Spring Anime 2005

February 24, 2005 | 12 Comments

After getting a brief look at the recent Japanese anime magazines, I have to say I'm rather disappointed with the selection of this year's Spring Anime. At first I thought it was a rather good line-up until I realised that half of the titles such as Full Metal Panic: The 2nd Raid are not even scheduled for April release. Not that it actually matters since I haven't even seen the first or the second series of Full Metal Panic. But the point is, April lineup seems to be rather dry so far. Unless I happen to stumble onto more titles, it seems there are only 3 series that interest me this April:

Tsubasa Chronicle
Official Site

Original Author: CLAMP
Original Manga: serialised in Weekly Shounen magazine
Starting date: 9th of April 2005
Animation Studio: Bee Train
Casts: Irino Miyu (Shaoran), Makino Yui(Sakura), Inada Tsuyoshi (Kurogane), Namikawa Daisuke (Fye), Kikuchi Mika (Mokona)
Music: Kajiura Yuki
Opening Theme: Blaze by Kinya
Ending Theme: Loop by Sakamoto Maaya

Is it an understatement if I say that this is the most anticipated Autumn 2005 series? It seems to me that most anime fans and their sister's best friend are excited about this particular series. Unfortunately this also means that the expectation for the series is also high, so everyone better pray that Bee Train doesn't fudge this. Featuring a hodge podge of various CLAMP characters from Card Captor Sakura to X, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle is a story about Sakura, a Princess from the Clow Kingdom who lost her memory due to a strange incident that happens inside an archeological dig in her home country. In order to regain her memory, her childhood best friend, Shaoran, decides to travel from one alternate reality to another to collect fragments of her memory. The only catch is, even if Sakura regains all of her memory, she'll never regain her memory of Shaoran.

Kurogane is a strong warrior who has been exiled by the Princess of his home country because he can't control his temper. Due to this incident, he has no choice but to travel from one reality to another so he can go back to serve his Princess. On the other hand, Fye is a mage who wants to move from one reality to another as long as he doesn't have to see King Ashura. Eventually, all four characters and strange rabbit creature called Mokona, end up travelling together from one alternate reality to another in order to recover Sakura's lost memory. The main appeal of Tsubasa, in my opinion, is CLAMP's artwork. Unfortunately, the storyline, which started out really well, ends up being a bit repetitious sometimes due to lack of focus on the four main characters. At the moment the series is still running inside Weekly Shonen Magazine, which also carries the recently turned into Anime, Mahou Sensei Negima!.

Hachimitsu to Clover (Honey and Clover)
Official Site

Original Author: Umino Chika
Original Manga: serialised in Young You magazine
Starting date: 14th of April 2005 (tentative)
Animation Studio: J.C.Staff
Casts: Kudou Haruka (Hanamoto Hagumi), Kamiya Hiroshi (Takemoto Yuuta), Sugita Tomokazu (Mayama Takumi), Ueda Yuji (Morita Shinobu)
Opening Theme: Dramatic by Yuki
Ending Theme: Waltz by SuneoHair

If I have to choose a CLAMP's manga to be animated, I personally would prefer it if Clover is the one that becomes an animation. But beggar can't be chooser and besides, there's another Clover title coming up this Autumn. Umino Chika's Hachimitsu to Clover is 2003 Kodansha Manga Award Winner about Takemoto Yuuta, Mayama Takumi, and Morita Shinobu: 3 dirt-poor young students who live together inside a small apartment. The guys are so poor that at one time they have nothing else to eat but croquettes and various condiments. I can definitely relate to this since when I was a student sometimes the only food that I have is boiled rice with those seaweed sprinkles. >_< The story basically follows these characters' ups and downs as poor college students, as well as their love life when a rather short 18 year old girl called Hanamoto Hagumi enters their life.

Since I have experienced something similar, I tend to like this kind of poor students trying to struggle story. I enjoyed Mayuko's rather similar story in NieA_7 and I like the story in this one as well. The characters are funny and eccentric as well. Morita basically tops the list as one of the weirdest characters I've ever seen. He seems to be a talented photographer who gets some of his best work by taking pictures of Hagumi posing with some plants. Unfortunately, Hagumi is kind of terrified with Morita's rather unusual way of taking photograph. Takemoto and Mayama are also 2 good characters who seem to be utilised as the normal characters whose daily problems and hope for future careers I can relate quite well. Having said that, I can understand that this kind of 'slice of life' story may not sound interesting to other people. In addition to this, the manga is not yet completed at the moment so it's not clear how the anime is going to end the series.

