There’s two shows out this autumn in Japan that overly-romanticise Victorian Britain with a touch of the supernatural, Kuroshitsuji and Earl & Fairy.

Kuroshitsuji is the tale of a rich little boy, his demon butler and the rest of his incompetent staff.

It is the technically better made of the two shows, but it left me cold. It’s an uneasy mix of unfunny comedy and sinister horror of the supernatural punisher variety. The manga has a touch of Kouta Hirano’s style to it, which has been lost a little in the the anime. Instead we have a cleaner look with a slightly stiff and stilted look to its poses, despite some fluid movement. It’s well made, but it isn’t for me.

Earl & Fairy is the story of a Scottish “Fairy Doctor” who finds herself coerced into helping the heir to the only family who have a position in both the British and Faerie courts prove his identity.

It has average animation and is full of shoujo romantic cliche, but it has a lot more charm to it than Kuroshitsuji. The representation of Britain feels more familiar, like a BBC costume drama rather than the somewhat alien interpretation Kuroshitsuji had. The supernatural elements also feel more distinctly British using as it does specific fairies like Brownies and Merrow, compared to Kuroshitsuji’s vague demonic overtones. The 25 minutes zoomed by for me, a frothy lightweight romantic adventure.

That cat though, when he stands upright with his paws on his haunches, it damn well freaks me out.

Chaos Head
WHAT IS IT? A “Visual Novel” Adaptation!

Shut in teenager solves crimes, from the people who created the “Demonbane and Blassreiter multimedia franchises”.

Demonbane and Blassreiter… Even Madhouse’s involvement can’t get me interested. Workmanlike production staff and the worst sort of source material mean this is a zero for me.

Ride Back
WHAT IS IT? A Manga Adaptation!

Tetsuro Kasahara’s robot piggy-back manga gets an anime.

Whereas this looks to be interesting. Hopefully it actually shows up this season, they seem to have been working on it for nearly 2 years now. I don’t know the manga, but a cursory glance indicates it has some charismatic art and interesting imagery. But most of all Atsushi Takahashi (Kemonozume, Monster, Abenobashi, Paranoia Agent, Spirited Away) is directing. This feels like it should be going in that slot WOWOW have reserved for Madhouse, but few details seem to be about yet. Here’s a trailer.

Stitch!
WHAT IS IT? A Remake!

Disney team up with Madhouse to remake Lilo & Stitch in a Japanese setting. Without Lilo.

The trailer looks a strange mix of varying styles, with Stich, Pleakly and Jumba pretty much in their original designs, the female lead Yuna and her grandmother looking like they come from another show and the Japanese creatures looking like they come from a third show all together. Like wise, the animation veers from the very well animated to some very limited loops. The question to it’s success will be in how all these elements hold together in the actual show.

Kuroshitsuji
WHAT IS IT? A Manga Adaptation!

Yana Toboso’s butler based manga get’s the anime treatment.

Kuroshitsuji runs in SquareEnix’s GFantasy magazine, and it appears to be one of these modern shonen strips that has one eye on the fujoshi demographic. And this looks to be played up even more in the anime. A glance at early manga chapters indicates a style closer to Kohta Hirano’s work than the intricate detail the anime promotional material has. This is from A-1 who are currently making the superb Birdy The Mighty, and the trailer for this looks like it has similar high production values for a TV anime. Not sure if I’m interested in the story of a 12 year old boy and his demonic butler in a picture-book version of England though.

Kannagi – Crazy Shrine Maidens
WHAT IS IT? A Manga Adaptation!

Fired Lucky Star director comes back with a show about teenage girls being whacky. That’ll show them!

More from A-1 as they adapt Eri Takenashi’s manga. Director Yutaka Yamamoto was booted from Lucky Star four episodes in so he’s got something to prove away from KyoAni. However this looks like the sort of anime that writer Hideyuki Kurata can write in his sleep. In fact he may just have a machine into which he feeds fluffy manga and it shits out scripts. Looking at the production staff, it has plenty of talented folk on it, but you just wish they were working on something with a bit more ambition.