tamamatango

[tamamatango]

Update 2: It’s pretty much just sitting in my AO3 drafts for final proofread but I am going to be running around doing Business for the next 5 days and don’t want this to distract me so it will be as early as possible next week or you may pelt me with hammers.

(I am also stuck between two chapter titles, send help)

Brief update: I expect to finish TCaB and upload the final chapter this month. I don’t know what day yet but This Month. I happen to have big things going on with my job atm so I am distracted but the first draft of the final chapter is like 85% done. There will be a surprise at the end. I hope you will enjoy product for consumption

[tamamatango]

Brief update: I expect to finish TCaB and upload the final chapter this month. I don’t know what day yet but This Month. I happen to have big things going on with my job atm so I am distracted but the first draft of the final chapter is like 85% done. There will be a surprise at the end. I hope you will enjoy product for consumption

[tamamatango]

DISCOTEK GOT THE MOVIES WE FUCKING WON CHAAAAAAAT

For context, Discotek previously said they wouldn’t be licensing the movies (some people guessed sales of the episode disc sets were poor and whoever mods the Discotek subreddit implied that wasn’t far off). My thinking is either Kadokawa forced their hand here in advance of next year’s movie or the episode sets saw a sales bump when all seven seasons were out from people who wanted to get the whole series at once.

It’ll be great to have these considering the only available fansubs for movies 2 and 4 especially kinda suck ass. But the real news is that this has significantly increased the chance of next year’s movie being licensed. Please Crunchyroll I will be your best friend

[tamamatango]

Update: Balance has been restored to the universe

btw while I’m here let’s play a game of “What’s wrong with this picture”

[tamamatango]

btw while I’m here let’s play a game of “What’s wrong with this picture”

[tamamatango]

Tamamamama

Yee

[tamamatango]

This flew under the radar for a few days, but Yuichi Fukuda posted a frame from the storyboard for next year’s movie!

I wasn’t entirely sure how to interpret what we’re looking at, so I consulted a friend who knows about the anime production process. This is a frame of what’s called the line composite, which is an animatic made with the storyboard panels. It’s done specifically for the voice recording, which happens before the final animation as anime voice actors perform along to the animatics. (My conjecture here, but in other words, they probably haven’t done much if any voice recording or final animation yet.) The box that says ケロロ軍曹 in the bottom left is a speech marker to show he’s who’s talking in the scene, and the big yellow number in the top right corner is either the cut number or panel number. From my own quick research, a 20 minute regular episode of anime is 300 cuts, so my guess is this is somewhere in the first third of the movie (the film is probably 1000+ cuts).

Also, Fukuda sounds pretty mesmerized by the animation process in general—he’s only ever worked on live action films save for some short anime projects (per his ANN credits), so that’s no surprise lol. A concern I’ve seen thrown around by otaku on Japanese twitter is that he’ll dilute the accuracy to the source material to suit his style of humor, which is something he’s somewhat infamous for, but he does seem to be deferential to the series veteran staff to some extent even if he did write the screenplay.

Considering the phase that production seems to be at, seems like we’ll probably waiting till, at the earliest, closer to the end of the year or beginning of next for a trailer with any completed or near-complete footage. It’d be cool if we get to see some more production materials here and there going forward!

[tamamatango]

To Chase a Butterfly Chapter 16 Release

If you’ve played any of the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games you know where this is going

Kururu has returned home after helping to defeat the Quietite, who Tsukeke ultimately destroyed for good at the cost of his own life. Now all Kururu has to do is enact his plan to reset the timeline and save Saburo once and for all—and speed is of the essence, as several days have passed while the Keroro Platoon was stuck in space-time! But a certain someone seems to be feeling a little blue… pun somewhat intended

Here’s the second-to-last chapter! I’ve actually enjoyed writing what’s left because the planning isn’t giving me fucking agita, so the wrapup is going pretty smoothly. The more contemplative tone of these is really a breath of fresh air after the action marathon. This is still an important chapter in its own right though, so I hope you enjoy! And stay tuned for the end :D

[tamamatango]

The anime project finally revealed, part 2: I WAS WRONG ABOUT LITERALLY EVERYTHING (The Opinions Post)

Sincerest apologies if you invested in Kirbcoin

(Late to getting this up because I got distracted with other stuff again, what else is new)

In case you haven’t seen it yet, here’s a link to the first part of the report about the movie now revealed to be released in Summer 2026, which contains factual information only.

