The Summer of Otaku Love

With the summer anime season fast approaching I thought it would be a good time to look at a series that will be airing its third iteration, and something that I have followed for years in both manga and anime – Genshiken.

Genshiken is a manga turned anime authored by Shimuko Kio and has spawned quite a few sequels, OVAs and Light Novels already, not including its very own spin-off series Kujibiki Unbalance, which started as an anime show within the Genshiken story and has come into its life in manga and anime form.

The story follows a group of college students who participate in a club called ‘The Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture’ or Genshiken (its shortened form) despite how arty the club name sounds it is essentially a club for otaku. Now as you can imagine a fair few familiar scenes will be on display here, be it heated discussions of that latest anime episode, gaming tournaments, or journeying to the holy grail of conventions – Comiket. All can be found in this Slice-of-life comedy with anime and game references aplenty it’s an all-out geek fest and probably with some surprises along the way.

Genshiken-SideThe latest anime offering is titled Genshiken Nidaime (Second Season), although titled as such, this is not, in fact, the second season but the third. What this refers to is the manga which first ran from 2002 to 2006 where the end saw the majority of main characters graduating from the college. Then in 2010 the manga began publishing again but with a new cast of characters with some originals remaining and occasional cameos. With the change in characters from the first and second parts of the manga we also see a change of perspective on what otaku activities take place during the story. Rest assured with such an awesome manga as source material and with Production I.G. helming this new adaptation, I believe it will do justice to those that have graced our eyes before it.

As of this time, there is no information as to whether Genshiken Nidaime will be available through streaming or which company, but I will update this once the information is released.

The manga is still widely available across bookstores and online, now being released by Kodansha with the original manga in omnibus form, although the Del Rey versions can still be found.

Editor-in-chief