Speed Grapher
Official Site

Director: Kunihisa Sugishima
Series Planner: Shin Yoshida
Original Character Design: Yuusuke Kozaki
Character Design: Masashi Ishihama
Starting date: April 2005 (tentative)
Animation Studio: Gonzo
Casts: Takada Yuuji (Saiga Tatsumi), Saitou Kei (Tennouzu Kagura), Honda Takako (Ginza Hibari), Morikawa Toshiyuki (Suitenguu Chouji), Takashima Gara (Tennouzu Shinsen)

Another Gonzo anime that appeals to me in both character-design and basic plot. Hopefully this doesn't disappoint. As for summary, here's what Animaxis has to say about it:

"Speed Grapher takes place in a dark future version of Tokyo, more than a decade after the horrific Bubble War. In this future the chasm between the filthy rich and the desperately poor has widened to such a point that it nearly insurmountable. Freelance cameraman Saiga accepts a job investigating the mysterious Roppongi Club, an underground gathering place where shady deals are brokered. While inside the club Saiga meets an innocent young girl named Kagura who begs him to take her away. During their escape, something supernatural happens, and Saiga realizes that this girl is not all she appears. Not only is fifteen year old Kagura is the daughter of the powerful Tenouzu Group's chairwoman, but she is also both priestess and goddess of the Roppongi Club, a fact of which even Kagura is unaware..."

I think if Gonzo plays it right, this could be the action/supernatural equivalent of Last Exile. It definitely has the the right basic elements in place for it. All it needs now is great writing, animation, and character development.

Anyway, if you have a preference for a particular anime this upcoming season, I'd like to know. A full list of the titles can be found in Moonphase. And as usual, please do not direct link straight to the images. If you want to link, just point the link to this page.

Posted by Garten

Comments

February 24, 2005 | BluWacky wrote:

I'm looking forward to the above shows a lot, but I'm also particularly looking out for:

Sousei no Aquarion - I'm a MASSIVE Shoji Kawamori fanboy, and the promo trailer looks stunning - plus, Yoko Kanno music, can't miss it.

Eureka Seven - again, I'm a Bones fanboy (plus the mecha are designed by Shoji Kawamori!) so I hope this is good - I'm not really a big fan of mecha in general, but this could be interesting.

Erementar Gerad - I like cheesy shounen adventure stories (I'm also vaguely looking forward to MAR and Ueki no Housoku, but they'll probably be a bit TOO Shounen Jump-y for me) and this one has been hyped to the hilt - plus it has Yuki Kajiura doing the music. I'm shallow, I realise this.

Fushigi Hoshi no Futago-Hime - it looks sickly sweet and cutesy, but I have faith in Junichi Sato's ability to do something interesting with shoujo.

Trinity Blood - I like gothic horror style shows, and the artwork is frankly fantastic.

Other shows that'll hopefully be good (but I know very little about) include Basilisk, Gun X Sword and Emma. The likelihood of me actually watching most of these is very slim, though (I'm prioritising Aquarion above all else)

February 24, 2005 | LILI45 wrote:

No way since when did they make Tsubasa into an anime?! I read the books when they come out but now they have an anime in Japan?! Wow! I wish I knew Japanese!

February 25, 2005 | Chuu wrote:

I'm actually a little disappointed in the character design for T:RC. It looks so fresh and clean... the exact opposite design of the manga. Since Syaoran is an archeologist, the whole atmosphere is supposed to be all grungy and dirty.

I have high expectations for the anime though. Hope they don't butcher it.

Speed Grapher looks interesting! Are you going to cover that anime series as well?

February 25, 2005 | Garten wrote:

If it turns out to be good, then definitely! :) But if this one turns out to be a dud, then I'll probably just cover the first and second episodes. But I really hope that this will be the supernatural/action equivalent of Last Exile.

February 25, 2005 | Clous Dolch wrote:

Speed Grapher looks great amount all of that you have covered. Even though I'm a fan of TRC (look at my email...) I'm really disappointed about the anime. The Chibi characters are more close to the manga then the normal characters. And the other thing, the manga haven't even cover half of the story yet and now they are making an anime for it? This could be bad... Just because they have success in the somewhat recent anime like X, Chobits, and Angelic Layer. Doesn't mean they can just randomly pick one out of the hat... I really want Clover to be the one but maybe next time. Thanks for the review though ^_^

February 25, 2005 | David wrote:

True, true, Speed Grapher looks quite good -- Gonzo has a really good track record on shows that show disparities between the really rich and the really poor (Last Exile, Kiddy Grade, Tokyo Underground?), and of course, they have the futuristic scene down pat.

