:anime: Free/Low-Cost Anime Pick of the Month:: Yawarakame

Yawarakame

Official Sites: Japanese
Additional Links: ANN Entry, ANN Article
Video [Free]: BeeTV (See link above for viewing instructions)

This month's pick only comes around two week's after its announcement, and it's something of a personal pick. Yawarakame is a new ONA (original net anime) comedy that debuted on website of BeeTV, a Japanese mobile phone service (though it is accessible on any computer). It's the brainchild of Those Who Hunt Elves and Dokkoida?! mangaka Yu Yagami and ufotable, who animated the adaptation of the latter and whose profile has grown since producing the Kara no Kyoukai film series. Yawarakame is certainly in the vein of "Japanese cute/weird" (no surprise given Yagami's past work), but perhaps its most distinguishing characteristic is that Miyuki Sawashiro is handling all of the voices in the show. She's a very talented seiyuu and one of my favorites, so it was a gimme that it would get some sort of lip service here, along with ufotable's involvement.

And because it's Christmas Day, and because I'm such a nice guy, I'll throw in a second (and more higher-profile) title! :)

Monster

Official Sites: English
Additional Links: ANN Entry
Video [Free]: Anime News Network, Hulu

Apparently, anyone who has already seen Monster (or read the manga it was based on) has sworn by it and hailed it as one of the best shows (or manga) around. The series has been showing on Syfy for the past few months dubbed but it is finally available online at Hulu (and subsequently linked onto ANN video service and Viz Media's new streaming anime website). The dub has been a solid effort thus far and it is great to see it finally available streamed. Only one small problem...

Only the first episode is available in full, and there are eleven clips from future episodes that serve to whet the appetite and give a sneak peek of (or spoil) what lies ahead. The rest of the episodes will be added in their entirety over the course of the upcoming year. On separate note, I came across this completely by accident on ANN, which seemed to get little notice or fanfare. Hopefully that will change once the batches get posted.