01/04
A series of ten minute shorts in which three mechs from Toei's Mazinger Z franchise (Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger, and UFO Robot Mazinger) and three villains from the franchise are basically made into moe magical girls.
An "episode 0" promo video is streaming here, and the first 4 minutes of episode 1 can be seen here. The episode 1 sample features a very uncomfortable-making gag in which the three leads question whether a character is a man or a woman and lift her skirt to satisfy their curiosity, but this wouldn't be my cup of tea regardless.
Mitsuki is Yuya's younger stepsister. Unfortunately for Mitsuki, her body is possessed by a spirit who must "fall in love with Yuya" (i.e. throw herself at him) in Mitsuki's body to go to heaven.
Oh the plot hoops these writers are jumping through to make another moe incest comedy. Ick ick ugh.
PV streaming here.
The second season of a slice-of-life about one boy at a conveniently recently-made-coed girls' school and his three fellow student council members. The boy is the straight man while the girls say a lot of pervy, blunt stuff about periods and masturbation and sex and porn. I have seen the first episode of the first season. The student council members' bluntness was actually kind of amusing at points, but high school sex comedies are still not my cup of tea. I also didn't like a character identifying herself as straight by calling herself "normal."
PVs streaming here and here.
Crunchyroll is streaming it in the US, Canada, Central and South America, the UK, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark, and the Netherlands.
New kids' card game show that no one cares about. Cartoon Network is going to air it.
PVs found here and here.
The much-hyped series from the team that did Cowboy Bebop, about a man named Dandy who works as a space hunter, searching for new alien species. He travels space with a worn-out robot named QT and a cat-like alien named Meow, and he's being pursued by the Gorgol Empire for reasons he doesn't know yet.
On one hand, I really enjoyed Cowboy Bebop- although I haven't seen it in a long time and ought to re-watch it. On the other hand, Space Dandy's PVs have more awkward service than I expected, thanks to the protagonist's visit to a strip club called Boobies, which is disappointing. I know Cowboy Bebop had Faye (who I liked, actually) and that bounty hunter TV show hostess, but I remember the service in Cowboy Bebop being less in-your-face. This show's protagonist also generally feels more broey than Spike, Cowboy Bebop's protagonist. (About Space Dandy's tone, my girlfriend added, "I feel like it's trying to be the 70sest, Disco Feverest.")
So yeah, the promos aren't selling me, but Cowboy Bebop, so I will try it.
PVs streaming here and here.
Space Dandy will premiere a day earlier in the US than in Japan, English-dubbed, at 11:30 pm tonight on Adult Swim's Toonami block. Funimation (which streams in the US and Canada) has said they will stream it online, but they haven't said when.
The full worldwide broadcast schedule can be found on Space Dandy's website here.
UPDATE: Space Dandy is now streaming on Funimation and Hulu- still not sure what time it went up, though. You need to register to watch it on both Funi's website and Hulu, but it's free.
UPDATE: Funi's streaming schedule for it is each Sunday at 6:00 am PST.
01/05
Sunrise's newest mech series. Aoba is attacked by a mech on the way to school one day, but his mech-piloting classmate Hina saves him. Then he becomes a pilot for the Free Treaty alliance against the Great Zogiria Republic.
I am not big on mech shows, but hopefully for mech fans, this will be better than Sunrise's most recent mech series, Valvrave.
PVs streaming here.
An adaptation of a 4-koma about "warriors who have been warped by the raging power of justice" and are spirited to a school to be re-educated. Each episode will be three minutes long.
Eh.
PV here.
In this series' world, humans are divided into an Eastern planet and a Western planet. Our protagonist Oda Nobunaga is from the Eastern planet, which is embroiled in a war a lot like the Sengoku Era's. Jean Kaguya D'Arc, a girl from the Western planet, was prophesied to save the world when she was born. When she and Nobunaga meet, both of their planets will dramatically change.
The PVs didn't do much for me, so I wouldn't really be interested in this if it weren't by the creator of Macross, Kawamori Shoji, honestly. Hopefully he'll make this a good show.
PVs found here and here.
Crunchyroll will stream it at 12:15 pm PST in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.
A high school girl named Shio is on a school trip in Taiwan when monsters attack. Government agents wielding weapons containing the spirits of historical figures arrive, and Shio finds that she can wield a weapon possessing the spirit of Oda Nobunaga.
