While eroge retailers in Japan are gearing up for the over-hyped release of ToHeart2: AnotherDays this Friday, February 29, a nasty rumor is getting more and more likely to become a disappointing reality. It seems that one of the lolis from the latest ToHeart2 eroge - namely Ikuno Komaki (Manaka's handicapped younger sister) - will not have a playable route as expected. Which, if true, will certainly piss off a lot of horny otakus... Sounds like Garden all over again.



Handicapped lolis don't say no.

Warning #1: SPOILERS ahead. Warning #2: HUGE SPOILERS ahead! So if you haven't watched School Days yet, I strongly suggest you go do that before reading any further, or especially clicking this super-spoilerific link to AkibaBlog - where they herald the release of the final School Days anime DVD. What's so special about it? Well, it's the "director's cut" version of the 11th story, which means that it's a lot more grotesque than what was shown on TV (and by extension on torrents), without any nice boat, but with buckets of nice blood!

Despite the warning on its cover advising that "this DVD has some abusive scenes or grotesque expressions", retailers didn't shy away from playing the scene with Makoto being hacked and slashed, again and again. Sadists will be happy to know that the black "blood" is now red as intended, and apparently the knife used in the TV version was also replaced with a more Higurashi'esque butchering tool.

I guess it's safe to assume that this "director's cut" version (pun probably intended) won't make its way to English-speaking territories, so feel free to look for the torrent - yep, it's already out.

Update: Just checked, there's actually no change of butchering tools (my bad), and only a couple of shots are slightly different between the TV and DVD versions. So unless this wasn't the genuine "director's cut" (the blood was red, though), there's absolutely no point in getting excited over it. The TV version is just as brutal, really.

So... Many... Lolis! Count them well, there's nearly thirty plenty of them, some more flat-chested than others, but (hopefully) all of them coming in a new anime - and manga - based on last year's eroge KoiHime†Musou ~Doki☆Otome Darake no Sangokushi Engi~... or simply KoiHime Musou. The game was developed by BaseSon, and these screenshots should be pretty self-explanatory as to its highly NSFW nature... By the way, there's also a trailer on Getchu's page, and a bunch of wallpapers freshly added in our KoiHime Musou gallery.

According to this AnimeSuki post where we spotted the announcement, the anime will be produced by Dogakobo, a studio usually hired for in-between animations on various kick-ass titles. As for the manga adaptation, it will be serialized in the seinen manga magazine Dengeki G's Festival! Comic. No date or further details were given for the KoiHime Musou anime, so for now just enjoy the pics. Yummy.

Although no longer a secret, considering that the Trigun animated movie was first announced a couple of years ago (but we'll play dumb, since we weren't around the webs back then), the first details about it appeared just now on the cover of volume 14 of the Trigun Maximum manga (thanks Heisei Democracy). For starters, here are some of the names working on this Trigun movie, as scribbled by HD.

"It will feature an original story developed by manga author Yasuhiro Nightow and director Nishimura Satoshi who collaborated with Nightow on the Trigun TV series and is also known for his work on the Hajime no Ippo anime. The script will be helmed by veteran anime writer Kobayashi Yasuko, with character designs from Yoshimura Takahiro."

Trigun The Movie is being animated by Madhouse (who also created the Trigun anime from... oh, about ten years ago), and it should see the light of the silver screen at some point in 2009, driven by the tagline "Vash vs. Wolfwood?! The familiar characters erupt on screen in an all-original Trigun story!". *Yawn*

Aye, we don't usually cover any licensing crap, but I happen to have an hour to kill, and this concerns one of the most enjoyable animes from 2007 - sola - so what the hell. Via Anime on DVD, it's become apparent that the anime sola ("sora" meaning "sky" in Japanese) is Bandai Visual's latest acquisition for North America, where they plan to launch the first DVD volume on June 10, 2008.

On Bandai's sola website (more like a static image, really), we are informed that the sola graphic novel will also be released this summer, by Broccoli Books. In case you're not familiar with this title, a brief description can be found on the publisher's products page:

"Once there was a girl who yearned to see the blue sky.
-But someone has to pay the price before it can come true.
Conceived by the creators of two Japanese blockbuster PC games, Naoki Hisaya (Kanon) and Naru Nanao (D.C. ~ Da Capo~), sola is a mysterious and fantastic story of Yorito Morimiya, a high school student who loves to take photos of the sky. One night, he meets a mysterious girl, Matsuri Shihou, who is what one calls a "Yaka", an immortal, ageless existence. Their chance meeting unravels a story that stood still for hundreds of years...

Lately, Bandai's licensing deals seem to be improving a lot, as they recently acquired the rights for bringing two other promising animes to North America - True Tears and the slightly-censored Shigofumi - both of which are currently being aired in Japan. Ganbatte, Bandai-kun!