And now here’s the post about why I’m irrationally upset about it!

But I’m gonna do the positive stuff first before I get to the crashout. Here’s what I liked about the reveal:

The new artstyle is cute. I am not sure if I like it more than what we got in last year’s teaser—though that goes mostly for the human design since Keroro looks pretty much the same—but I do like it. The fact that the human cast is getting new outfits (see Fuyuki’s) makes me happy; of course it’s nothing new for the Keroro movies since every other one did the same thing but this is the first one in 16 years so they could have gone with the normal outfits but chose to do new ones anyway. Shoutouts to Satoshi Koike who was the best pick for this besides Fumitoshi Oizaki, who is the director/animation director now (these are technically separate roles but it sounds like he’s both until proven otherwise, also different from Yuichi Fukuda’s role as chief director, confusing I know).

It seems likely that this is an original story rather than a manga adaptation, and I think that’s for the best—while there are things from the recent manga I would have liked to see adapted, I don’t think any of it is suited to movie format except maybe the abruptly aborted Keroron Ball stuff, which was already largely an adaptation of the previous movies. I have seen concerns on Japanese twitter about Yuichi Fukuda’s screenplay, since he apparently tends to distort the source material to fit his comedic style, but Gintama fans seem to have thought that the live action movie was pretty good/largely faithful and there’s several original staff members + Yoshizaki advising on this one so…I’m not gonna doompost about that just yet.

From the little that we got to hear, the new Kero to March sounds decent, a nice mix between the original and the later instrumentations. I don’t think I got a chance to mention this, but ano being involved was something I did actually predict correctly (she posted a decent amount about being a fan and the official accounts acknowledged it), and I like her music so that’s good with me. This is also something parts of Japanese twitter had a problem with for some reason, which makes no sense to me because Keroro has had celebrities/random entertainers doing the theme songs since literally the very beginning (the first Kero to March had a freaking athlete involved).

And now for the bellyaching, which essentially boils down to:

Look. We were not promised a TV series. From the very beginning of this whole waiting game they only ever advertised it as a “project,” and in that sense, they delivered exactly what they said they were going to. But you all or at least some of you saw my post from last May and all the things I discussed in it. The way official parties were talking about it. The unusual amount of staff for a 30 second teaser trailer that ultimately indicated nothing (Studio Bind is gone, it’s only BN Pictures for the movie). The last 15 months of collabs, floods of merch drops, and other random shit that made it seem like this was a long haul thing even after the anniversary year itself was over. Keroro has technically never not had merch/collabs going on but this is more than it’s ever had since like 2010. The fact that the twitter account is called “Keroro anime” even though the distinction kinda won’t matter anymore once the date this is released has passed and there won’t be a consistent need for anime specific news, they could’ve done all this stuff on Keroro PR. Other series have made anime specific accounts just for merchandise or whatever but that’s typically when they didn’t have another PR outlet outside of like the author’s personal account.

So like…a lot of stuff I thought meant something just didn’t mean anything, I guess??

Honestly, I probably never should have done all the overanalyzing from the beginning. I invested a lot of time and energy and hubris into my reading being likely and conflated that with my personal desires, and kinda just didn’t mentally prepare for the possibility that I was entirely off base. Plus, if the teaser really was made when the decision was greenlit and not much more progress had been made, the roughly two years of production lines up pretty well with how long an anime movie takes.