The PV looks stupid.
PV streaming here.
UPDATE: Crunchyroll will start streaming it at 5:00 pm PST in North America, South America, the UK, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Demark, Iceland, the Netherlands, Turkey, Spain, and Portugal.
Yato is a minor deity- so minor that he doesn't have his own shrine, so he writes his cellphone number on a public bathroom wall offering to help people for a five yen offering. He saves a girl named Hiyori from a traffic accident, and she becomes a hanyou, or half youkai. She and Yato start working together to help people, and a boy named Yukine, who can become "a 'sacred treasure' that can be used by a god", joins them. They battle youkai that harm humans and uncover the secrets of Yato's past.
This doesn't look bad. Not really itching to see it, though.
PVs found here.
Funimation will stream Noragami in the US and Canada, but they're being annoying about it (unless it's the company they're licensing it from's fault) and holding out on announcing their time for it also.
UPDATE: Noragami is streaming at 8:00 PST. Thanks to Helen for pointing out Funimation's update!
The sequel to everyone's favorite yuri mahjong series, in which Saki's team finally competes in the nationals. The way Nodoka's chest is drawn in the promo image above just killed a part of my soul, but I am still excited about this season. The first season started off slow- and had some annoying fan service- but it became a lot of fun, with good characters and several pairings ranging from canon to subtext. Seeing Yumi and Momo again in this season's promo made me happy.
PV streaming here.
Crunchyroll will stream this series at 10:30 am PST. Awesomely, Crunchyroll's stream will be available everywhere, aside from Japan.
A series composed of 10 minute episodes, about a diligent student named Rumi who notices the classmate seated next to her, Seki, finding elaborate ways not to pay attention in class, like creating a mini-golf course, or using shoji pieces to recreate a battle.
Mm, doesn't look that interesting.
PVs found here.
Crunchyroll will stream this at 11:00 am PST for all Premium members outside Asia. Free Crunchyroll members can watch each episode a week later if they are in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand South Africa, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, or Sweden.
A high school boy named Honoka who finds out that Ayaka, the bustiest, most popular girl at his school, is a witch when she rescues him. It turns out that her purpose is to protect him, and some of his other classmates (apparently all cute girls) turn out to be supernatural beings too.
Pass.
PVs here and here.
Crunchyroll will stream it at 11:15 am PST in the US, Canada, Central and South America, the UK, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, and Denmark.
01/06
Kenji is a delinquent, but he joins a group of four girls who turn out to be weirder than he is. Wacky hijinks ensue.
Not interested.
PVs here and here.
Funimation will stream this series in the US and Canada, but they haven't given a time for it.
A spin-off of Ghost in the Shell Arise, in which Kusanagi is a genius hacker who got lost in space. The Rojikoma mecha are anthropomorphized as chibi women named Rojiko and Komako, who can combine to transform into a Rojikoma. Other Ghost in the Shell characters will also appear. The first few short episodes of this series will provide news on Ghost in the Shell Arise's production, but the remaining episodes will just focus on the characters.
A series starring Super Sonico, the mascot character for the "Nitro Super Sonic" events held by the game company Nitroplus. In this series, Super Sonico is a college student who works part-time at her grandma's restaurant and does gravure photoshoots while also aiming to be an idol. She is busty and moe, shockingly.
As compelling as this sounds, I will pass.
PVs here.
Crunchyroll will stream SoniAni at 9:00 PST in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Latin America, Spain, Portugal, the Middle East, Turkey, Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, Denmark, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, France, DOM-TOM, Andorra, the Netherlands, Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco.
This series is about Kalel, a prince who lost his wealth to a revolution, and Claire, a girl who was made into a symbol of the revolution. They meet on the levitating island of Isura.
The PVs look Last Exile-ish and Laputa: Castle in the Sky-ish. They aren't showing me anything that's intriguing me, though.
PVs here and here.
Crunchyroll will premiere this at 7:00 am PST, in the US, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Central America, South America, the UK, Ireland, "German-speaking Europe", Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark.
01/07
In Hamatora, some people have special abilities called "minimum." Two minimum-users living in Yokohama, Nice and Murasaki, act as a detective duo. Their friend Art tells them about a serial killer who has been targeting minimum-users, and join him in trying to solve the case.
I like that this show is set in Yokohama, since I find it refreshing when series use distinctively non-Tokyo settings, but otherwise, going by its promo videos, it doesn't look very good.
