With the coming of a new year means the coming of a new anime season. It’s almost time for Winter Season, so it’s time for the previews to be out. Actually, the roster has been out for a while, but this is the big, translated poster version with pictures.
Click that picture to see the whole thing because the whole poster would be unreadable after how far I’d have to shrink it down to fit it in here. Winter Season isn’t know to be a very strong showing for the anime year. To that end, we’re drowning in moe-moe shows. Still, there are a few that stand out to even among those. These standouts I’m going to list aren’t necessarily recommendations, just shows that caught my attention for one reason or another. I’ll list a trailer with them if I’ve gotten a hold of one.
Bakumatsu Gijinden Roman
The story on this one is Bakumatsu era Robin Hood. The main character, Manjiro, secretly helps people retrieve properties lost to corrupt “men of power.” It could go somewhere, but what makes this one stand out is the character designs by Monkey Punch, creator of Lupin III. Since the story is about a theif, I can’t get out of my head that the two elements should work out to a worthwhile show. It’s also apparently based on a pachinko machine.
Chihayafuru Season 2
Chihayafuru was a new show to me until this season started getting discussed and is an anomaly on my critical spectrum. It’s a romance story about high school students that is centered somewhat around a card game about memorizing poetry. It sounds like some dry thing I’d just ignore because romance in anime is typically unbelievable, stilted, and with bad dialogue. Chihayafuru is not that with good character interactions and dialogue. I haven’t finished watching it, but if I do, this is one to look out for.
Mangirl!
This one just has a dumb title that I think is funny because I’m secretly 11 years old. It’s about a group of girls starting a manga publishing magazine like Jump or something, but seriously; Mangirl. I get the pun, but seriously; Mangirl. If there’s no burly musclemen in make-up ala Joseph, I will be disappointed.
Senyuu
Senyuu has a concept that I think could go somewhere. An ancient evil, Satan Rchmedies, comes back to terrorize the Earth and must be defeated by a royally appointed hero. It’s just that the king is lazy and just picked 75 hero-ish people and we’re following #45. This could be a fun way to play around with the generic shonen structure, but I’m not confident that it will be. The big deal for this show is that the theme will be by JAM Project.
Vivid Red Operation
I want you to know that putting that trailer on here makes me feel dirty. Kazuhiko Takamura didn’t feel his work was done with Strike Witches, so he brings us whole new show to make your skin crawl at the very idea of panties. Oh, sorry, not panties. “Hot pants.” This one sticks out to me because the roster’s blurb for this show just reads, “An anime sci-fi action series by the director of Strike Witches. Now with hot pants!” Even promotional material admits that this show is going to be little more than “girls in tight pants and cameras with no shame.”
That’s the bulk of this season. There are the special releases and movie dates, but the specfic dates won’t have much meaning for those of us living outside Japan. A few interesting things are being released. The special releases are typically bonuses released with DVDs or full boxsets. There’s going to be a Blu-ray release of Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team with a bundled in short film. There’s also going to be an OVA for The Kindaichi Case Files. If you’ve never read it before, imagine Detective Conan but without the “becomes a child” gimmick. In movies, we’ve got the Star Driver movie in February probably subbed some time way in the future.
Settle in for the long Winter. There’s a few potential gems in there, and we’ve still got JoJo’s keeping us company, so it shouldn’t be too bad.