That being said: I have a weird gut feeling that something went awry somewhere. This isn’t based on any actual evidence so I’m not gonna call it a prediction. I’m probably just predisposed to it cuz the hyperfixation I came from last year ended in a cancellation that wrecked me for a while so this thought gives me deja vu in a way that I Do Not Like even if I’m pretty much pulling this out of my ass! I guess what I’m trying to imply is maybe they were considering a series or floating the idea for one but it was scrapped? I guess we could get one later if the movie does well, but for obvious reasons I’m done making overconfident assumptions.

Oh, and compounding on these issues, the fact that it is a movie makes the problem of how the fuck are we getting it outside Japan much more of a problem. Crunchyroll has licensed movies before but it takes a lot longer for them to put those out for what I assume is licensing complications, so the chances are less likely than if it was a TV anime. That means we’ll be waiting on Blu-rays, which are usually about six months after the theater release, and even once that happens and someone very likely rips the raw, it turns into a logistical nightmare of who the hell is subbing it, because the translation talent has basically left the fandom and even if I wanted to do it I literally cannot for several reasons! I don’t personally need it to be subbed because I can understand it anyway but I like to talk about Keroro with people who can’t so it’s just gonna be me screaming into the void for who knows how long and by the time it all gets settled we’ll be closer to the fucking 25th anniversary than we were to the 20th!! HNNNMNMMMMMGMGM

…Okay so basically my disappointment is pretty much a personal psychological thing, is what I’m getting at. Like it’s entirely my fault for setting my expectations where they were, getting cocky, and hinging my pride on it, and I do not expect anybody else to be bothered by this in the specific way that I am. That said, I really would have preferred it if they just said what it was from the outset instead of 15 months of guessing games, and I don’t think that’s something only I feel. Like what was the point of hiding it exactly??

Okay I think I’ve embarrassed myself enough now. I’m a grown ass adult and this is a really stupid thing to be peeved about. Especially because I am still very much looking forward to it, and I will probably bawl like a fucking baby when it does come out. I will still make update posts when we do get more news over the course of the next year, but since it’s just One Thing it probably won’t be as much as I thought I would have to do. The fact that we’re only halfway through the waiting period now after all this sucks ass but c’est la vie. Hopefully this is truly peak cinema, like this needs to bare minimum match Movie 3 for me or I’m gonna feel cheated to some degree lmao.

Also please release the fucking soundtrack this time for the love of God.

[tamamatango]

The Keroro anime project finally revealed: New movie set to premiere Summer 2026! EVERYTHING we know so far, translated!

Welcome to my mega info post where I report everything we know so far about the recently revealed Keroro movie set to be released in Japan next summer! This post will include details from the trailer, staff/cast info, translations of comments from the staff, etc.

Everything revealed in the teaser trailer (and description)

Beginning with the contents of the trailer itself, it opens with a narrator (actor uncredited) teasing that the main character of the 2026 film is "not a hero, nor a blond-haired delinquent, nor a part of the Yorozuya" over the reveal of the screenwriter/supervising director as Yuichi Fukuda (this is a reference to some of his other works: drama series The Hero Yoshihiko, the live action adaptation of Kyou Kara Ore Wa, and the live action adaptations of Gintama respectively). Immediately after, it's revealed that the animation director is Fumitoshi Oizaki (character designer on the original show), and the character designer is Satoshi Koike (animation director for the later seasons of the original show...yes they essentially swapped roles).

After that, there's a brief animated scene of Fuyuki—who has a brand new design that’s a bit closer to Yoshizaki’s style than the original anime/last year’s teaser but not as direct as the Flash series—walking in on Keroro working on the film. Both are voiced by Houko Kuwashima and Kumiko Watanabe respectively, reprising their roles. Then, along with the reveal of the movie's production and its release date of Summer 2026, we get a brief snippet of the movie's theme song, a new arrangement of Kero! to March called Mata Kaettekita Kero! to March ("Kero! to March Returns Again"), performed by singer ano and comedian Soshina, who host a variety show together.

