Current Mood:  Thoughtful

A bunch of new anime has been announced recently, mostly presumably for the Fall season. I’m always so excited about new shows. I think it’s a combination of being able to announce them to fans, and also just the potential that’s there. Any of the shows could be the Next Big Thing, you know?

Anyway, some of the recent announcements…

Shugo Chara!
Announced - 5/31
Source - Manga by PEACH-PIT
Interest Level - 4 (of 5)

I guess after Rozen Maiden was such a hit, people just started snapping up PEACH-PIT titles - an anime based on their manga Zombie Loan is starting in July, and now Shugo Chara! probably in Fall. I actually picked up the first volume of the manga from Del Rey yesterday because I knew it was being made into an anime.

The manga follows a girl named Amu whose mother dresses her in awesome badass punky type gear. On top of that she tends to speak succinctly, so everyone at her school thinks she’s…well, a badass. But secretly, she’s shy and wants to be cute and normal and stuff. One day she wishes to be able to be her true self, and wakes up…and realizes she laid three eggs. Well, okay, no, the eggs just appeared. Whatever. Anyway, each egg contains a “Guardian Character” that can release her true character, which is a pain in the butt, apparently - she wished she could be more honest, and then basically got up and confessed her love to her crush…in the middle of a student assembly. As of the end of the manga, it leans decidedly towards the Magical Girl genre.

It’s very cute…so far, it’s much less dark than Rozen Maiden got and I assume less dark than Zombie Loan (which I haven’t read any of yet). Actually in a lot of ways it’s reminiscent of Kamichama Karin, but somewhat less saccharine. It occasionally has a feeling like it’ll have a Big Fat Moral at the end of the story; I hope it drops that a bit in future volumes.

Kurenai
Announced - 5/28
Source - Light novel by Kentaro Katayama
Interest Level - 2.5/5

My co-worker described this one as being like Hayate but “without the butlers.” O_o; It’s apparently about a guy whose job is to mediate between squabbling folks, and then some rich girl hires him as a bodyguard. (Because a mediator and a bodyguard are so similar?…) It looks cute, but nothing about it really strikes me.

Rosario to Vampire
Announced - 6/1
Source - Manga by Ikeda Akihisa
Interest Level - 4/5

It’s got “vampire” in the title, and it’s one I’ve spotted information on the manga for here and there fore a while, so I’m quite curious about this one. A friend of mine really enjoys it. It’s about a perfectly normal, average guy named Aono who somehow winds up at a school where all the other students are monsters (vampires, mummies, etc) training to blend in with the human world.

Humans aren’t supposed to be there though, so he has to pretend to be a monster in order to, you know, avoid being eaten or destroyed or defiled or whatever. But naturally, there’s one other student who shares his secret: a hot babe vampire named Maka, who likes to feed on Aono.

Minamike
Announced - 5/29
Source - Manga by Coharu Sakuraba
Interest Level - 4/5

It’s by the guy who did Kyou no Go no Ni, the perviest anime about middle schoolers that I’ve ever seen…that wasn’t hardcore, anyway. It’s awesome, because it’s not done in a way that makes it of prurient interest for the viewer (in my opinion), but it’s really about these middle school kids who deal with life…which, at their age, is starting to include stuff like sexual desire. Lest the above make it sound serious, I assure you it’s not. It’s a slice-of-life comedy that doesn’t balk at all the weird stuff middle schoolers do and think about. I appreciate a lack of bullshit.

Err, right, but Minamike (”Minami House”) is actually a slice-of-life comedy…about three sisters of varying ages. So I’m looking forward to it.

Straight Jacket
Announced - 5/31
Source - Novels by Ichiro Sakaki
Interest Level - 3.5/5

Okay, this one’s an OVA, not a TV series, but it’s due out in October. It was actually originally announced a couple of years ago, but it popped back into the news lately as something that is Really Truly Going To Happen.

The story is set in a world where demons do battle, and magicians protect humans from the battles, and magicians who use too much of their magic become monsters. The author also wrote the Scrapped Princess novels, which I enjoyed the anime adaptation of, and the art from the light novels makes it look pretty cool. Hopefully it’ll be badass…there’s way too much moe out there these days. (Not that I don’t like it, the balance just seems a little off at the moment.)

Pyuu to Fuku! Jaguar
Announced - 5/28
Source - Manga by Kyosuke Usuta
Interest Level - 2/5

Another OVA…it’s apparently about a dude who plays the recorder - except his recorder sounds like a guitar. It is a comedy. It doesn’t really sound very up my alley, and my cynical side wonders if it’s trying to cash in on how huge Nodame Cantabile is. Then again, it could be a really awesome comedy that parodies Nodame. So I guess I’ll check it out.

…Okay, that pretty well covers the half-dozen anime that have been announced over the last, what, four days? Here’s hoping for more. (Geneon Japan is announcing one on June 3rd…except that countdown should actually end on June 4th?) I personally hope for a third season of Black Lagoon ♥

Tags: anime, Coharu-Sakuraba, fall-2007, Kurenai, Minamike, Peach-Pit, Pyuu-to-Fuku!-Jaguar, Rosario-Vampire, Shugo-Chara!, Strait-Jacket, upcoming-anime

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