And a lolicious new year to you, too! We weren't around for the usual holiday greets (too busy sampling the local beverages over on the other side of the country), so we missed quite a few anime announcements - annoyingly many for that period. Having spent the first sober days of the year going over said announcements, and updating several release dates for the freshly debuted Winter 2009 anime season, we can now present you with this very condensed list, covering the season's most important news - all via ANN.

- Afro Samurai: Resurrection premieres this January 25 on Spike TV, to be followed by FUNimation's DVD release on February 3.

- Ai no Kusabi is being remade into a new OVA in autumn 2009, based on the same boys-love novels authored by Rieko Yoshihara over 20 years ago. Studio AIC will be animating this 13-volume OVA remake, as it did with the previous anime versions.

- Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka OVA was announced to follow last year's TV series based on Feng's eroge of the same title. The OVA is set for release on June 26, 2009.

- Bakemonogatari will begin airing in July 2009.

- Canaan is now the official title of the anime formerly known as 428 the animation - based on last year's Nintendo Wii game "about a detective, a young man, a virus researcher, a freelance writer, and a cat mascot character who are brought together by bizarre events with worldwide implications in the Tokyo neighborhood of Shibuya".

- Code Geass may still receive some sort of continuation, as hinted by  (...)

 Continue reading 'Holiday Anime News Round-up'...

My pedo comrade is extremely drunk. And he is talking Naruto with some other dude, and they were arguing alot. Not to mention both of them have absolutely no idea about Naruto, they are too smart for that.

Because Naruto sux. Yeah.

With all the technical mishaps and lolidays slacking going on, while tons of new anime announcements are passing us right by, a condensed "round-up" is once again in order to get us back on track with the news. Wishfully thinking we were ever on track, that is.

- Dogs - this anime we wrote about last month turns out to be 2-volume OVA (or OAD, if you prefer). The first volume will ship with the 4th volume of the Dogs: Bullets & Carnage manga on May 19, and the second volume will ship with the Dogs: Stray Dog Howling in the Dark manga reissue on July 17, 2009.

- Duel Masters Cross - a new anime movie from the Duel Masters franchise is listed for release in autumn 2009 by Japanese film distributor TOHO.

- Eureka Seven Movie - the theatrical version of the Eureka Seven anime initially announced back in April now has a title, a release schedule, and a website, which promises the movie will bring "one more love story". The full title is Koukyou Shihen Eureka Seven: Pocket ga Niji de Ippai (Psalms of Planets Eureka Seven), and the premiere is set for next year's Golden Week - from the end of April to the first week of May 2009.

- Kannagi extras - "a number of unaired [Kannagi] episodes" are in the works at studio A-1 Pictures, but we have no idea when or how they will be released. We do suspect that ecchiness will abound, though.

- Kupuu!! Mamegoma! - announced as a new lol-pet anime, featuring some popular chibi "bean seal" character named Mamegoma, along with its newly created Mamekawa family: the father, mother, big sister Akane, and little sister Yui. Begins on January 10.

- Kurokami The Animation (Black God) - freshly licensed by Bandai for a simultaneous broadcast in the US - as in Japan and Korea. "The version aired in the U.S. will be an English dub (...) the first ever dub to be made parallel with the Japanese production." Oh noes, no moar shitty English dubs! Begins on January 8, 2009 on ImaginAsian TV, with a DVD release set to follow later in 2009.

- Minami-ke OVA - a single-episode project once again produced by animation studio asread, reportedly green-lit for a June 23, 2009 release on DVD in Japan. "Minami-ke tells the story of three sisters who live on their own and depend on each other to solve whatever problems may arise" (so what if I just used that pic link?!). But first, the third season, Minami-ke Okaeri begins next month.

- Peeping Life - a comedy "slow-life anime" depicting the listless minutiae of everyday life, by combining motion-captured improvised acting with CG animation into a series of comedy shorts. What makes this one notable is its production company CoMix Wave (Kakurenbo, and pretty much all of Makoto Shinkai's masterpieces - Voices of a Distant Star, Beyond the Clouds, 5cm per Second). Begins this December 19.

- Sex Pistols OVA - based on a boys-love manga also known as Love Pistols (nope, no connection with the British punk rock band). "The "science love fiction" story revolves around a high school boy who discovers that he is part of a select group of humans who did not evolve from monkeys, but various animals such as leopards and black bears"... and pandas?

- The Uchuu Show (The Space Show) - the way-too-ambitious animated movie coming from director Koji Masunari (Read or Die, Kamichu!) seems to be still in the works at studio A-1 Pictures.

- Urusei Yatsura anime special - the long-delayed spin-off short was finally confirmed to premiere this month at the "It's a Rumic World" exhibition on December 23 in Sendai, Japan. It's been 17 years without an Urusei Yatsura anime, by the way.

Yep, I really screwed it this time. Don't ask how on Earth I managed such a feat (really, don't), but the fact is that right now, the vast majority of our November and December 2008 anime trailers are physically gone from our file server. This is just a notice to let you know that "we're aware of the problem", as they say, and will be working to restore the lost trailers starting with the latest ones posted this week, and on to the older ones from last month.