That's pretty much it for the video, but the YouTube description reveals a few more details. The sole animation studio for the movie is BN Pictures (Studio Bind seems to have only been involved in last year's teaser). It's being distributed by Kadokawa and Bandai Namco Filmworks, and the copyright string credits Mine Yoshizaki, Kadokawa, and "Keroro Gunso Movie Production Committee.” Usually being labeled as a production committee rather than specific parties means there's several sponsors/companies involved in funding the production. The description also points out that the film is "part of" the larger plan for the series's 20th anniversary, and will be the first theatrical release for the series in 16 years (Movie 5 was released in 2010). Worth noting that the film has not been given an official title yet, and thus it's unknown if it will be labeled the same as the previous 5 "Super Movies" (Chou Gekijouban), or if they will use a different label.

Details from the official site: Staff/cast list and comments

The official Keroro anime portal, opened last year with the teaser for the project, has put up a page specifically for the movie with various comments from persons involved, as a well as the current confirmed cast (so far all returning from the original, as widely expected).

First I'll go over the comments from the revealed production staff:

Mine Yoshizaki, original creator: "I'm Mine Yoshizaki, original creator of the series. Those heinous aliens are finally returning to the big screen! My stomach is churning with anticipation and nerves, but with several trusty staff members returning, I'm also happy and excited! And the one holding all these powerhouse people and characters together is...th-the Fukuda-san?! For real?! There was already a lot of unknowns going into this movie, but now it's really impossible to predict what will happen. What I can say is that I'm so excited, it's getting in the way of my work! Everyone, please look forward to the release with me!"

Yuichi Fukuda, screenwriter/supervising director: "It's my pleasure to have been given the role of screenwriter and supervising director on the new Keroro Gunso feature film. It might be a bit self-important of me to call myself the director, since when it comes to turning my screenplay into anime, the bulk of the work falls on the animation director. Though sometimes they'll let me give input on specific things here and there, and do a little bit of directing during recording sessions. I've been a huge fan of Keroro Gunso since it was airing on television. I was still working on variety shows at the time, and watching Keroro Gunso while I was writing scripts left a huge impression on me. I love parodies, so what stood out the most to me was just how much Keroro Gunso could get away with—I was always surprised half the time while watching it. I couldn't help being envious of how uninhibited its writing was. So when I got the offer to work on this film, I couldn't contain my excitement. I do have a favorite character, of course, but I don't want to show any bias, so I won't say here who it is. In writing the screenplay, I recieved a whoooole lot of guidance from Mine Yoshizaki-sensei, the production staff involved with the original TV series, and the animation director. I learned an incredible amount of things during the process. I feel like I was really able to pour my heart into getting out all the envy I've felt about Keroro Gunso for so long! When I learned who was singing the theme song, I went, 'Wow, it's them?!', and similarly, my reaction to the special guest voice actors was 'They even got these people!? No way!' I think we captured what makes Keroro Gunso so enjoyable, while also leaving a ton of surprises in store! Look forward to the release next year!"

Fumitoshi Oizaki, animation director: "The sergeant and his gang are back for the first time in forever! I was already really happy to have the chance to be involved again after all these years, but it's truly a miracle that I was able to work with Yuichi Fukuda-san himself. I'm enjoying the unbelievable crossover between Fukuda and Yoshizaki's creative worlds while making the film. It's going to be a lively, turbulent (lol), and overall fun work, so look forward to the release!"

Satoshi Koike, character designer: "I've finally gotten to see Keroro and pals again for the first time in 14 years, following the end of the TV series in 2011. I guess that means they still haven't invaded Pekopon yet (lol). Keroro has been a big part of my career, and we're making sure that the movie can be enjoyed by both those who were young during the original broadcast and all of today's children alike!"

