Happy New Year 2006

January 1, 2006 | 15 Comments

Happy New Year, everyone!! I hope you had a good new year's eve tonight and will have a good new year! I am going to go and get wasted with a few friends and probably wouldn't be able to blog properly tomorrow due to hangover. So I thought I better do the preview for upcoming anime now. I have to say that I am a bit uncertain about what I want to cover next season since there's a likelihood that I'll be overseas again for a few months. In fact, I'll be going to UK and Japan this 18th of January to visit a few friends over there. In addition to this, I usually find Winter shows to be rather bad quality-wise but hopefully I'll be wrong in this regard. Anyway, just bear in mind that these plans are tentative and may change at any time. These are also the series I'm interested to see and not the full list which you can find here.

Fate/Stay Night
Starting date: January 6th
Station: Saitama TV
Casts: Kawasumi Ayako (Saber), Sugiyama Noriaki (Emiya Shirou), Ueda Kana (Tohsaka Rin), Suwabe Junichi (Archer)
Story:
Based on a game by TYPE-MOON, Fate/Stay Night depicts the battle for the Holy Grail and the powerful sorcerers involved in it. I already talked about this before in this entry so there is no need to repeat it again here. Also, the banner for this blog features two of its many characters: Archer and Tohsaka Rin.

Hanbun no Tsuki ga Noboru Sora
Starting Date: January 12th
Station: WOWOW
Casts: Takahashi Mikako (Akiba Rika), Sugimura Kenichi (Ezaki Yuichi)
Story:
When Yuichi was a second grader, he was hospitalised due to hepatitis. One day he met Rika, a beautiful but very selfish girl. Later on, Yuichi finds out that Rika acts selfishly because she's dying. The most recognisable VA from this series is obviously Takahashi Mikako, who was known for her work as Yamada Ayumi from Honey and Clover. This is an unusual series in the sense that it's only scheduled for 6 episodes. I get the impression that it'll crossover with Shinigami no Ballad/Momo the Girl God of Death which will follow this series a bit later.

Shinigami no Ballad
Starting Date: March 2nd
Station: WOWOW
Casts: Kobayashi Akiko (Momo), Shimizu Ai (Daniel)
Story:
Shinigami no Ballad tells the story of a young Shinigami (God of Death) named Momo, and her experience as she gets to meet those whose life she has to take away. Matthew has some information on the kind of stories that the series might offer. This sounds like the reverse of Jigoku Shoujo. Voice-wise, this one boasts the talent of Shimizu Ai aka Minagi Mikoto from Mai Hime.

Ayakashi - Japanese Classic horror
Starting date: January 12th
Station: Fuji TV's NOITAMINA
Writer: Chiaki Konaka
Character Designer: Yoshitaka Amano
Story:
Ayakashi marks the first original TV series for NOITAMINA timeslot, which previously hosted Honey and Clover and Paradise Kiss. The story seems to be based on Japanese folklore horror stories and will feature the writing talent of Chiaki Konaka (Lain, Texhnolyze) and the character design from Yoshitaka Amano of Final Fantasy fame.

Ergo Proxy
Starting date: February 2006
Station: WOWOW
Casts: Saitou Rie (Lilu Meyer), Kouji Yusa (Vincent Row), Yajima Akiko (Pino)
Story:
Rom'd is a paradise city, a place where people and robot live together under full management control. In this city, emotion does not exists. Lilu Meyer is an investigator working for the intelligence bureau. During an investigation of a mysterious murder case, however, she gets attacked by a grotesque monster. The full version PV found on the official site also mentions how 'God' does not exist in other universe and that this universe was chosen for a specific reason/purpose. In general, the official site and the PV suggest that this is some kind of cyberpunk series. But if it ends up being too similar to Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex then I don't know if I'll enjoy it. I find that series to be far too cerebral and complex for my taste. Not to mention that the terminology used in the series made it impossible for me to understand the story. So this one is a tentative series for now.

Posted by Garten

Comments

January 1, 2006 | Nunka wrote:

>> Saitou Rie (Lilu Meyer)

Thanks for spelling it like that instead of "Ril." I personally think "Lilu" works better. :P

Happy new year, btw.

January 1, 2006 | Pepz wrote:

WOWOW seem to be doing an lot of work. Think I'll just get Ayakashi. Have fun in the UK (I'm from London) and Happy new year to you!

January 1, 2006 | Zyl wrote:

Happy new year! And have a good trip - I wish I could go to Japan this year too...

January 1, 2006 | Tsiry [Madagascar] wrote:

Happy New Year !
Tratry ny Taona ! :)

January 1, 2006 | Senzen wrote:

The upcoming season looks bad. Where's the shoujo series? Most of them seem to be fanservice shows.

January 1, 2006 | Dav wrote:

I don't mind fanservice as long as it's the non-ecchi type. I'll be expecting quite a few notable eye-candies in the form of mind-blowing battle scenes from a few action genre series. Of course there're always a lil' room for the Shizuru kind of fanservice too. Mwehehe >;p. Guess there's quite a lot to look forward to this season.

Happy New Year, everyone!! ^__^

January 1, 2006 | Kabitzin wrote:

Happy New Year and I'm sure you'll have a great trip =).

January 1, 2006 | kiryuu wrote:

Nice my otome picture :)

January 1, 2006 | Michael wrote:

Happy New Year! I also agree that you've been doing a lot of work this year. Your anime reviews and previews offer some great insight and even make me want to watch every anime on your list!

I'd have to say that your blog is one of the best anime blogs out there! You're a real pro. No I'm serious. What did you say you did for a living? You could probably do this professionally.

January 1, 2006 | Garten wrote:

Hi Michael, thank you for the nice comment. I work as a website designer although lately I wonder if I still want to be one. Hmm, I wish I can do this full time that way I can put more attention towards my writing, which I can't do at the moment since there's always some kind of deadline looming in the horizon.

January 2, 2006 | clefton wrote:

"Ayakashi - Japanese Classic horror"

WTH? I thought Ayakashi is a bishoujo dating game?

January 2, 2006 | LaC wrote:

Where do you get those great Mai Otome pictures? :-)

January 2, 2006 | Garten wrote:

Clefton, I never heard of Ayakashi bishoujo dating game so unfortunately I don't know what you're talking about.

LaC, the picture is a modified version of the one included inside Animedia. In the original, there are actually some peripheral objects (ie. a framed picture) in the background which I thought was kind of distracting from the way I want it to look. So I erased them. Moreover, the picture was split into two pages. In other words, the only way you can get the image looking like this is from the one I provided above.

January 3, 2006 | Hughes_M wrote:

Happy New Year!! Thanx for the image.

January 3, 2006 | Scarlet wrote:

JunJun!! Hee, sorry, I got a bit crazed when I noticed Suwabe Junichi in any anime. I guess this means I have to give Fate/Stay Night a go just to hear his sexy voice. Ayakashi is another possibility since I love horror series. And oh, happy new year!! Keep up the good work!