Allison and Lillia
It is an anime adapted from the light novel series Allison and Lillia and Treize
by Keiichi Sigsawa. The anime, produced by Madhouse and directed by
Masayoshi Nishida, will originally start airing in Japan on the NHK
television network in April 2008, and is set to contain twenty-six
episodes. The first half of the anime will cover the Allison novels,
while the second half will cover the Lillia and Treize novels.
Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2
The 2nd season of Code Geass. This is also known as Code Geass - Hangyaku no Lelouch.
When: 04/06/2008
On
August 10th, 2010, a.t.b., the Holy Empire of Britannia overpowered
Japanese forces and conquered the country with their robotic weapons,
the Knightmare Frames, in less than a month. Japan lost its freedom and
rights and was renamed Area 11. The Japanese people, renamed as
“Elevens”, were forced to survive in ghettos, while Britannians lived
in first-class settlements. Rebel elements persisted, however, as
pockets of Japanese organizations who struggled against the Empire for
the independence of Japan.
After
his father, the Emperor of Britannia, did nothing to pursue the
terrorists who murdered his mother and crippled his sister, the young
prince named Lelouch vowed to destroy Britannia. Seven years later,
living in Area 11, he encounters a mysterious girl who gives him the
power of Geass. With it, he finally has the power that he needs to
defeat Britannia and fulfill his two wishes: to seek revenge for his
mother and to construct a world in which his beloved sister can live
happily.
Crystal Blaze
Also known as Glass Maiden.
When: 04/17/2008
A corner of near-future Asia. A world where through the manipulations
of national governments, freedom and eqality have been established as
mere pretenses.”The Trash City” Lags Town, an assemblage of all peoples
composed of those whose lives have burned out. This tale, playing out
in the symbol of false glory, Lags Town, is a near-future detective
story shown through gun action and sexy action.
The
Lags Town Jack-of-all-trades “S&A Detective Agency”. Its members
are Shu, who stands against the powers that be through pulse-pounding
incidents even though it’s forced him out of society, and Akira, a
complicated, beautiful young man and the young detectives-in-training,
high school girls Manami and Ayaka. Unfulfilled, Shu lives day-to-day
as a detective, when he meets the amnesiac heroine Sara. Investigating
an incident which rocks Lags Town, he takes new steps forward with
friends who accept his past. That drama plays out in a hard-boiled and
stylish detective story, symbolised by the Smith and Wesson model 29
and the ‘80 Trans Am.
Da Capo II Second Season
Also known as D.C. II S.S.
When: 04/23/2008
This
synopsis is from season 1. The protagonist, Yoshiyuki Sakurai, was born
when Sakura Yoshino, weary of being alone for so long, wished upon a
prototype artificial wish-granting magical sakura tree for a family.
Years later, though, the tree starts malfunctioning, granting all
wishes, regardless of how impure. Sakura and Otome Asakura at first try
to handle all the problems caused by it, but the situation gradually
worsens and they have to choose whether or not to save — the island in
Japan where the story takes place — by deactivating the tree which
would erase Yoshiyuki’s existence in the process. Sakura makes a
last-ditch effort to stop the tree by entering it directly, but fails.
Yoshiyuki eventually manages to persuade Otome to choose the island
over him, and she has the tree wither, revoking all the granted wishes,
including Sakura’s.
Himitsu - Top Secret
The story takes place five decades from now, when brain scanners have
been perfected to the point that the government can retrieve up to five
years’ worth of memories from people’s minds — even if they are dead.
The investigators of the National Research Institute of Police
Science’s 9th Forensics Laboratory must weigh the ethical choices in
the ultimate invasion of privacy as they delve into people’s minds to
solve crimes.
Ikuze Gensan
When: 03/24/2008
Not much info on this one. According to this PSP games site,
Irem, known for bringing Japanese PlayStation Portable video games to
North America, has picked up a new project in the form of Ikuze Gensan.
It is scheduled to be released in Japan this coming Spring.
Ikuze
Gensan is the story of a good-hearted carpenter who plans to stop an
irresponsible construction company from creating chaos and destruction
in the streets, amusement parks, and beaches. Despite being a
carpenter, the main character Gensan is also capable of changing jobs
that will ultimately affect his fighting style.
Itazura na Kiss
More info – Official Site
Also known as Mischievous Kiss, It Started with a Kiss.
When: 04/2008
Itazura na Kiss tells the love story of Kotoko and Naoki from their
days as high school students to their marriage. The story continues
after the marriage as they continue to grow as a couple.
Junjou Romantica
More info – Official Site
When: 04/2008
An adaptation of the yaoi manga series by Shungiku Nakamura. It focuses on not only a main couple but two other male couples.
