Mawaru Penguindrum -- Ikuhara's new anime project

[Mr. Tines]

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/20 ... me-in-2011

[Xard]

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/20 ... ct-new-tv- anime-in-2011

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

FINALLY

FINALLY

2011 CONFIRMED FOR BEST YEAR IN ANIME IN A DECADE

[DevRei17]

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/20 ... me-in-2011

How fitting.
I'm sure Zac from ANN had a fangasm when he found out.

[symbv]

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/20 ... me-in-2011

Let me add a few things that are not in the Anime News Network article:

- Kera is a fashion magazine for teenagers. In general it takes photos of passers-by in Harajuku. The target audience is for girls who are into those"visual-kei" bands but it also features punk fashion and loli fashion.

- Kunihiko Ikuhara wrote the novel of "Nokemono to Hanayome" and called it "Part 1" of his project. It lasted from 2006 Feb issue until 2007 Sep issue.

- He started "Part 2" which is the manga version of the novel immediately afterwards. One volume of tankohon is released but the manga has stopped since 2010 Sep. It will now restart from next issue of Kera.

- The illustrator for the novel is Asumiko Nakamura, who also drew the manga with Ikuhara providing the story and name. She announced indefinite suspension of professional work since 2010 July because of personal health reason. I am not sure if the relaunch of the manga will be drawn by her.

- The story is about Hitsuji Sera, an underage teenager with bobtail hairstyle, and Itaru Hagumazuka, who wears a bear inugurumi. They eloped together and were pursued by a mysterious organisation named "Flaming Giraffe" (Moeru Kirin) which has the purpose to fight for "children seeking revenge against adults". The two went to a church to get married. The priest is a lolicon and tried to kidnap Hitsuji. Two girls Marunie and Miyutan were also present in the church doing confessions. Just when the priest tried to make off with Hitsuji, two men from "Flaming Giraffe" named Eiji Inumori and Shougo Sera (Hitsuji's father, scientist, an adult but somehow worked for Flaming Giraffe) arrived and took Hitsuji away. Itaru was wounded by Eiji. At that time the church was assaulted by the police. Itaru was helped by the two girls and safely escaped from the church. However, Hitsuji lost her memory and forgot about Itaru. Itaru worked with the two girls and tried to rescue Hitsuji. Meanwhile, one senior leader of Flaming Giraffe, named Gin Togawa, who wear rabbit inugurumi and ride a wheelchair, tried to take over the organisation and use a virus resident in Hitsuji to try to kill all adults.

- The story is a dark tale with themes like trauma, incest, abuse and violence.

[Xard]

- The story is a dark tale with themes like trauma, incest, abuse and violence.

Welcome back, Ikuhara! :)

If it is indeed anime version of this manga I can't wait for it. Might be best series of year

[Mr. Tines]

"Flaming Giraffe" (Moeru Kirin)

A reference to this, perhaps (rather than an allusion to the mythical creature that might be better, if less literally, rendered as "unicorn").

[InstrumentalityOne]

Hehe, looks awesome.

[Azathoth]

the "masculine cosmic apocalyptic monster"

god dammit Ikuhara

[Xard]

Now all we need to know if this has lesbians in it or not.


I haven't been this hyped for series in like, forever

Combine this together with news about Hiroyuki Okiura's second film and OH HELL YES

best day for anime news in forever

[Merridian]

This is fantastic news, I thought Ikuhara had given up!

Combine this together with news about Hiroyuki Okiura's second film

Whoa what now? I haven't heard anything about that...

though 2011 is looking mighty fine, given that the first Berserk film is supposed to come out sometime this year, not to mention MF's second film airs... next week, actually. Damn.

[Xard]

This is fantastic news, I thought Ikuhara had given up!

Whoa what now? I haven't heard anything about that...

A Letter to Momo

The credits list alone is making me drool uncontrollably. All they needed was "script: Mamoru Oshii" to make it the perfect Production IG film! :P

2011 will probably best year in anime since 2008, perhaps since 2006. With this strong Winter season, epicness that is the upcoming Spring Season, final Macross Frontier film, NEW IKUHARA ANIME IN OVER TEN FUCKING YEARS etc. etc. etc.

MY BODY CAN'T TAKE THIS ALL

[symbv]

Combine this together with news about Hiroyuki Okiura's second film and OH HELL YES

I believe you are talking about "Momo he no Tegami" ももへの手紙 (Letter to Momo) ? This will not be released in 2011 though, but only in 2012. Hiroyuki Okiura 沖浦啓之 is going to be responsible for directing, screenplay and storyboards so it will be very much his own child. It is said that it took 7 years for Okiura to bring this project from its inception to the current stage.



