I guess there’s a line at the arcade this time?
At this year’s AnimagiC convention, Warner Brothers Japan announced that the Hi-Score Girl anime will be streamed on Netflix. Earlier today, at their Otakon Panel, Warner confirmed that the title will launch on the platform this December.
Hi-Score Girl began airing in Japan on July 13.
Yoshiki Yamakawa (B: The Beginning, Hells) was tapped to direct the project at J.C. Staff, with Michiru Kuwabata (Danchi Tomoo, Penguin no Mondai) providing character designs. Tatsuhiko Urahata (GATE, Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere) is in charge of series composition.
Composer Yoko Shimomura (Street Fighter II, Kingdom Hearts, Xenoblade Chronicles) is scoring the show’s soundtrack. sora tob sakana performed opening theme song New Stranger.
The ninth volume of the Hi Score Girl anime hit Japanese retailers on June 25. An anime adaptation was originally announced in 2013, though progress was stalled due to legal concerns.
The Hi Score Girl manga was pulled from publication in 2014, following an incident in which the Osaka police department’s Consumer and Economic Crime Division searched the offices of Square Enix’s headquarters, as well as locations linked to the publisher.
Game publisher SNK alleged that the Hi Score Girl manga contained over 100 instances of unauthorized uses of characters from various SNK-Playmore properties. The King of Fighters and Samurai Spirits were among the named properties. Moreover, the end notes of compiled volumes contained a copyright notice that includes SNK, complete with the © mark, which implies that some form of consent was granted for the characters’ usage.
SNK alleged that they found out about the infringements in the summer of 2013, when a Tokyo-based production company approached SNK for permission to use their properties in an anime adaptation of the title.
SNK Playmore formally filed a formal complaint in May 2014. According to Article 119, Section 1 of the Copyright Law of Japan, such a filing required the company to press criminal charges. According to SNK, the company repeatedly requested that Square Enix stop publishing the title, both in collected volumes and in print, though Square Enix never gave a real response to the matter.
In October 2014, Square Enix filed counter-suit against SNK Playmore, claiming that Square was willing to reveal that SNK’s claims were invalid. The charges were officially settled between the two parties on August 24, 2015, when SNK Playmore officially filed documents in the Osaka District Court dropping its criminal charges.
The Hi Score Girl manga returned to publication in Square Enix’s Monthly Big Gangan magazine in July 2016.
Rensuke Oshikiri’s Hi Score Girl launched in Monthly Big Gangan in 2010. To date, seven volumes have been released, with volume 8 hitting stores on March 24. Manga resource Baka-Updates describes the title as:
The year is 1991 and 6th grader Yaguchi Haruo only has video games to live for. He’s not popular in school and he’s neither handsome, funny, nice nor even friendly. The only thing he has going for him is that he is good at video games. One day at the local arcade, he plays Oono Akira, a fellow classmate but who’s popular, smart, pretty and a rich girl that absolutely destroys him at Street Fighter II. Not only does he lose to her 30 times in a row, he can’t beat her at any game. Haruo can’t seem to shake Akira off as she follows him from arcade to arcade everyday after school and beats him every time. As weird as it sounds, the odd pair begins a strange bond and friendship.
Source: Twitter (hi_score_girl), Fandom Post
Hi Score Girl Anime Hits Netflix in December 2018 – Samantha Ferreira
