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| Groomed to be a champion, she just wants to be an ordinary girl. |
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Inokuma Yawara just wants to be an ordinary high-school girl. Unfortunately for
her, she's been trained since she was a toddler by her grandfather, Jigoro, to be a
judo prodigy. Nothing less than an Olympic Gold Medal and the coveted National Merit
Award will satisfy him, and he'll do anything to ensure that she achieves it.
And if that isn't enough, a pesky sports reporter is on her trail, convinced she's
Japan's next superstar -- and that picture of her taking down a mugger (with her panties showing)
on the front page of his cheesy sports newspaper isn't helping matters at all!
AnimEigo is proud to be releasing one of Japan's most popular and long-running
Anime TV series, based on the sweet and hilarious hit manga by Naoki Urasawa --
Yawara, the Fashionable Judo Girl.
The entire first season (40 episodes) is now available for preorder (scroll down the page
for the all-important preorder form). This is a special limited edition set, and will not be
available in stores for at least a year (and possibly never!) -- you can only get it directly from AnimEigo.
Want more convincing? We're so sure you'll love Yawara that, just to whet your appetite, we'll send you a DVD,
containing the first 4 episodes, for free! Details at the bottom of the page!
Anime News Network |
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Trained from an early age to be a judo champion, Inokuma Yawara just wants to
be a normal high-school girl, find a boyfriend, fall in love, and so on. Unfortunately, her
grandfather is...
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...Inokuma Jigoro, 7th-dan Judo Master and 5-time National Champion. Jigoro loves two things, Judo
and Eating, and he's world-class in both. He won't be satisfied unless Yawara wins both an
Olympic Gold Medal and the prestigious National Merit Award, and he's been reminding Yawara
of this since she's been a toddler. When Yawara decides boys are more important than Judo,
he schemes to find her a rival, someone like...
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...Hon'ami Sayaka, the extremely spoiled daughter of one of Japan's richest families (when she
wants a designer outfit from Paris, the designer flies to her!). Sayaka has never failed to
dominate any sport she's cared to try, and when Yawara shows her up, she decides to stop
at nothing to defeat her, enlisting the aid of...
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...her loyal and extremely patient majordomo, Tokunaga, and...
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...Kazamatsuri Shinnosuke, the finest judo coach in all of Japan (except perhaps
for Jigoro, whom he worships), and also,
despite being incredibly shy, an unbelievable babe-magnet. Unfortunately for him, for all the women
in the world, and in particular, for Sayaka, he just might be getting serious about...
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...Inokuma Yawara, who is fast falling in love with him, but is perhaps even
more shy than he is. However, her romantic daydreams may get a cold dose of reality when she finds out
Kazamatsuri is Sayaka's coach! Meanwhile, Yawara's life is being made complicated by
a tenacious reporter...
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...Matsuda Kosaku, who's become convinced she's going to be the next
great sports superstar, and whose photographer sidekick Kamoda seems to have a knack for
taking embarrassing pictures of our heroine...
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...such as this one (fear not, Moms of America, this is a PG series, and Yawara always
remembers her mother's advice about wearing clean underwear just in case)...
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...which have caused no end of problems, not the least of which are the
unwanted affections of her school's resident bad boy, Sudoh...
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...as well as the overly-emotional devotion of the captain of the school's
hapless Judo club, Hanazono.
And that's just in the first few episodes, mind you...
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| To introduce you and your friends to Yawara, we are
making an unprecedented offer - a Free Preview DVD containing the first 4 episodes
of the series, 100% complete and subtitled in the traditional AnimEigo style! Starting with
the original, lovingly-done Yawara fansubs, we've spent many hours refining the translation,
tweaking the timing, and adding our trademark multicolor titles and "supertitle" terminology
notes.
You may request up to 3 discs so you can pass on copies to friends and family whom you
think might be interested, but please only ask for the amount you really need
(these things do cost us money, after all!). And if, after watching it, you decide Yawara
isn't for you, please pass the disc along to someone you think would appreciate it.
There's one catch (you knew there had to be at least one): If you order a disc by
itself, we hit you up for a minimum S&H charge of $5.00. On the other hand, if you order
anything else from the site as well, you can get free S&H if you choose the Media Mail
option, since we can just pop the disc in with your order.
Please note: even though this disc is free, the material on it is still copyrighted,
and you should not under any circumstances copy, sell, fileshare, or in any way distribute
it without written permission
from AnimEigo (except to give any extra copies you requested to their intended recipients,
of course!).
PS: We welcome your feedback on the translation and subtitling choices we've made on
Yawara. You can email your comments to our normal
questions@animeigo.com
email address with subject line "Yawara Preview Comments".
Here's the order button - enjoy!
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| Get a T-Shirt, Avoid the Catch! |
[Top] |
| To celebrate the upcoming release of Yawara, we've
created a special Yawara T-Shirt, featuring calligraphy by local expert Mitsuyo Ito.
The character, “yawara”, is the first kanji in Judo, and to emphasize the flexible nature of yawara, it appears tilted on the t-shirt.