PVs found here.
Crunchyroll will stream Hamatora at 10:00 am PST for Premium members everywhere outside Asia, the UK, and Ireland. Only free Crunchyroll users in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden will be able to watch new episodes a week later, though.
The second season of Wooser's Hand-to-Mouth Life, a series of five minute shorts about a mascot-like character who is an asshole despite his appearance. He awakens after a tragedy that claims many victims, and sees a general who looks like him who he resolves to assassinate and replace.
Not really interested.
PV found here.
Crunchyroll will stream this at 11:00 am PST worldwide except Japan.
01/08
The second season of Kyoto Animation's series about a middle schooler named Yuuta who has gotten over "chuunibyou"- a term a comedian came up with for middle schoolers who act like they know more than adults and/or like they have special abilities other people don't have. However, Yuuta meets a girl named Rikka, who is still in the chuunibyou phase. Rikka thinks he has enough residual qualities to make some kind of contract with her. They become interested in each other, and this series is pretty much a slice-of-life comedy focusing on them and their friends.
I haven't tried this, but I've heard it's surprisingly decent. I didn't expected this to be bad since Kyoto Animation generally turns out okay to good shows, but I wasn't all that excited about wacky hijinks starring middle schoolers. UPDATE: Apparently this series has some not so great-sounding aspects. I was told, "There's a character based around "compromising situations" gags, the main "couple" is...abusive/reifies het gender norms like WOAH. The series tries to get a leg up w/ a slap on the wrist to a ~perverted male~character, but 'true love requires cutesiness' reigns." Thanks, Franz, for the heads up!
PVs here, here, and here.
UPDATE: Crunchyroll with stream it at 9:30 am PST in the US and Canada.
A 4-koma adaptation. On her 16th birthday, Kobeni learns that she is engaged to a boy the same age named Hakuya. Hakuya moves from the countryside to live with Kobeni, bringing his grade school-aged little sister Mashiro with him.
Going by the promo videos, Hakuya isn't nearly as important to the series as the plot description makes him sound. The promos almost completely focus on Kobeni, her big sister Benio, and Mashiro doing wacky hijinks, while I guess Hakuya is the quiet guy with an emo haircut.
*shrug*
PVs streaming here and here.
Crunchyroll will stream it at 6:45 am PST in the US and Canada.
13 year-old Tomoya has a 17 year-old stepsister named Ichika. Ichika becomes obsessed with him, deciding she's in love.
Yup, pass.
PV here.
Crunchyroll will stream this show at 12:00 pm PST worldwide outside Japan. Of course this piece of shit gets worldwide streaming.
The anime portion of a just-launched multimedia franchise, in which a boy named Keita receives a mysterious watch that allows him to see youkai.
Going by the trailer, this show seems like it might be fun for its age demographic. Doesn't seem like many adults would enjoy it also, though.
PV streaming here.
01/09
The second season follow up to last summer's adaptation of Arakawa Hiromu, the creator of Fullmetal Alchemist's, ongoing Weekly Shounen Sunday series. Silver Spoon is about a city boy named Hachiken who moves to the country to attend an agricultural boarding school. He isn't particularly interested in agriculture, he just wants to get as far away from his less-than-ideal home life in Tokyo as possible. He makes friends and starts coming out of his shell.
I watched the first six episodes of this. I wanted to like it because I really enjoyed Fullmetal Alchemist, but I just didn't get into it. It's a decent show and I liked the life in Hokkaido aspect of it and I sympathized with Hachiken, but… yeah, it didn't grab me enough. I also didn't care for the caricaturishness of Tamako's character design. Genshiken Nidaime (which I also tried and dropped last summer) did a better job of having an overweight female character whose character design doesn't feel like we're supposed to be amused by it.
PV streaming here.
Crunchyroll streamed season 1, so I assume they'll license season 2 also. They haven't announced it yet, though.
UPDATE: Crunchyroll will stream it at 9:50 am PST in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Ireland, South Africa, Central and South America, Spain, Portugal, and Turkey.
A slice-of-life based on the Project 575 game, which lets players create songs using the 5-7-5 meter used in haiku.
Mm, pass also.
PV here.
An adaptation of a manga that ran in Kodansha's offbeat seinen Morning magazine, about Houzuki, the aide of Hell's Great King Yama. Houzuki has to solve the problems of running hell, but also likes spending time on his hobbies, like fawning over cute animals and raising "Goldfish Flowers."