Update: Bandai Visual USA has just issued a press release restating the above, along with more about the story, theme and creators of sola... plus a link to Broccoli Book's sola page, where the first graphic novel volume is listed for release on June 18, 2008. Oh and don't worry about dubbing if you're after the anime: it will only have Japanese audio with optional English subtitles.

To be, or not to be excited... Frankly speaking, after the second season of School Rumble - which I couldn't even endure to watch in full after its disastrous start - I'm not too crazy about the idea of yet another semester. Nevertheless, there is still the issue of Yakumo-chan (sono eyebrows O_O), which we would certainly not mind seeing more of.

With that thought in mind, we kind of welcome the announcement (via Densetsu Shoujo) of the third School Rumble season. According to Kodansha's official website, School Rumble San Gakki (School Rumble: Third Term) will be a two-episodes OVA bundled with the upcoming School Rumble manga volumes 21 and 22, the first of which is to be released on July 17, and the second one on September 17. That's about all, for now.

It's been a busy and productive day for Animekon, so I'll try to make this one real quick, and go get me some much needed fap sleep. That said, here are the new animes (hopefully all of them) that were revealed as of late, some clearly less appealing than others...

- Hakushaku to Yousei (Count and Fairy) - based on a shoujo (i.e. for girls) light novel series set in 19th century England, about a "fairy doctor" who meets a legendary blue knight count and, well, stuff happens (website, novel volumes).

- Natsume Yuujin-Chou (Natsume's Book of Friends) - based on a shoujo ghost-story manga, about a boy who can see ghosts, and some book made by his grandmother to trap said ghosts.

- Net Ghost PiPoPa - a virtual reality series for children. Begins on April 6 (website).

- Penguin Musume (Penguin Girl) - based on a 4-panel gag manga about a weird (but rich) girl named Nankyoku Sakura who is obsessed with anime and manga, and gets herself the nickname "Penguin" due to her family name meaning "South Pole". Looks LOL.

- Penguin no Mondai (A Penguin's Troubles) - based on a gag comedy manga for children. Not to be confused with the one above. Or better yet, to be ignored.

- Quiz Magic Academy - based on a series of arcade trivia games by Konami. The OVA will be animated by studio AIC, with a script and direction handled by the guys behind Amaenaideyo!! and School Days. The last part sounds promising, but the title doesn't.

- Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's - self-explanatory. Begins on April 2 (website).

Update: Added that bit of pseudo-info about Net Ghost PiPoPa.

Fighto! More ass-kicking and pantsu-shooting is sure to follow, now that the third Ikkitousen anime season was revealed on the cover of the Comic Gum magazine's April issue, with a similar announcement to follow on the Ikkitousen website this Monday (thankies HD). Funny thing, just today I was watching through some of those "Hotspring Specials" episodes that came after Ikkitousen Dragon Destiny. Life sure does have an amusing side once in a while... but let's get back to the point.

The third season will be titled Ikkitousen Great Guardians, and it's currently set to start airing on TV in Japan this summer. HD doesn't note any change in the anime's staff and cast comparted to that of Ikkitousen Dragon Destiny (so it will continue to be produced by Arms and Genco), but it speculates that this news does not bode well for that Sekirei anime rumoured one month ago.

"This puts a crimp in the theory that we'd be seeing a Sekirei anime from this team sometime soon; I'm still holding out hopes that Media Factory will put the Genshiken staff to work on Sekirei, but we'll be watching for firm news either way come the middle of March.

Oh and looking at the ad - Ryofu is back?! New anime original character?! Things could get interesting here..." (ed. - our bolding)

According to another report, that new original anime character will be Sonsaku Hakufu's sister, and we can expect "a completely original story with added characters" (not based on the manga).

With two episodes already "altered in light of recent circumstances in the society at large" (i.e. censored), and another one completely skipped by a certain TV station, Shigofumi is starting to sound like a rather intriguing anime. I'm still waiting for the whole series to finish before checking it out, but considering that the third episode was censored last month, and tonight's eight episode suffered a dubiously similar fate according to ANN, it's only reasonable to conclude that Shigofumi is becoming a must-watch anime.

By the way, I took this opportunity to update our Shigofumi gallery with a bunch of new artworks. Pinch the sample for moar.


You have new loli mail.

Posts about ToHeart2 always seem to bring in some extra clicks (gee, I wonder why...), so here's a shameless exploit of that, to let you know about the new trailer we added for the second ToHeart2 OVA - which actually happens to be the opening movie.


ToHeart2 ad - as in the anime - will start airing on March 26, and of course the ToHeart2: AnotherDays eroge is still on track for its February 29 release, with all sorts of midnight launch events set up in otaku-land Akihabara (by the way, another eroge from Alice Soft called Beat Blades Haruka is also coming out on the same day).

Update: Upon further inspection, I found a couple of trailers for Haruka which are well worth checking out - here and here. I'm betting two sen yen this will get an anime adaptation!