Kamen no Maid Guy
This is also known as Maid Guy, Masquerade Maid Guy.
When: 04/10/2008
Fujiwara Naeka is a typical 17 year-old high school student. Or so we
thought. She’s really one of 2 surviving heirs of a tycoon who has the
right to inherit his mass fortune when she turns 18 in half a year.
Fubuki, a young and beautiful maid, and Kogarashi, a big burly maid guy
with a mask, have been assigned to keep Naeka and her brother Kousuke
safe from those who would plot their demise, and to steal the fortune
she would inherit.
Synopsis:
Kanokon’s story revolves around Kouta Oyamada, a young first-year high
school student who moves from the country to the city and thus
transfers to KunpŨ High School. On his first day at his new school, a
beautiful second-year female student named Chizuru Minamoto asks him to
meet her alone in the music room. When he arrives, she reveals her that
she is in fact a fox deity and from that day on the two hang out
together.
Kure-nai
When: 04/2008
An anime adaptation of the light novel series by Kentarou Katayama, with illustrations by Yamato Yamamoto.
16-year-old Shintaro Kurenai, a specialist in settling squabbles
between people, is one day approached by the daughter of a powerful
plutocratic family asking him to be her bodyguard.
Kyouran Kazoku Nikki
The novels depict the not-so-normal life of a “family” that includes a
catgirl “mother,” a lion “son,” a living land-combat android weapon
“son,” a jellyfish-like otherworldly “daughter,” and a hapless
27-year-old military officer as their “father.” This motley “family”
was assembled as part of the Imperial Japanese Anti-Paranormal
Phenomena Section’s Special Operations Forces to save Earth in 2063.
Macross Frontier
When: 04/03/2008
The series celebrates the 25th anniversary of the original Super
Dimension Fortress Macross TV series (1982~1983), and is a direct
sequel to Macross 7 (1994~1996). This third TV series features Earth’s
latest main variable fighter, the VF-25 and a new spaceship called the
Macross Frontier.
On
the Macross timeline, the story is set on the year 2059. The series
features the 25th colonial fleet, dubbed the Macross Frontier, en route
near the galactic center.
During
a mission to an unexplored asteroid belt, a reconnaissance New U.N.
Spacy (N.U.N.S.) VF-171 is destroyed by extremely powerful & fast
insectoid biomechanical alien mecha (called “Vajra” in the official
site), which immediately begin their attack on the rest of the fleet.
Not being able to stop the new enemy threat, the N.U.N.S. colonial
defense forces authorize the deployment of a civilian military provider
organization called S.M.S., which utilizes the new VF-25 variable
fighter to destroy the alien menace.
Monochrome Factor
Synopsis:
Akira Nikaido is a typical slacker with a normal life, that is, until
he meets Shirogane who changes him from a slacker highschool student to
a shin, a creature of the shadow world, in order to help restore
balance of the human and shadow world and keep shadow monsters from
attacking humans.
Nabari no Ou
When: 04/06/2008
Rokujou Miharu is a boy who has a hijustu living inside of him. This
hijustu is the power of creation. Many people are seeking it. Rokujou’s
friend Kouichi started a ninjustu club at school with Kumohira-sensei,
his English teacher. Both Kouichi and Kumohira are ninjas. They tried
to persuade Rokujou to join the ninjustu club. At first, he was
reluctant but he joined later. He was attacked by a ninja and used the
power of the hijustu to defend himself. He realized that he might have
the potential to be a ninja and started to take the ninjutsu club
seriously. He must become the King of Nabari in order to survive.
Neo Angelique Abyss
When: 04/2008
The basic lore of the series is built around a Queen who fairly and
wisely rules a Cosmos. By balancing elemental forces with the help of
nine Guardians, she keeps the various planets in her domain stable and
her people content. However, the powers of the Queen and the Guardians
fade over time, and successors must be appointed. In the first game and
its various remakes, the protagonist is a 17-year-old girl named
Angelique Limoges who has been chosen by the current Queen and her aide
Dia as one of two candidates from the Royal Smallney Girls’ Academy to
become the next Queen. She is transported to the Flying City to begin
her final examination.
Each
of the candidates is given a land to populate. Whoever finishes
populating their land first wins and becomes the next Queen. It is done
with the help of nine Guardians who use their powers to make the people
of the candidate’s land happy, or to devastate their rival’s. Along the
way, the candidates become friends with the Guardians and can fall in
love. If they choose love, they forfeit their chance to become Queen,
but will live happily ever after.
The
story expands in later titles, but most entries in the series feature
one of a succession of girls named Angelique as the protagonist, with
ever larger casts of characters. The roster of potential love interests
swells to 19 characters in later titles.
Net Ghost Pipopa
This is also known as Internet Ghost Pipopa.
