History
This version of Kujibiki Unbalance has its roots, as with the original, in Genshiken. Within the Genshiken universe, Kujibiki Unbalance (without the heart) is a popular manga serialized in Kudansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine, written by Yuu Kuroki (a nod to Ken Akamatsu, whose work runs in Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine). This manga, in turn, spawns a 26-episode anime adaptation focusing on the initial "Student Body Tournament" arc, which airs some time during Kanji Sasahara's first two years at Shiiou University. Despite the Genshiken's interest in the anime, fans complain that the tone of the series is uneven: the two halves are handled by two different directors, there is shoddy animation quality in several key episodes, and the conclusion, aside from never airing during the broadcast run, doesn't actually conclude anything. As a result, the reception of the series is mixed at best. Later on, a new anime series is announced. Instead of picking up where the previous series left off, however, it is a complete re-imagining of the story, with new character designs and a story independent of the manga. (This situation parallels that of the Negima! anime, whose successor, Negima!?, takes the series in a completely different direction.) This is that series.
In the real world, the anime version of Kujibiki Unbalance that appeared within Genshiken was made into a 3-episode OVA, made up of episodes 1, 21, and 25 of the supposed 26-episode series; that was all that was made for this version of the anime. The second Kujibiki Unbalance TV series was first announced as "Genshiken season 2" by Media Factory Inc. at Comiket 69. This was later clarified in May 2006, as a 12-episode Kujibiki Unbalance series. Nevertheless, the DVD releases of this series do each include an OVA episode of Genshiken, for a total of 3 new episodes. In addition to the anime, a manga version ran in Kodansha's monthly Afternoon magazine, while a two-volume light novel series was released in late 2006 and early 2007.
While presented in a much more "straight" fashion than its predecessor, this version of Kuji-Un once again delves into metafictional devices through the presence of Genshiken members in the next-episode previews, who comment on what they've watched, and cement the series' place as "fiction within fiction." Moreover, despite airing in its entirety on Japanese television in Fall 2006, it later appears in Genshiken episodes 13 through 15 (included with the DVD release of this series), and the later Genshiken 2, as a point of interest for the main characters. At one point, Kanji Sasahara can be seen reading the real-life first volume of this series' manga, while (contrary to the Genshiken manga), Chika Ogiue and Makoto Kousaka end up cosplaying as characters from this anime.
Read more about this topic: Kujibiki Unbalance (2006 Series)
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