Next, we have a few comments from select members of the cast:

Kumiko Watanabe, voice of Keroro: "S-say whaaaat?!!! You mean the platoon made up of the most incompetent invaders in the universe?!! The platoon who can only pull through when things are down to the wire?!! The platoon with a leader who prioritizes Gunpla over his mission?!! Those were all my ironic meta jokes, gero gerori. Now, all you foolish Pekoponians! Prepare to witness the true power of my platoon in the theater! Gero gero gero gero... (Resonating menacingly) So, um, uh, I'll be waiting for you guys in cinemas, yes sir! Pinky promise me! ♡"

Etsuko Kozakura, voice of Tamama: "A brand new Keroro Gunso movie! I can't believe this is really happening! I never imagined it was possible. I'm so happy! It's not often I get to meet up with all the cast members at once, so I bet we're gonna have a grand old time at the recording. I'm gonna bring a ton of throat lozenges to the studio in case we laugh so hard that it hurts our voices! I'm excited to see how the story turns out too. I hope all you fans out there will join the party with us!"

Houko Kuwashima, voice of Fuyuki: "It's been a long time, and I'm just as surprised as everyone else, but I'll be taking part in the new Keroro Gunso movie. When I recorded the super special teaser that was unveiled the other day, that's when it sank in that this was really happening—we're really doing this! I'm going to play my role while savoring the joy of recording as a group with Keroro's voice actor Kumiko Watanabe-san and the rest of the cast. I'll see you all in theaters!"

Those were the only cast members who left comments for now, but among the cast list, the following reprisals are confirmed:

Jouji Nakata as Giroro

Takehito Koyasu as Kururu

Takeshi Kusao as Dororo

Chiwa Saito as Natsumi

Akiko Hiramatsu as Aki

And finally for the comments, we have remarks from ano and Soshina, the singers of the new Kero to March arrangement:

ano: "I'm super-duper excited for the new Keroro Gunso movie opening in Summer 2026. I've been reading the manga volumes and watching the anime and movies since I was little, and you might know this already if you've seen my social media posts, but I love Keroro Gunso so much that I have a ton of merchandise! And now I've been appointed as publicity chief of the Keroro Platoon, Recruit Anono. Plus, along with Soshina-san, I got to sing a new version of the opening theme I'd listen to all the time. The lyrics are a mixture of my ideas and those I got from [Yoshizaki-]sensei. I had a lot of fun recording it. Please do enjoy the song along with the new film!"

Soshina: "I'm Soshina, a guy whose eyes look like Giroro's. Being able to preform a new version of the famous “Kero! to March” moves me more than words can say! It's really all thanks to ano-chan. I'm very grateful to her. As a fan of a certain pachinko machine, it was an honor to cover the solo parts Nobuaki Kakuda sang back in the day. [Translation note: Nobuaki Kakuda, one of the singers of the original KtM along with Juri Ihata, also preformed themes for a pachinko machine game based on the manga Hana no Keiji.] I hope you all listen to it, at least more than the theme song the members of Harisenbon sang for one of the other Keroro Gunso films! [Another note: Harisenbon is the name for the comedy duo that sung “Tomodachi no Uta” from the Chibi Kero short preceding Movie 2. Seems like Soshina views them as rivals in comedy.]

And that's everything as far as current information goes! To close off, here's a few miscellaneous things about the reveal:

Accidental leak

About 24 hours before the official reveal, the Keroro YouTube channel accidentally set the trailer from private to unlisted, and an Anime News Network article about the reveal went live a little bit early too. I’m not sure what happened first, but either way, the errors were corrected rather quickly, and only a comparatively small number of people saw it. I had the video recorded before it went private again but I decided not to spread it around in case it made it to Japanese social media, which I guess was for the best, because…

Media attention

The news about the movie made quite a lot of buzz. The “Keroro Gunso” hashtag actually reached #1 on Japanese twitter’s trending tab (it had about 60k tweets when I last checked). A number of related keywords were trending as well, several of them referring to Fukuda, whose involvement seems to be a pretty big deal (apparently this is the first time he’s ever worked on an anime). Also on twitter, the announcement tweet containing the trailer has obtained over 200k likes in about 48 hours, already surpassing last year’s trailer that currently has about 150k. Lots of mainstream media news websites published articles about the announcement as well. We’ll see if they can keep the momentum going over the next year leading up to the film’s release.

ano’s PR

So far, outside of her voice being in the trailer briefly via the opening preview, ano also guested the night after the reveal on the YouTube channel’s radio show, hosted by Watanabe and Kozakura. Incidentally, Koike made a Keronian design for her last year. He says that he did not know of her involvement in the film at the time, but might touch up the design a little (perhaps they’ll use the design in advertisements later down the line?). Based on the official role she’s been given, it’s likely ano will be involved with various promotional events leading up to the film’s release.

