they are like.
I’m curious about them too, although generally I’m not a big fan of “light novels” — from the few I’ve read, they’re written for very young audiences and the writing is very much “BAM! POW! Then this happened! ‘Oh no!'” etc. The tvtropes page for Nyarko-san is very good, though, and casually summarizes a lot of material from the untranslated light novels, including stuff that didn’t make it into the anime series! Who knows, there’s always a chance they’ll make another Nyarko-san anime…! ;)
Doesn’t seem to me that the adult content in Nyarko-san: Another Crawling Chaos, as well as the two earlier short anime series Haiyoru Nyaruani [2009-2010] and Remember My (Mr.) Love(craft) [2010-2011], also provided at Crunchyroll.com, are appropriate “for very young audiences.” Unless the anime books are completely different in tone and content than the videos. You would know better than I.
Yes. I hope the seemingly yearly output and increasing episode length since 2009 bodes well for another Xebec-type video series production in 2013.
Thank you for the tvtropes page referral. It serves as an “annotated” guide to the episodes. The manga-related trivia goes over my head, but much of the Mythos references were familiar and fun for me (excluding the RPG ones).
Btw, your The Doom That Came to Sarnath adaption is great. Perhaps someday you’ll consider a Dunsany Dreamlands tale.
That’s true, the light novels I’ve read have been mostly adaptations of children’s or tween properties, so Nyarko-san might be better. I generally just didn’t like the staccato writing style, which I also find in American YA novels — my taste buds are probably affected by too much Lovecraft and his ilk.
Thanks for the kind words about Sarnath! :) I’ve got 12 more pages to go! I’ve considered some Dunsany adaptations, maybe someday…..
Re: light novels — basically, I’m a comics and animation person. -_- I’ll accept things in comics and animation that I’d never accept in prose, ’cause I LOVE the media themselves. There’s much that I love in manga and anime that I’ve never quite seen replicated in prose and I’m not sure *can* be replicated. But obviously millions of Japanese light novel readers disagree! ;) And I’ve never read the Nyarko-san guy’s writing, so I really have no idea what his style is like.