It’s that time of the year again. Winter season is half-over, and information about spring is starting to pop up, and the crop looks plenty bountiful again.
Toshokan Sensou: The time: the future. The occupation: firefighter librarian. The author: Ray Bradbury Arikawa Hiro. The temperature: 451 not given. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is the future. Books are banned. Libraries are left with no choice but to resort to guerrilla tactice and paramilitary actions to protect the freedom of information. If this doesn’t scream awesome at you, I don’t know what does. The light novel Production I.G. is adapting this anime from is supposedly a satirical comedy, which probably means we’ll have sufficiently over the top library warfare. And scathing critique. And Mobile Suit Kokoro F451. Yes. Oh yes.
Real Drive: The plot synopsis for this one is a little vague, but Shirow Masamune is doing the writing for it and, since I really liked Ghost Hound, and since it also looks like a science fiction magnum opus par excellence, I’ll be giving it a go. Production I.G. has really turned around their reputation with me, so I’m looking forward to this one more than I expected to.
(astute readers will notice I left off a certain little-known franchise created by Shirow; rest assured, dear reader, that this was wholly intentional and that no, I have not merely lapsed in memory, but, lamentably, do not quite appreciate said franchise)
Allison & Lillia: More alternate-universe 1930s material. This one looks to be somewhat less…Baccano! than, well, Baccano!, but I’m not going to hold that against it: period pieces are period pieces, even when period pieces are period-adapted-into-fantasy-setting pieces. Plus, girls flying planes. We haven’t seen that since the hoary days of Stratos 4. I also like how the Mokke director is directing; I haven’t seen much Mokke, and I only sort of like it, but I think the reason for that isn’t the directing, and, besides, it’s a Madhouse production. It’ll be all right.
Tower of Druaga – the Aegis of Uruk: It’s GONZO, so I’m a bit wary, but the premise sounds as interesting as the premise of Last Exile, or possibly more than, and, let’s face it, Last Exile was a pretty good GONZO show, all things considered. Mostly because of the setting, but Tower of Druaga’s setting sounds just as intriguing. Oh, and looking at the directorial credits, it’s actually being directed by the Last Exile guy, with series composition done by the Full Metal Panic author. Interest definitely piqued now.
Amatsuki: Information is small and vague, but evidently this is a history lecture anime. With copious amounts of violence. I can only hope it isn’t Shigurui levels of horrible imagery, but it looks too pretty to be trying to out-Shigurui Shigurui. And, hey, history lesson. Can’t beat that. Fun fact: Directed by the Real Drive director, who also apparently directed Mononoke did storyboards for a Mononoke arc. (oops) And Zipang, which I desperately need to watch. So, yeah, double-fun.
Nabari no Ou: I’ve read a little bit of the manga (what precious few chapters have been translated) and it seems okay, so hopefully the anime will be religiously subbed. Or licensed by Bandai Visual, which is unlikely. My friend who pawned this off on me likens it as a cross between Naruto and Mushishi, although, being shounen, it bears much more in common with the former than the latter, especially since the Mushishi comparison is in the general atmospherics, and it’s very vague.
Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2: Okay, so I forgot about this for a while. Oops. I think you already know if you’re going to watch this or not, because you’ve already watched all of Code Geass and been infused with the Taniguchi Goro goodness, right? Right? Thought so.
Oh, and the post is Part One? because I have no idea if there’ll be another series or two that’ll pop up between now and April that will catch my eye, but this list is long enough so I must entreat Japan to at least put off making more awesome anime until summer season hits, and then go wild and crazy. Thank you.
Anime wa Bakuhatsu da! 