I wonder if author Kunihisa Sugishima is new to the industry -- I haven't heard of him before . . .

February 25, 2005 | Garten wrote:

Sorry, David. I didn't mean to confuse you or anyone else. Kunihisa Sugishima is the Director or the series and not the author. I forgot to write down their correct roles before. At any rate, I have never heard about him either.

February 25, 2005 | wao wrote:

Hmm...

Sousei no Aquarion I am looking out for, simply because I have an utter weakness for angst teenage mecha pilot shows, and it's got some seriously nice CG. Also it's animated by Satelight which usually means GREAT eye-candy. Plus, YOKO KANNO MUSIC! You can't go wrong with that, and this time she's collaborating with Hisaaki Hokari for the music... and Hisaaki Hokari collaborates a lot with Akino Arai to compose and arrange a bunch of her songs, and I LOVE most of Akino Arai's stuff...
Here's to hoping at least the ending song will be by Akino Arai because the OP is already confirmed to be by a 15 year old singer coincidentally also going by the name AKINO. It seems that the promotion video has changed a bit too, so I'm going to go watch that.
I can predict the series would be utterly cheesy and cliche and overblown and prolly have environmental themes too, but I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff. I'll stop if it's really bad though! I hope Sousei no Aquarion will be as awesome as Macross Plus was though.

The other one I'm really hyped up over is Bones' Eureka Seven. It's got some pretty seriously good animators on it (ex-Ghibli staff) and come on, it's Bones, they're a great production house. It's also got Dai Sato doing the series composition, which is good... And skateboarding mechas are so cool! I watched the trailer and it really impressed me.

BEsides that, there's KARAS, an OVA which will be airing on TV so I expect raws of that will be out too. The trailer was really badass.

I can't care less about the rest: I'm still not very fond of Gonzo so I'm not particularly excited about Speed Grapher, I don't really care much for shoujo or fanservice so same for Hachimitsu to Clover and Kore ga Watashi no Goshujin-sama and Futakoi Alternative... EREMENTAR GERAD seems boring... I don't care nmuch for sports anime so not looking forward to Eyeshield 21... I don't like CLAMP much and Bee Train has lost my respect recently so I can't care much for TRC...

I'd almost check out Fushigi Hoshi Futago Hime but looking at the site it seems almost certainly to be a small kids series, and yes, Princess Tutu was misleading too but turned out to be great (which is why I would actually even consider trying out FHFH seeing how absolutely CUTE and SPARKLY it is),,...

March 1, 2005 | Tsukinoko ^.~* wrote:

I can't wait until I can see Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-!!!!!
I was so expecting it to become an anime, but you're right - it HAS lost it's, erm, 'grundge' look. It looks like Card Captor Sakura all over. I have the books up to six and WOULD have up to eight, but there was no seven when I went to buy them, and I'm very pedantic about order...
I'm sure it'll be all good. I'm still getting over how GakuAri managed to become an anime though... Iza so happies =^.^=

Tsukinoko ^.~*

March 11, 2005 | Tomoe wrote:

Even though normally I would have been excited about Tsubasa turning into Anime,
I'm not, I'm not aware if the original manga have ended or not, but if has not then, I'm quite dissapointed.
I just cant get the feeling off, that the anime may turn out bad. Until now the manga have been nice, but arent they getting way ahead of it?
I mean turn it into an Anime, when the actual story haven't got a chance to finish?

Sorry if it turn out whiney if you must delete this is, be my guess.

March 17, 2005 | Joey wrote:

i think that what the peeps in tsubasa look really weird...they should make it look more realistic...but i still love it!

March 21, 2005 | Miheza wrote:

lol.. I can't wait for the anime of Tsubasa! ^^

But, I thought Madhouse Studios was the animator for it.. Didn't CLAMP have some contract with them..? I mean, they did do ALL their anime. Thats strange.. 0_o

Speed Grapher looks interesting.. but, I have a thing against Gonzo. Too much fanservice for me.. Maybe i'll give it a chance.. maybe.

Honey and Clover looks really cute. I must watch the cuteness! >=3