Last year's anime short film Cencoroll was quite a fun short watch. But that's just the problem: it was short, way too short! There was so much mind-bending potential there, that it would've been a shame to not explore it further, beyond the first anime's half-hour run. And explored it shall be, at least once more, now that a second Cecoroll anime project is officially in the making.



The news comes straight from Atsuya Uki, the guy who pretty much did all the hard work on the first anime - writing, designing, animating and directing - before Anime Innovation Tokyo and Aniplex stepped in to co-produce and publish it. As announced on Uki's website (via ANN), the new project's tentative title is simply Cencoroll 2, and its scenario and storyboards are still in the works. So for now, all we get is (...)

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Today is the day! Today is the day that the long-awaited Final Fantasy XIV open beta... didn't start. Not quite yet. A last-minute epic-fail forced Square Enix to postpone the start of the beta yesterday, leaving us without even a rescheduled date. But fortunately they already fixed that, and announced that the open beta will actually begin tonight. Yaaay! So for those of you living in North America, it starts today at 19:00 PDT, for those of us in Europe it starts tonight at 02:00 GMT, and as for the rest of the world - well, check the official FFXIV website.



Now, before I get back to staring at the clock with a very creepy look, let's just get another couple of news quickly out of the way. It doesn't look like I mentioned the upcoming anime Rio: Rainbow Gate! until now, so this would be a good time to point out that it's a TV anime series coming in 2011 and, according to today's update of the official website, studio Xebec is the one animating it. Or namely her.

Another anime project announced today (...)

 Continue reading 'Checkpoint: FF14 Open Beta, Rio, AGC38'...

The classic anime series Dororon Enma-kun (The Little Judge from Hell), originally from the 1970s, is set to make its second comeback in recent years. After the Kikoushi Enma (Demon Prince Enma) OVA from 2006-2007, the next anime title in the franchise is being revealed today as Dororon Enma-kun Meeramera - now with more "moe" than ever!



No release timeframe or format is yet known for this upcoming anime adaptation, which is being announced through a preview collage for the November issue of Kadokawa Shoten's Young Ace magazine (out in Japan this October 4). Said document does mention an official website for the new Dororon Enma-kun anime, but that URL is also not yet active.

Alas, even some decent pictures of Emma-chan seem to be a rarity at this time, despite the manga / anime franchise's venerable age. The best I could find is (...)

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Another manga-based anime project making today's headlines is Coppelion, originally a highly radioactive military action manga created by Tomonori Inoue. Despite the rough terms I've just listed, the manga's heroes are actually three perfectly normal high school girls. Well, except for one minor detail: they've been immune to radioactivity since birth, thanks to the wonders of genetic engineering.



The announcement radiates from the 40th issue of Weekly Young Magazine (via ANN), where the ongoing manga is being serialized. 8 volumes have also been compiled since October 2008, with the latest one releasing next week, on September 6.

The original story begins in 2036, 20 years after radioactive contamination from a nuclear accident has put Tokyo under a blockade. When Japan's military (...)

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The January 2011 anime season is slowly expanding with another title, thanks to the announcement of a TV anime series based on Ryuuhei Tamura's action / comedy manga Beelzebub, planned to start airing next January. This will actually be the second Beelzebub anime adaptation, after a short event-anime will be screened in Japan this autumn, at Shueisha's "Jump Super Anime Tour 2010".



The TV anime's announcement was made in a printed ad, which also lists the main cast members, kindly transcribed by ANN: Katsuyuki Konishi, Miyuki Sawashiro, Shizuka Itou, Aki Toyosaki, Tomokazu Seki, and Takahiro Mizushima.

In the original story, the "strongest juvenile delinquent" Oga Tatsumi ends up taking care of the great demon king Beelzebub's baby, together with the baby's caretaker, Hilda (or Hildegarda, a big-busted demon maid in gothic lolita clothes). (...)

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Oh, so that's what it was! Earlier today I had come across a tiny, cryptic Moon Phase report about this, but didn't know what to make of it. Luckily for us all, however, ANN sniffed out a better-informed source from the Japanese blogosphere, and now it all makes perfect sense: a new anime titled A Channel is said to be in the making, presumably based on bb Kuroda's comedy / slice-of-life manga of the same title.



The original source of this premature (and so far unofficial) announcement is a guy named Satoshi Kubo, who previously worked as a key animator on dozens of anime projects - including Angel Beats!, Working!! and Bungaku Shoujo, to name just some of this year's titles. But here's the real kicker: it was this same guy who first revealed the upcoming TV anime series Super Robot Wars OG: The Inspector last month, way ahead of the official announcement. So he clearly knows what he's talking about.