Trailers left to be recovered: 0

Regular posting will resume once that countdown hits zero. Gomen.

Update: All done, that went smoother than expected. Now back to... WoW?

The only other doujin (self-published) anime we wrote about recently - and, in fact, ever - was Kowarekake no Orgol, which is coming this winter from Moetan artist POP. Well, now we can add another promising project to this newly-instated list: one based on the popular doujin pew-pew games Touhou Project. Having worked on the Touhou Anime Project for well over a year, doujin circle Maikaze will be releasing the first DVD episode, titled "Musou Kakyou", this December 29 at the winter Comic Market convention (C75).



ANN relayed the contents of the limited initial edition deluxe box (anime DVD, soundtrack CD, full-color art collection, postcard(s), and other items), along with this impressive list of seiyuu (voice actresses) signed up for the anime: (...)

 Continue reading 'Touhou Doujin Anime At Comiket [Update]'...

Tone deaf lolis no good for you? Very well, then, here's some real music anime news for you melomaniac types. The increasingly plentiful franchise spawned by Tomoko Ninomiya's original Nodame Cantabile manga shows no signs of stopping its expansion anytime soon. Just this week, a new TV anime series plus 2 new live-action films were announced. So if the impending season finale of the ongoing Nodame Cantabile: Paris chapter was somewhat intimidating, rest assured, there's much more to come!



The 3rd anime season of Nodame Cantabile is currently planned to air in the same ol' late-night "Noitamina" timeslot on Fuji TV, starting from autumn 2009. And by all accounts, you can expect it to be a direct continuation of the Paris Chapter.

Over on the live-action front, the 2 newly announced Nodame Cantabile movies will premiere in January 2010 and spring 2010, repsectively. Their story will also be set in Paris, continuing the 2006 live-action TV drama series and this year's TV special, "Nodame Cantabile in Europe". And once again, the lead characters Chiaki and Nodame will be played by Hiroshi Tamaki and the oh-so-cute Juri Ueno.

Of all the recent anime announcements, none sounds as bad as K-ON! (Keion!). But relax. I don't mean... Naruto-bad, or [insert-most-hated-anime]-bad, just tone-deaf-bad. Because otherwise this looks like a highly lolicious anime, about 4 girls trying to save their school's music club; despite being total noobs at playing musical instruments or reading music.



Originally an amusing (and amusical) 4-koma manga by kakifly, K-ON! has been serialized in the Manga Time Kirara magazine since 2007, with one single volume compiled so far. By the way, the title K-ON stands for Kei (light) Ongaku (music) - thanks MyAnimeList.

No other details about the anime are available at this time, but you can bet I'll be keeping my eyes open. Aye, just my eyes, cause my ears are no good, either.

After this year's Chaos;HEAd game and anime combo, another (much older) game by Nitroplus - namely Phantom of Inferno originally from 2000 - is set to receive an anime adaptation. Or rather a re-adaptation, since we already had a Phantom OVA back in 2004. This time, however, the format of choice will be a TV anime series, and the title of choice Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom.



This new anime series is being developed by studio Bee Train, with Koichi Mashimo directing the thing - as he has done with several more girls-with-guns anime (Noir, Madlax, El Cazador), among others (.Hack franchise, Blade of the Immortal).

There's no release date attached to Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom yet, but ANN has some more staff details, and an official website has also just opened.

While we do usually welcome any new animation film from studio Madhouse, I can't say the same about their TV anime series - particularly those of late. So with excitement down to a minimum for this one, their recently announced new TV anime will adapt the ongoing manga series Kobato. that's been running in Kadokawa Shoten's Newtype magazine since 2006.



The Kobato. manga is created by the CLAMP female mangaka quartet, which is why this anime adaptation comes as little surprise, given their track record. The anime will be directed by Mitsuyuki Masuhara (Chi's Sweet Home, Chobits episode director), and as for the release date... well, ANN says it will begin in autumn 2009, while Otaku News Notes says spring 2009. We'll go with ANN on this one, but feel free to take your pick.

Now this is what I call a perfectly valid reason to get your hopes up. With a studio like Madhouse, and a team that reunites the director, screenwriter and character designer of Tokikake (Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo, or The Girl Who Leapt Through Time), the upcoming animation film Summer Wars looks dead set to become one of next year's top movies. Even though, quite frankly, we know next to nothing about it.



What little we know comes by way of ANN, who are reminding us that Madhouse had previously revealed working on the next film by Tokikake director, Mamoru Hosoda, as early as March 2008. Having now been confirmed to direct Summer Wars, he will be joined by screenwriter Satoko Okudera (Tokikake, Miyori no Mori), character designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto (Tokikake, Evangelion, FLCL) and art director Youji Takeshige (Porco Rosso, Princess Mononoke, Howl's Moving Castle).

According to the film's official website, Summer Wars is fittingly set for a summer 2009 premiere in Japan, while ANN simply describes it as an "action entertainment" story about "a modern-day family that embarks on a midsummer adventure together at the behest of a 90-year-old woman". Not the most exciting plot I've ever laid eyes on, I'll give you that. But I got a good feeling about it (either that, or I browsed too much loli porn this morning).