Streaming platform RetroCrush has announced a wave of new additions, including the anime adaptations of Hyakushō Kizoku and 500000000 Years Button, alongside a range of classic anime series and live-action films.
New and Upcoming Titles
- Urusei Yatsura (1981 series) — available now
- Looking for the Full Moon — available now
- Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space — available now
- RoboGeisha — July 10
- Electric Dragon 80,000 V — July 10
- Angel Cop (Original Japanese, HD Re-release) — July 17
- Lone Wolf and Cub: The Movie — July 31
- Lone Wolf and Cub: Assassin on the Road to Hell — July 31
- Lone Wolf and Cub (TV Series) — August 7
- Bubblegum Crisis (English Dubbed) — August 14
Hyakushō Kizoku — Arakawa’s Farming Memoir Comes to RetroCrush
The Hyakushō Kizoku anime is based on the manga by Arakawa, the creator of Fullmetal Alchemist. The first season premiered on Tokyo MX in July 2023, with each episode running approximately four minutes. The third season debuted on October 3, with its final episode airing on December 19. A fourth season has since been announced.
The manga’s eighth compiled volume, released in December 2023, collected all 12 broadcast episodes of the first season along with two previously unaired episodes on DVD.
Yūtarō Sawada (Inui-san!) directed the first season at Pie in the sky, also writing the scripts and serving as line director. Ayane Matsumoto (Gunma-chan) handled character design, animation direction, and animation. ari was responsible for backgrounds, Minori Yamada handled the ending animation, and Precious tone composed the music. The Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives of the Japan Agriculture Group supervised the agricultural content.
The manga draws on Arakawa’s own seven years working as a farmer in Hokkaido before she became a manga creator — an experience that also informed her later work Silver Spoon, which follows students at an agricultural school. Arakawa launched the manga in Shinshokan’s Unpoko magazine in 2006; it moved to Shinshokan’s Wings magazine in 2009 after Unpoko ceased publication. The series continues to run irregularly, with the seventh compiled volume released in October 2021.
500000000 Years Button — A Philosophical Dilemma Animated
The 500000000 Years Button anime is based on a story by Sugahara, who first debuted the Minna no Tonio-chan manga series in 1999. An animated special based on the work was produced in 2004. The thought experiment at the heart of the story — the so-called “500-Million-Year Button” — has remained a topic of philosophical discussion in Japan ever since.
The story centers on a button that rewards whoever presses it with one million yen (approximately US$6,499), but with a steep condition: the person must spend 500 million years alone in an empty void. When the time is up, all memory of the ordeal is erased and the person is returned to the moment just before they pressed the button. Three siblings — Tonio, age 5; Jaimi, age 14; and Suneko, age 17 — encounter someone carrying this button while desperately seeking money to pay for their father’s hospital treatment.
Sugahara directed the anime, designed the characters, and served as one of the project’s only staff members. Virtual YouTuber Koko performs the opening theme “TIME,” while Virtual YouTuber RIM performs the ending theme “Tick-Tock Boy.”
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