These high-quality shirts are available for a mere $9.98, and you can even get one free
with any order of $100.00 or more. And note that if you buy a t-shirt, you can get free USPS shipping,
and we'll be able to add in a free copy of the Yawara Preview DVD! So for less than $10, you can
get a great t-shirt and the free DVD delivered to your door!
PS: we have a limited number of shirts that feature the kanji on the back instead of the front. If you'd prefer one of these,
simply say so in the comments field of your order.
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| First Season Preorder |
[Top] |
The first season of Yawara (Episodes 1-40) will be released during the summer of 2008 (as we get closer to release, we'll narrow
down the date). The format will be a set of DVD9's (1-sided,
dual-layer DVDs, probably with 6-7 episodes per DVD) in a Multi Disc DVD Case. In addition to the episodes and our traditional
extensive liner notes, there will be an extras disc containing all sorts of interesting goodies (no details yet, we're still working
on them).
The retail price of season 1 is $149.98. However, if you preorder the set, you can get it for only $124.98, plus a small shipping charge
(depending on what shipping option you select). Furthermore, if we get more than 2000 preorders, we'll automatically reduce the cost to everyone
in $5.00 increments (2001-3000 preorders means the price is $119.98, 3001-4000 = $114.98) all the way down to $99.98.
We have used this preorder system many times in the past. By knowing how many people want a box set like Yawara, we know exactly how
many to make, and ship everything in a massive batch -- and we pass the savings on to you. You can pay using credit card, check, or PayPal,
and we don't collect any money until we are actually shipping the product. You can cancel your preorder at any time (though we hope you won't!),
and we'll send out an email alert a few days before we let loose the dogs of shipping!
To sign up for the preorder, simply fill out the following form and submit it. You'll then get an email with a link you can use to
enter other data we'll need, like your address and payment information. Please file away the information in that email in case you need
to change things later on. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to
fire off an email to us.
In the "Name of Character" field, select the name of the character displayed to the
right of the form. We apologise for this skill-testing-question, but some moronic spammers
(or their even more stupid spambots) keep submitting bogus email addresses via the form.
Questions and Answers:
Question: Is it subtitled and dubbed, or subtitled-only?
Answer: Subtitled-only. There's no possible way we could afford to dub it unless some generous TV network decides they want to put it on the air, and unfortunately, that hasn't happened yet.
Question: Do I get a free t-shirt with my preorder, like I would if I made a large order using your regular shopping cart?
Answer: Alas, no. The preorder system is entirely separate from our regular shopping cart, and the special offers we make using
that cart (such as shipping discounts and free t-shirts) do not apply to preorders. The whole point of the preorder system is to totally
streamline the shipping process by allowing us to ship a standard product to a lot of people at once.
Question: Do you charge sales tax?
Answer: Only if the preorder is shipped to an address in North Carolina.
Question: I live in Lower Slobovia. Can I preorder Yawara?
Answer: No, sorry. Our license only allows us to ship to addresses in the United States, Canada, and their respective territories and possessions. We can, btw, ship to military addresses like APO's and FPO's (basically, if you've got a US zipcode or Canadian postcode, you're OK).
Question: I want several copies. Can I get a discount?
Answer: No. Because of the way our preorder shipping system works, you'll actually get one package per copy ordered. To give you an idea of how insane it gets when we ship out a box set, we've resurrected our chronicle of shipping out the Macross box set, aka
“The Hell of Shipping Box Sets.”
Question: I've preordered stuff from you before, but the preorder system seems to have forgotten about me! What gives?
Answer: If you haven't preordered stuff from us for a long while (several years), then your record in the preorder system might get purged. We do this to keep the size of the database under control.
Question: When do I have to fork over my money?
Answer: If you decide to use a credit card, then we'll try and charge it when we're actually ready to ship, and not a moment before. If you want to use a check or money order, you can send it in at any time, but we won't try and cash it until we're ready to ship, and we won't ship until it clears. Similarly, with PayPal, you can send the money in at any time (or even in several chunks). When we can ship it, and we've got your hard-earned cash, it'll go out the door.
As we get closer to the actual shipping date (and that date is firming up), we'll send you some update emails to let you know how things are going. So when we're down to T-10 days, it's time to make sure the credit card info is correct, send in the check, or make the PayPal payment.
No matter what, in the immortal words of Douglas Adams, Don't Panic! If we can't charge your card, or you forgot to PayPal us, or you forgot to sign the check, we'll get in touch with you and get it straightened out.
Question: My question isn't on this list!
Answer: Assuming it's related to the preorder (ie: no questions like “What... is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?”), then send us an email and we'll answer your question (hopefully to your satisfaction), and perhaps even add it the answer here!
Question: What... is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?
Answer: Be specific! Do you mean an African or European swallow? Oh, never mind.
Here is the answer, at least for European swallows. Now go away, you silly person - after you've preordered, of course.
Question: What's all this nonsense about swallows?
Answer: It's from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
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Yawara © Naoki Urasawa/Shogakukan * Yomiuri TV * Kitty. All Rights Reserved.
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