Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, and I can’t be arsed writing this in December.

Kneejerk comments on anime starting in January – Go!

RIDE BACK

Maybe it’ll come out this time. I hope so, it looks like it could be awesome. I wrote about it here.

Kemono no Sōja Erin

What’s that? A 50 episode, Production IG produced fantasy show for NHK? Good, good.

Takayuki Hamana (Library Wars, Chocolate Underground) directs this adaptation of Nahoko Uehashi’s The Beast Player manga. This has the potential to be really high quality.

Genji Monogatari Sennenki

Osamu Dezaki directs a Tezuka Productions/Tokyo Movie adaptation of Murasaki Shikibu’s 11th century novel, The Tale of Genji.

I think that should tick enough boxes for you to be interested in checking this out.

VIPER’S CREED

Look at that logo! Look at it! Bask in its colour gradients! It’s awesome in its late 80s, early 90s video game cool. And it should not be surprising to learn that a man who is the definition of that era’s cool mecha is the head honcho of this show – Shinji Aramaki.

Of course his directing record isn’t quite as impressive as his design pedigree, but it should be worth checking regardless (and near-veteran animator Hiroyuki Kanbe seems to be the actual director).

By the way, this appears to be the only January show that isn’t an adaptation or a sequel.

Minami-ke: Okaeri

A third season of whatever this is. Something about three sisters if I remember rightly. I’m sure it’s showed up in one of these things I’ve done before, but I can’t muster the energy to check.

Kurokami The Animation

This Korean comic book gets an anime from the director of Emma & Twelve Kingdoms. No idea what the comic is like.

Asu no Yoichi!

Hideyuki Kurata slumming it again with another cute girl manga adaptation, this time from AIC. Debuting (?) Chief Animation Director Yumiko Ishii has done some interesting shows as a KA, so it may well look nice, even if the story is empty calories.

MAJOR 5th season

Perrenial baseball show continues.

WHITE ALBUM

Disappointingly not an anime celebrating the 40th anniversary of The Beatles album or even a misjudged musical ala “Across the Universe”. No. It’s, of course, an adaptation of a moe manga. Directed by Key The Metal Idol director Hiroaki Sato.

Maria Holic

Androphobic girl joins all-girl school. Girl falls in love with classmate. Who turns out to be a cross-dressing boy. From the team who brought you Zoku Sayonara Zetsubō Sensei.

Maria-sama ga Miteru 4th Season

And the fourth season of the real thing is due too.

Shikabane Hime Kuro

Second season of this adaptation hot on the heels of the GAINAX one. Not sure on the staff of this one as the website appears to just be an image at present.

Slayers Evolution-R

More Slayers.

Birdy The Mighty DECODE: 02

More Birdy. This is a good thing.

Zoku Natsume Yūjin-Chō

More folklore tales in this sequel to this summer’s series.

Shin Hajime no Ippo

More punching.

Hetalia – Axis Powers

The trend for webcomics to be turned into anime continues. This one appears to be about anthropomorphised countries. Specifically the countries involved in World War 2. Anthropomorphised as pretty boys.

Finished rolling your eyes yet?

Akikan!

Ugly looking romance anime from Brain’s Base.

Chrome Shelled Regios

Fantasy novel adaptation directed by journeyman director Itsuro Kawasaki.

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.