I will definitely try this. This series looks it it could be a good, different dark comedy, and I like the art style.
PVs streaming here.
Crunchyroll will stream it at 11:00 am PST in the US, Canada, Mexico, the UK,Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, and Turkey.
Takeshi is a high school boy with a troubled past who "formed a 'fake' couple" with his childhood friend Kurumi. One day he finds a girl wearing a uniform he is unfamiliar with collapsed on his school's campus. The girl, Mui, tells Takeshi that she is a magician and she turned him into one too. Now Takeshi will become acquainted with the world of magic-users.
Looks as trite as it sounds.
PV streaming here.
Crunchyroll will stream it in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.
A spin-off of the Rascal the Racoon children's series adapted from Sterling North's Rascal, A Memoir of a Better Era. Rascal the Racoon is about a boy living in Wisconsin in 1918, who raises an orphaned baby raccoon he names Rascal. Rascal the Racoon portrays Rascal as a detective who solves mysteries.
Not of interest to me.
A horror series about a boy, Utsutsu, who has always been protective of his younger sister Yume because they have an abusive father. To make matters worse, his sister contracts a virus that starts turning her into a flesh-eating monster. Utsutsu tries to find Maria, a researcher who might be able to reverse the effects of the virus. In the meantime, he allows his sister to eat his flesh to keep her from harming other people. There is an incestuous element to Utsutsu and Yume's relationship, also.
Each episode will be 5 minutes long. From what I know of this series, it is a definite pass.
PVs here and here.
Crunchyroll will start streaming Pupa at 12:30 pm PST in the US, Canada, and Latin America.
An adaptation of a 4-koma about two best friends who become girlfriends, Takayama Haruka and Sonoda Yuu. After entering high school, they are seated on opposite sides of their classroom and worry that they'll drift apart. They decide to share a kiss to have something only between them, but they like it so much that they realize they like each romantically and start dating. Making this series more lesbian still, two of their female friends are a couple.
The manga is cute, so I expect to like the anime, assuming it's a competent adaptation. Going by the promos, the anime is a little more servicey than the manga (which is mostly low on the service, aside from the pool scene), but hopefully it will be kept low. I'm still crossing my fingers that this will help pave the way for more shows with a yuri focus being green-lit.
PVs streaming here and here.
UPDATE: Crunchyroll will premiere Sakura Trick on January 10 at 9:00 am PST in the US and Canada.
Kou searches for his lost older brother Takumi, who has gone missing after leaving home for the city. It turns out that Takumi has become the head of the Mikuni Detective Agency. Since he can't bring his brother home, Kou decides to join the Mikuni Detective Agency. Each episode will be 5 minutes long.
Doesn't look very good.
PV streaming here.
Crunchyroll will premiere it at 9:30 am PST worldwide except Japan.
Z/X Ignition:
In the not so distant future, five "Black Points" appear around the world, and super-powered beings start emerging from them. They come from five alternate timelines for the same world and do battle to ensure that their own timeline will survive.
This might be a better story is it weren't a franchise extender for a card game. As it is, it pretty much looks like what you would expect from a franchise extender for a card game.
PV found here.
UPDATE: Crunchyroll will stream it at 10:50 am PST in the US, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Central America, South America, French-speaking Europe, the United Kingdom, Ireland, German-speaking Europe, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark.
01/10
Kosaku is devastated when his favorite idol, Yuka, leaves the entertainment industry- but then she transfers into his class under a different name.
Eh, pass.
PVs streaming here.
A tiny production company in Sendai is on the verge of going out of business because their last client quit, so they start an idol group.
So, umm, I dunno, it's an idol show. If you're a fan of idol shows, you'll probably try this, but I'm not seeing anything in its previews that makes it stand out.
PVs found here.
UPDATE: Crunchyroll will start streaming the Wake Up, Girls! movie being released that day also at 9:00 am PST and the Wake Up, Girls! TV show at 10:30 pm PST. Both will be available in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden.
01/11
SHAFT's offering this season, a romantic comedy. Raku is the son of a yakuza boss, but is otherwise a normal high schooler. When he was a child, he professed love to the daughter of another yakuza family, Chitoge. Now that they're in high school, their families want them together. Chitoge destroys Raku's sepia-toned memories of her by accidentally kneeing him in the face. Another, quieter girl seems to be interested in Raku also.
