The World Is Still Beautiful

The World Is Still Beautiful, also known as Still World Is Beautiful (Japanese: それでも世界は美しい, Hepburn: Soredemo Sekai wa Utsukushii, lit. "Even So, The World is Beautiful") is a Japanese manga series by Dai Shiina, serialized in Hakusensha's shōjo manga magazine Hana to Yume from 2012. Soredemo Sekai wa Utsukushii was first published as a one-shot in the same magazine in 2009, with a second one-shot published in 2011. It has been collected in ten tankōbon volumes as of June 2015. An anime television series adaptation by Pierrot aired between April 6, 2014 and June 29, 2014 on NTV.

Plot

Nike, the fourth princess of the Rain Dukedom and one who holds the power to call forth the rain, travels to the Sun Kingdom to marry Sun King Livius for her country, despite her own reluctance. She soon discovers that the King, who conquered the world in only three years after his ascendance to the throne, is still a child. Furthermore, for trivial reasons, he has demanded that Nike call forth the rain, and when she refuses, he has her thrown in jail. The story follows the two who, while at first are a married couple only in name, gradually begin to establish an emotional bond with one another.

Sekai

Sekai (世界, World) is a song by Chara. It was released as the first single from her album Union on September 13, 2006 (2006-09-13). It debuted at #24 on the Japanese Oricon album charts, and charted for five weeks. The song was used in commercials for the NEC brand 'Foma N702iS' cellphone.

Chara wrote the song in 2005. The main guitar chords in the song were recycled from the song Ongaku (音楽, Music) from her 2005 independently released album Something Blue.

She wrote "Amai Tori" (甘い鳥, Sweet Bird) in the style of Stevie Nicks. The B-side "Anata" (あなた, You) is a cover of Akiko Kosaka's 1973 debut single.

Music video

The music video was shot by director Kenjiro Harigai (針谷建二郎 ). It begins with an animated/CGI image of an egg that cracks becomes a bird. This bird flies off past several doors, and enters one into a space scene. The scene switches to Chara in an almost completely white room with a white dress. She wears her hair half-straight and half in an afro (with the division being vertically down the centre of her head). The scene switches to a drawing a Chara falling through a dark, psychedelic scene, followed by a white-backed scene depicting different drawings. Chara returns to the white room, however with a different hair-style and now drawn animals floating around her. Occasionally the originally dressed Chara appears behind her. The video ends with more psychedelic scenes and the bird flying away into space/clouds.

And Yet the Town Moves

And Yet the Town Moves (Japanese: それでも町は廻っている, Hepburn: Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru), abbreviated as Soremachi (それ町^?) , is a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Masakazu Ishiguro. The manga started serialization in Young King OURs magazine on March 30, 2005, and fourteen bound volumes have been released in Japan as of May 2015. The anime adaptation was broadcast from October 8, 2010.

The series follows the exploits of whiny Hotori Arashiyama, her friends, family, neighbors, shopkeepers and colleagues at the local maid cafe. The typical slice of life format is occasionally interspersed with stories dealing with aliens, ghosts and the paranormal.

Characters

Main characters

Arashiyama household

Townspeople

Media

Manga

The manga was originally published in English through JManga, but is now currently available as a read-only/download-only subscription at Crunchyroll. However, as of November 18, 2015, BookWalker released the English digital book volumes for purchase as well.