It will be different from Jin-Roh -- instead of a sci-fic piece it is a heart-warming human story with fantasy elements: The location will be country side near Setonaikai (the inland sea between Hiroshima and Shikoku). Momo, the protagonist, came to this village with her mother after her father died. The village is surrounded by natural exuberance and one day Momo found a really old looking book under the roof of her house and interesting things start to happen...

The anime studio will be Production I.G. and the production staff is strong:
Toshiyuki Inoue 井上俊之 -- Original Drawing of AKIRA, Director and Char Design of MEMORIES
Ei Inoue 井上鋭 -- Animation Director of Neko no On-Kaeshi (The Cat Returns)
Takeshi Honda 本田雄 -- one of the Animation Directors of Evangelion:2.0 You Can(not) Advance
Tetsuya Nishio 西尾鉄也 -- one of the Animation Directors of Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
Hiroyuki Aoyama 青山浩行 -- Animation Director of SUMMER WAR



Omake -- How come the suitability test I did got me this instead of Ranka???　Let me give my answers a little twist and try again -- here we go, now THAT'S BETTER

[Xard]

Omake -- How come the suitability test I did got me this instead of Ranka???　Let me give my answers a little twist and try again -- here we go, now THAT'S BETTER

not that I want to dwell on OT material any longer but...



what is this in the first place?

[symbv]

not that I want to dwell on OT material any longer but...

what is this in the first place?

OK, in the Macross Frontier sponsored link in the portal site goo.ne.jp you can enter into a "suitability quiz" and find out who in Macross F is most suited to "have a kiss with you", and after finishing the quiz you can enter your details to participate in a sweepstake and may win some prize. The deadline is until Feb 28. I got the first result in the quiz but got the second one after I changed the answer of some questions

To join the quiz or to find out what prize there is, check this

[Xard]

MORE INFO IS OUT - IKUHARA'S NEW SERIES IS NAMED MAWARU PENGUINDRUM



Kunihiko Ikuhara, the director of Revolutionary Girl Utena and a number of Sailor Moon television series, announced with a teaser website on Tuesday that the title of his new work this year is Mawaru PenguinDrum. King Record's Starchild label also revealed that Mawaru PenguinDrum is one of its projects.

The April issue of Index Communications' Kera magazine reported in February that Ikuhara is directing a new television anime series which is slated to air this year. In a profile attached to an interview of Ikuhara in the magazine, the director said that the project was not yet ready to be announced, but it will have a teenager as the protagonist. Ikuhara has been discussing a new project on his blog, and he revealed last May that he is supervising and writing the scripts with a female writer he nicknamed "I-san."

Since Ikuhara directed Revolutionary Girl Utena: The Movie in 1999, he has worked on only a few anime projects in the last decade. Notably, he storyboarded episode 2 of Gunbuster 2, storyboarded and directed the opening sequence for Nodame Cantabile, storyboarded the 29th episode of Soul Eater, and storyboarded the opening sequence for Sweet Blue Flowers (Aoi Hana). Ikuhara serialized a "Lolita hardboiled" novel called Nokemono to Hanayome in Kera from 2006 and 2007, and he has been collaborating with artist Asumiko Nakamura on a manga continuation in the same magazine since 2007.



And leave it to Ikuhara to start the trolling immeaditly!!


Update: The website has two messages — one in white:

We share all my love and all your sin.

When the website is reloaded, the other message appears in black:

I will inform those of you who won't amount to anything.

******


Anyway HOLY SHIT EVEN IF IT ISN'T ANIME ADAPTATION OF THAT MANGA I CAN'T WAIT FFFFFFFFFF-


unless something completely unforeseeable happens the best anime of 2011 will end up as a brutal deathmatch between Sayonara no Tsubasa and this (perhaps I should just make film and series categories lol). HELL YEAH

Some folks on /a/ seem to have impression it starts to air this summer already but I don't know where they got this


Gotta love pixiv, not even character designs are out yet and... lo and behold!




Start the hype machine boys! It's time for the meanest penguins on the block since Pen^2 to to storm over the anime world!

[Merridian]

I'm bracing myself for penguins and testosterone monsters and some kind of fantastical dark energy fueled aerial pubescent estrogen apocalpyse

[Obstermaxmaster]

Cool. I'm excited to see how this turns out.