Doesn't interest me.
PVs here.
UPDATE: Crunchyroll will stream it at 9:00 am PST in North America, South America, and South Africa.
This series is a comedy about Zvezda, a secret society that plans on conquering the world, led by a little girl whose signature outfit is a creepy bdsm-ish thing, ick.
The second season of a slice-of-life series about some high school students and their extracurricular activities. Like the first season, this one will use MikuMikuDance software to animate its characters.
01/12
Wizard Barristers: Benmashi Cecil:
Wizard Barristers is set in 2018, when wizards live openly with humans in Tokyo. Wizards have their own courts to deal with violations of magical laws. 17 year-old Cecil, the youngest Wizard Barrister ever, begins working at the Butterfly Law Offices. She doesn't know it yet, but she has a lot of magical potential.
This series is getting some attention because it's by Umetsu Yasuomi, the director of the Kite OVA, which I admittedly haven't seen. Word from other people is that he's good at directing short action stories and not so much longer TV-length stories. I haven't seen enough by him to give a good first-hand opinion, though. (Just Robot Carnival, which he directed a short in. Yes, I haven't seen Galilei Donna. Apparently I'm not missing much, though.) This series is by ARMS, a studio known for its service. It's definitely there, but not as bad as, say, the Ikki Tousen and Queen's Blade franchises by the same studio. This series looks well-animated with some slick fight scenes, but not like it's likely to be good.
PVs streaming here, here, here, and here.
UPDATE: Crunchyroll will stream it at 10:00 am PST in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, South Africa, Australia New Zealand, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Turkey, Latin America, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and the Middle East.
01/15
Fushimi Inari, a middle schooler, has her heart broken when she sees her crush Kouji give a confession letter to her classmate Akemi. She cries it out at a shrine, where a goddess named Uka-no-Mitama-no-Kami lives. In pity for Inari and as thanks for Inari saving a fox pup, Uka-no-Mitama-no-Kami gives Inari the ability to shape-shift.
Going by the PVs, this could actually be a sweet series, so I'll give it a shot.
PVs streaming here.
The second season of a series about a high school boy who attends a school where students fight with super-powers. There, he meets a childhood friend who claims to be his fiancee. Heaving bosoms and jiggle shots abound.
PVs streaming here.
Funimation will stream this series, but they haven't said when yet.
02/02
The newest Precure season, with a dance theme this time.
The Phantom Empire, led by Queen Mirage, has been trying to invade Earth with monsters called Saiarks, but Precure around the world have been fighting them. (I like the idea of this show having magical girls around the world instead of just its leads.) Shirayuki Hime, the blue magical girl you see above, is the princess of the Blue Sky Kingdom that opposes the Phantom Empire. She is forced to flee to Earth to escape from the Saiarks. On her way there, a mysterious being called "Blue" gives her the ability to transform into a Pretty Cure. Hime is afraid of Blue's request for her to become a Pretty Cure, though, and rejects it. Blue still gives her a power called "the crystallization of love" so she can find other Pretty Cure. Thus, after arriving in Japan, Hime meets a girl named Aino Megumi (the pink magical girl above) and they team up. You can see the other two magical girls who join them and their familiar on this show's website here.
I'm more excited about this than I usually am for new Precure seasons. Again, the idea of magical girls explicitly confirmed as fighting around the world is neat (it's a world-building detail I liked in Madoka Magica also) and the plot sounds more Sailor Moon-ish than usual- but like if Princess Serenity traveled straight to Earth instead of being reincarnated as an Earth girl and fought as a magical girl without being the lead, who I assume will be the more every girl-ish (and pink) Megumi. (I would like to see a post-Futari wa Precure season in which the lead isn't necessarily the pink one.) I like the character designs, also.
Anyway, fingers crossed for this season.
UPDATE: PV streaming here.
Undetermined date
The long-awaited Sailor Moon reboot:
????????UPDATE: lol New premiere date in July.
UPDATE 2: According to the Sailor Moon reboot's producer, this reboot "is not remaking the previous anime, but adapting [Naoko Takeuchi's] original manga and starting from scratch again. It is quite a project. The entire staff has been working hard to show everyone an entirely new Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon, so please look forward to it." More info on the reboot's staff can be found here.
And, that's it!