When: 04/06/2008
The
official website for the TV Tokyo broadcasting station has confirmed
that it will premiere Net Ghost PiPoPa, a new virtual reality series
for children, on April 6. The series stars YÅ«ta Akigawa, an elementary
school boy who lives in a city run entirely by computers. One day, he
opens a phone email message that sucks him inside his mobile phone and
into “net space.” There he meets three mysterious creatures named Pit,
Pot, and Pat — PiPoPa for short. The four go on adventures between both
the human world and the net world.
Nijuu Mensou no Musume
Also known as Chiko, Heiress of the Phantom Thief.
When: 04/2008
Not much detail on this one either. The story revolves a female thief
named Chico, who is the spiritual successor to the Kaijin Nijū-MensŨ
(The Fiend with 20 Faces) thief character created by famed suspense and
detective novelist Ranpo Edogawa. A trailer is available at the official site.
RD Sennou Chousashitsu
Also known as Real Drive.
When: 04/2008
2061
AD. Fifty years have passed since mankind developed the Network
society. It was anticipated that this new infrastructure would realize
a utopia where people connected with each other at the level of
consciousness. However, new social problems such as personal data leaks
and proliferation of manipulated information began to surface.
Nevertheless, people still relied on the Network to exchange
information, and proved unable to opt to abandon it.
In
due course, a new Network realm with more effective security measures
was developed. This was called Meta Real Network, usually abbreviated
as “the Metal.” The Metal accommodated personal memory data within
protected virtual stand-alone organic cyber enclaves called bubble
shells and eventually pervaded the everyday lives of people. However,
people gradually learned to release and explode their instincts within
the secure environment of the Metal. The unleashed instincts pushed
each individual’s consciousness to drown in the sea of information and
to be exposed to the pressures of desire. Meanwhile, norms and
regulations continued to bind their real world lives. Thus, strange
friction between the two worlds began to manifest themselves as
aberrations beyond the bounds of the imaginable.
Experts who challenged the deep sea of the Metal to investigate and decipher such aberrations were called cyber divers.
This is a story of a cyber diver, Masamichi Haru, who investigates the incidents that lie between Reality and the Metal.
S.A. (Special A)
When: 04/2008
Hikari Hanazono has always been second to Kei Takishima. When they were
six years old, their pro-wrestling loving fathers introduced them to
each other. Assuming that she was the best in wrestling, young Hikari
challenged Kei to a wrestling match only to be thoroughly defeated by
him.
Ever
since that fateful incident, Hikari swore to beat Kei in school grades,
a sporting event - anything. To do this, she has enrolled in the same
school as Kei since elementary. Now she attends Hakusenkan, an ultra
elite school, that costs her carpenter father a lot of money. Hikari
and Kei are the top two students in the school, with Kei holding firmly
to that number one position. While Hikari considers Kei to be a rival
and important friend, she is completely unaware that Kei loves her.
The
story primarily focuses on Hikari and her constant attempts to defeat
her one and only rival, Kei, and how she finds love in their rivalry.
Soul Eater
It
is a manga written by Atsushi Okubo and serialized in the magazine
Monthly Shonen Gangan. It was first released as 3 separate one-shots in
2003 and became a regular series in 2004. Set in the Shinigami
technical school for weapon technicians, the series revolves around 3
groups of each a weapon technician and a human weapon. Trying to make
the latter a “Death Scythe” and thus fit for use by the Shinigami, they
must collect the souls of 99 evil humans and 1 witch. The series will
be animated by Bones.
The Tower of Druaga: The Aegis of Uruk
Also known as Druaga no To ~the Aegis of URUK~
When: 04/2008
Can’t
find much info on this one. All I could gather is that it’s one of the
most anticipated series this Spring and that it’s based on the series
of games entitled The Tower of Druaga. I think the official site has the synopsis, it’s in Japanese though. A trailer is also available there. Go check it out.
To-Love-Ru
More info – Official Site
When: 04/2008
The story is about Rito YÅ«ki, a high-school boy who cannot confess to
the girl of his dreams, Haruna Sairenji. One day when coming home and
sulking in the bath-tub a mysterious, nude girl, appears out of
nowhere. Her name is Lala and she comes from the planet Deviluke, where
she is the heir to the throne. Her father wants her to return to her
home planet so she can marry one of the husband candidates, but she
decides that she wants to marry Rito in order to stay on Earth.
Commander Zastin has been ordered to bring Lala back and has already
battled Rito. He reports to the emperor that Rito would be suited to
marry Lala, after hearing Rito say that marriage is impossible unless
it is with the person you love (Rito was actually defending himself but
Zastin and Lala thought he was defending Lala). With this speech, Lala
truly falls in love with Rito and decides that she wants to marry Rito.
