AnimeNation Anime News Blog

Game producer Sammy has announced that its Kaito Tenshi Twin Angel (Mysterious Thief Twin Angel) franchise will (finally) get an anime television series from studio J.C. Staff (Zero no Tsukaima, Otome Yokai Zakuro). Furthermore, the web Twin Angel web anime production that was announced last year will now be produced as an OVA.

The franchise, which launched as a pachinko-slot machine game, has spawned a two-episode 2008 OVA series, animation made for the “pachislo” game machines, manga, radio dramas, and more.

Source: Anime News Network

To refresh your memory or introduce you to an interesting opening animation sequence, I offer the opening of the second Buzzer Beater TV series from 2007. The opening theme is “Hideyoshi no Theme” performed by Koichiro Kameyama.

After not having heard it in the past couple of years, I’d forgotten how beautiful Arai Akino’s debut song, “Utsukushii Hoshi” (Beautiful Planet), the ending theme to Windaria, really is.

Macross Frontier: Sayonara no Tsubasa, the second Macross F movie, will hit Japanese theaters on February 26.

Source: Rakugakidou

Enjoy the trailer for next year’s Rio RainbowGate! television series based on Tecmo’s Super Blackjack video game franchise. The show will premiere on January 4.

Source: Rakugakidou

The second episode of the Air Gear: Kuro no Hane to Nemuri no Mori -Break on the Sky- OAD series will be released on March 17 in limited edition copies of Oh Great!’s Air Gear manga volume 31.

What is this? I don’t even…

Source: Moon Phase

Anime studio TMS has released a trailer for the second season of its upcoming St. Seiya: The Lost Canvas ~ Meio Shinwa anime series. The first episode of the second series will hit Japanese DVD/BD on February 23.

Source: Moon Phase

Indeprox has announced the development of a Spelunker Sensei OVA by Studio Puyukai (Boku, Otaryman). The 30 minute long Flash anime is based on the long-running Spelunker Sensei 4-koma online manga by Irem Software Engineering, which is itself based on developer Tim Martin’s 1983 Atari video game Spelunker, which has developed a cult following in Japan.

Based on the original video game’s difficulty and the weakness of its playable character, the star of the Spelunker Sensei gag manga is an explorer & neurotic school P.E. teacher who dies frequently. The OVA will hit DVD on March 16.

Source: Anime News Network

The fifth collected volume of Tozen Ujiie’s risqué school comedy manga Seitokai Yakuindomo will include an OAD. The manga series was adapted into a (hilarious) anime television series earlier this year.

Source: Anime News Network

Japanese media companies Kadokawa and ANIMATE have announced plans to host a convention titled “Anime Contents Expo” at the Makuhari Messe event center in Chiba, Japan next March 26 & 27, the same two days as the public days of the Tokyo Anime Fair (TAF). Aniplex, King Records, Geneon Universal Entertainment Japan, Frontier Works, Marvelous Entertainment, and Media Factory are also involved in the Anime Contents Expo’s executive committee. The planning and scheduling of the publicity expo is a direct opposition to the Tokyo Anime Fair in response to Tokyo’s recently ratified amendments to its “Youth Healthy Development Ordinance” that place additional distribution restrictions on manga and anime depicting potentially offensive or influential imagery. Earlier this month, manga publishers Akita Shoten, Futabasha, Hakusensha, Kadokawa Shoten, Kodansha, LEED Publishing, Shueisha, Shinchosha, Shogakukan, and Shonen Gahousha announced their intention to boycott the TAF to express their opposition to the Tokyo metropolitan government’s new restrictions on manga and anime.

Source: Anime News Network

To refresh your memory or introduce you to an interesting opening animation sequence, I offer the opening of the 1986 Hikari no Densetsu TV series. The opening theme is “Heart no Kisetsu” sung by Tsukasa Itoh.

Question:
To be honest I get sick of anime stories always being centered around school kids. It’s like such a cheap gimmick for the basis of too many anime stories and characters. Why do you think Japanese manga artists and anime directors/script writers use it so much? Is it easy for the Japanese youth/reader to relate to? Does it bring a sense of reality to absurd fantasy adventures? Sometimes I wonder the reason Cowboy Bebop is so good is because Spike is not in high school and did not mysteriously meet a school girl who transported him to another world or gave him the power to control a powerful mecha. Don’t get me wrong, there are the classics like Eva, Escaflowne but generally you can always see these mediocre series coming.

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Monthly Comic Zenon Magazine has announced that a DD Hokuto no Ken television series will premiere on January 11. The DD Hokuto no Ken (Design Deformation Fist of the North Star) manga by Kajio is an official “super deformed” parody of Buronson & Tetsuo Hara’s 1983 manga. A five episode DD Hokuto no Ken video anime series premiered in 2008.

Source: Anime News Network

Next week’s new issue of Evening Magazine will reportedly officially reveal the development of an anime TV series adaptation of Yasuhisa Kubo’s supernatural comedy manga Yondemasuyo, Azazel-san. The manga’s fourth and fifth collected volumes, released last February and last September included OADs.

Haven’t watched the second OAD, but the first one was pretty darn funny.

Source: Anime News Network

The February issue of Dengeki G’s Magazine that goes on sale in Japan next week will formally announce the development of a 3D OVA based on Sakurako Kimino’s Baby Princess light novel series about a teen boy living with his 19 sisters. Studio Comet (Saint October, Steel Angel Kurumi) is animating the “Baby Princess 3D Paradise 0 (Love)” short film that will screen at promotional events.

Source: Anime News Network