That’s about it for now! I’ll make more posts like this periodically whenever they give substantial updates up to and after the film’s release (they’ll probably keep doing press releases until it comes out on home media). This was my more neutral-toned post for fact reporting—if you want to know my personal feelings on the movie reveal, I’ll be doing a follow-up post a bit later. I’m probably going to revise what I already wrote for that since I’ve had a few days to sit on it now and I feel a bit differently than I did at first.

[tamamatango]

Okay FINE I guess I HAVE to post nowish idk they gave me too much stuff to translate it will take time

Look forward to maybe getting to watch the thing in January 2027

[tamamatango]

I lied about “post tomorrow” (as in today now, Wednesday) I am actually gonna do the post after Thursday since I think the official announcement will be tomorrow (Thursday) morning. This is all based on an accidental early leak that has been quickly covered up and I do not want to be The Source for it spreading around since it managed to come and go without Japan noticing. When I do post about it I am going to make two posts: one that’s a straight news report with all the facts and no opinions for people who just want the info and not to listen to my big fat mouth, and one that’s the analysis/opinions post. Fair warning the opinion post is largely going to be a crashout, because the prevailing theory that’s in my head currently is not one I’m particularly happy about.

But yeah you will hear from me. Very soon.

tumblr user tamamatango on fraud watch

[tamamatango]

Wait I got one more

THERE IS NO EASTER BUNNY, THERE IS NO TOOTH FAIRY, AND THERE IS NO KERORO TV ANIME SEASON

[tamamatango]

tumblr user tamamatango on fraud watch

[tamamatango]

To Chase a Butterfly Chapter 15 Release

Why did I force myself to pretend to write poetry am I stupid. (Btw I know the Quietite in the story looks different than pic attached I’m limited in canon and invented the entire lore just roll with it)

The Keroro Platoon triumphed over Tsukeke once and for all and was just about to escape the inter-dimensional realm when, out of nowhere, a rogue Quietite appears and reveals it’s managed to infiltrate the gap in space-time to conquer all dimensions, potentially including the platoon’s own! Kururu forces the rest of the team to head to safety, leaving him and Tsukeke to deal with the threat alone. Can the once-rivals reconcile in time to succeed in the stanza smackdown?

Okay, first of all, I am so so sorry this took forever. I underestimated just how much I was going to struggle here, other stuff got in the way, and the lack of motivation snowballed from there. But after a few months of chipping away at it, I’ve finally gotten this third-to-last chapter out the door. Just a few days off from the first anniversary of the publishing date! Holy fuck I’ve been working on this for a year and it’s still not done. Well, there’s only two chapters after this (for realsies).

This is a BIG chapter, and also definitely the most important one for my little screwball “orikero”(/canon character that I just filled in 97% of the blanks for). I’m not gonna specify what that means here, but you’ll see ;)

[tamamatango]

Hi tunglr. I said in the tags of my last post that something else would come before the next tcab chapter but that was a lie. Fic update is next (ideally this week) cuz I finally locked the fuck in and finished the draft, then a post about a side project (which much like tcab at first already exists in the wild secretly tee hee), then we’ll probably have anime news or so help me (July 10th-ish putting my chips down)

Sorry I came back to this site only to then spend the majority of the following year Going Through It but c’est la vie

[tamamatango]

Hi guys. Sorry for going missing again but I just wanted to share I nearly laughed out loud when I walked into my room to find that this happened completely inadvertently. Only God knows what chaos occurred here