Her father decides that, if Rito is able to protect Lala from her
fiances, then he can be her fiance, but if Rito cannot protect Lala
from her other fiances and meet up to the king’s expectations, Lala’s
father will kill Rito and destroy Earth.
Toshokan Sensou
Synopsis: It
is the year 2019. Thirty years have passed since The Ordinance of Media
Betterment was enacted in Japan. The Ordinance regulates behaviour that
disrupts public order and infringes human rights. Against the
militarized Betterment Special Agency which regulates all kinds of
media, a Library was founded to confront ultra vires censorship. The
conflict between the Media Betterment Brigade and the Library Brigade
continues to unfold in Japan. Kasawara Kaoru, who was recruited as a
voluntary Librarian, aims to become a Defense Member, a role that is
the most dangerous within the Library Brigade. She keeps her dream
secret from her parents and undergoes strict training. When Kaoru was
still in high school, a book was taken from her by the Betterman
Special Agency at a bookstore and she was saved by a Librarian. She
yearns to be ‘an ally of the righteous’, fantasizes about the Librarian
(whose face she does not remember) as a prince, and decides to become a
Librarian herself. At long last, Karou finally manages to join the
ranks of the elite members of the Library Special Brigade.
Vampire Knight
When: 04/07/2008
Synopsis: Yuki’s
earliest memory is of a stormy night in winter, when she was attacked
by a vampire, she was saved by another vampire, Kaname Kuran. 10 years
later, Yuki Cross, the adopted daughter of the headmaster of Cross
Academy, has grown up and become a guardian for the school, Cross
Academy, with 2 purposes. That is to protect the Day class (humans)
from the Night class’ (vampires) fang and protect the true identity of
the Night class students from being discovered by the Day class
students. Kaname Kuran, Yuki’s saviour, leads the group of night class,
with the help of Takuma Ichijo. But also at her side is Zero Kiryu, a
childhood friend whose hatred for the vampires that destroyed
everything he held dear, is now determined to kill them all and never
trust them. This coexisting arrangement seems all well and good, but
the question remains, have the vampires truly renounced their murderous
ways, or is there a darker truth behind their actions? Is Kaname’s
infatuation with Yuki the beginning of a forbidden romance, or is it
something in her forgotten past that draws him to her? Because in this
world of secrets, nothing is as it seems. And the price of misplaced
trust may even be worse than death.
Wagaya no Oinari-sama
More info – Official Site
When: 04/2008
Not
much info on this one. According to a post in Anime Suki: Tenko Kuugen
is a thousand-year-old demon/yokai fox that served as their guardian
god for hundred of years, able to use all sort of spells, but has a
extremely mischivious personility, playing all sort of pranks, until
finally the Mitsuji family sealed it up, until present day, when a
situation forced them to free it, after the crises, it quit it’s job
and became the guardian god of the Takagami family, extremely smart and
curious, it was able to figure out modern world technology, and learn
to blend in, but has a personilty of doing as it please, it’s too old
to remember it’s origional gender, so it has both male and female form.
but doesn’t hate the Mitsuiji for sealing it up. likes the Takagami
brother and will protect them at all cost.
xxxHolic: Kei
xxxHolic’s 2nd season.
When: 04/2008
Taken
from season 1’s synopsis: Kimihiro Watanuki is a high school student
plagued by yŨkai, supernatural beings magically attracted to him. The
creatures are invisible to others, and as a result he feels extremely
burdened by them. When he quite literally stumbles into a shop that
grants wishes, his life changes drastically.
The
shop is owned by YÅ«ko Ichihara, a mysterious, beautiful witch of many
names and esoteric renown. The seemingly all-knowing witch offers to
grant Watanuki’s wish to be rid of his ability to see spirits. However,
in exchange, he must pay a price equal to the power required to grant
the wish. YÅ«ko discovers that Watanuki is very skilled with his hands
and a hard worker. As a result, Watanuki is forced to perform housework
and odd jobs for YÅ«ko until he has done enough work for his wish to be
granted.
Shortly
afterwards, other characters become involved with Watanuki’s position,
including his love interest, Himawari Kunogi, and his “rival,” Shizuka
DŨmeki. The three become increasingly “friendly,” despite the number of
times Watanuki becomes annoyed by DŨmeki’s calm demeanor.
Zettai Karen Children
Also known as Absolutely Lovely Children.
When: 04/06/2008
Synopsis:
In the future, people with ESP are becoming more widespread. The
Japanese government has hired three of the most powerful ESPers in
Japan to work for B.A.B.E.L. (Base of Backing ESP Laboratory), but all
three are ten year old girls with questionable attitudes.