Pictured above is the cover of the A Channel manga's first and only (...)

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A Japanese manga and anime franchise... spawning a Taiwanese live-action TV series... starring a cute Korean actress in the leading role... is fine, too! The manga / anime in question is Hayate no Gotoku!, the Taiwanese production company is irrelevant, and - more importantly - the cute Korean actress (soon-to-be loli tsundere Nagi) is Park Shin-Hye. Did I mention she's cute? Damn cute! And only 20 years old.



ANN's report doesn't reveal any solid release plans for this upcoming live-action TV series, so we might as well move on to the less relevant details. Joining Park Shin-Hye for the main duo will be 28-year-old actor George Hu, who of course will be playing Hayate the combat butler / bodyguard / boxing bag or whatever else is required of him, by his loli master Nagi.

As an addition to the project's national diversity, it turns out that (...)

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Some sort of Gintama "all-new animated work" is being promised by the Japanese video chain Tsutaya, according to a report picked up by ANN today, to be bundled on a bonus disc with the upcoming DVD release of Gintama: Shinyaku Benizakura-Hen - this year's anime film. The DVD's standard edition and limited pressing are set for a December 15 release in Japan, but only the latter version will ship with the new anime, it seems.



As for the other goodies offered with the limited pressing, these will include a drama CD, a strip of actual film that was used during the movie's theatrical screenings, a poster, a miniature version of the theatrical pamphlet, and various video interviews with the cast and staff. Additional trailers will also be included on the main disc, with both the limited and standard editions. As if...

A couple of days have gone bye, since news of an Arata Kangatari anime adaptation cropped up on the French website Manga-News, but still no valid source is provided for their story (nor have I seen this on any of the usual English-language sources). So, for now, let's just take this as a perfectly plausible rumor: the manga series otherwise known as Arata: The Legend, they say, will be receiving an anime adaptation in 2011.



The original manga is written and illustrated by Yuu Watase, a rather prolific female mangaka, who so far has had two other franchises adapted into anime: Ayashi no Ceres (Ceres, Celestial Legend) and Fushigi Yuugi (The Mysterious Play). The story of Arata Kangatari alternates between two worlds, with two boys - both named Arata - switching places among them. They are both on the run, but for very different reasons: (...)

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Better get those chilled pantsu out of the freezer, 'cause this is a hot one! The Strike Witches franchise will be getting a "major continuation", according to an unsubstantiated report on Sankaku today, which fails to identify the source of this story. While waiting for a more official (and more detailed) confirmation, wishful-thinkers seem to favor a third TV anime season or an OVA, as the most likely - or, rather, most desired - continuations.



Whatever doubt may arise from the timing of such an announcement (there are still several more Strike Witches 2 episodes remaining, until the end of the current series in late September), there's no reason to believe in the immediate demise of such a lolicious franchise. So any kind of continuation - anime or otherwise - would be quite natural.

The only valid suspicion right now might regard (...)

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Slowly but surely, the xxxHOLiC anime franchise moves on, as Production I.G is concocting yet another xxxHOLiC Rou OVA for next spring. The blunt announcement was apparently made at the end of a newly released short-OAD, according to a screenshot posted by a 2ch user (via Chibi Yuuto). The anime short seems to serve as the opening sequence for the upcoming new OVA episode, and it features the song "Adayume" by Suga Shikao.



The DVD with the anime short in question was a hard-earned prize awarded to buyers of three Japanese magazines that included mail-away cards redeemable for said DVD. This is the same one that was reported back in May, soon after the initial xxxHOLiC Rou OVA came out. So if this new report is accurate, that's a one-year break between just a couple of xxxHOLiC offerings. Fans of the series must have it rough... Or is it "better late than never"?

It looks like Gonzo managed to not only slow down its staff-cutting freefall that began at the end of 2008, dragging the studio down the dreaded "corporate restructuring" path. But maybe - just maybe - the tables are turning and Gonzo is coming back to life, with a rejuvenated staff. Hopefully one that will be capable of animating more than just some random game cinematics (like they did for BlazBlue, Super Street Fighter IV and even Crackdown 2, in the past year).



This week's good news comes by way of Gonzo's official website, whose "Jobs" section is now listing several openings for animation production staffers. The company is hiring animation runners, one "international production operations assistant" fluent in English, "enthusiastic" in-between animators, production desk managers, and designers. All of these, for upcoming "TV series as well as theatrical films".

Gonzo was last known to work on an anime project for Spring 2011, one that would (...)

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