[BrikHaus]

lolwut

[Noriko is my wife]

Drawing by Lily Hoshino

Some info pasted from http://green-oval.net/cgi-board.pl/a/thread/50192328
The supposed staff list in the OP is very interesting but should probably be ignored for now.

Confirmed people:

- Ikuhara
- Hoshino Lily
- Brain's Base

- Koizumi Yutaka
- Arakawa Miho
- Iwasaki Ai

Plot :
- There are penguins controlled by human beings
- There are several other races too
- Penguin 0 is killed, the main characters control Penguin 1, 2, and 3
- Atmosphere is not really bright
- There will be differences with the novel version
- Anime will be hard to follow

And a longer version. It's a summary of a livestream.

SPOILER: Show

It`s hosted by seiyuu Koizumi Yutaka (on the far right). He`s almost always co-hosted by a so called assistant ( actually a seiyuu called Iwasaki Ai), who is always wearing a mask, for no reason since they called her by her name and she confirmed it on her blog (on the far left with only her legs showing normally they call her 足スタント, get it?). Besides them, Himari`s seiyuu Arakawa Miho, the co-author of the MPD novel Takahashi Kei (second from the right) and Ikuhara himself made appearances.
Ninety percent of the time they just talk about Yutaka`s life, some natou snacks, the cities they were born and other stuff nobody cares about, but occasionally information on the show was revealed. Bear in mind that these are only random tidbits and don`t actually reveal anything concrete about the plot.
Characters:
Plush toys of the three main penguins were showed. I didn’t get screen caps from them, unfortunately.They are very similar, in general, the only difference is that Himari has a bow on her head and her eyelashes ( just small ticks on top of her eyes), while Shouma has a band-aid on the right side of his face under the beak and typical “angry” eyebrows.
The human character designs were just showed in a slide show from an I-pad 2 from pretty far away, so there’s not much to be said about it. Shouma’s hair is bluish, Kanba’s looks light brown. Himari seems to have a hime cut. There were several other characters as well but there’s no way of knowing who they are.
They also said there are other non-human characters.

Story/Setting
Ikuhara said the story begins with the murder of penguin number 0 (incidentally, Shouma, Kanba and Himari are respectively number 1,2 and 3)
The penguins are in some kind of association.
Yutaka’s character is completely different from Satou from Welcome to the NHK (one of his previous roles).
When asked about the genre of the anime, Ikuhara , after thinking about it, said “Mistery” and then completed “Penguin Mystery”.
The penguins in the series are about the same size as the plush toys.
Humans “pilot” those penguins. Some guy on 2ch stated Ikuhara said they pilot from inside the penguins somehow, I personally don’t remember him being that specific.
Many scenes take place in subway/trains . A red train is also mentioned to appear.
The penguins are often seen eating things that aren’t supposed to be eaten, for instance train passes.
There’s some sort of Queen Penguin on the station.
The symbols on the bottom of the official web site have some hidden meaning.
Speculation: One of the symbols on the bottom of the site says 95. The show mentions a red train, and one such train is associated with the Marunouchi station. Because of that, some speculate that the series might be related to or at least reference the sarin terrorist attacks that happened in the Marunouchi station in 1995.
One of the lines from one of the CM’s, “invisible existence” is strongly associated with Seito Sakakibara, who killed two children in 1997.

Voice actors:
Koizumi Yutaka and Arakawa Miho are confirmed to be major characters. Yutaka is probably not one of the 3 main ones though.
They also mentioned Iwasaki Ai will be the voice of several non human characters.
Kanba’s VA is someone REALLY famous.
This is mostly speculation, but during the stream they said that you might find out who it is if you looked at the history of Takahashi’s blog. In one post, she said “I just shook hands with Gian!” From there it’s being speculated that the voice actor is Kimura Subaru (Gian’s voice actor in Doraemon).
Even more farfetched: Kimura made a twitter post saying “The macaron Noto gave me was delicious.” And then less than two hours later, he made another post saying he had just finished an after recording. So IF he really is in this show, and he was with Mamiko Noto during an after recording, that could mean that she’s also involved.
Some people have stated that the voice in the male voice in the 2nd CM belongs to Kimura Youhei.
The cast will be announced next week in a magazine (most likely comes out Friday).

Book:
The first of the three books comes out on the 4th of July.
The first part covers all the episodes completed until now (probably 8 or 9 eps).
The anime supposedly isn’t easy to follow.
The book will be hard cover with no insert images. The cover illustration is by Hoshino Lilly.
Some lines are said by different characters in the novel and the anime.
Yutaka’s character’s hair color may be different from the anime.
Takahashi is currently writing the beginning of the second novel.
The last book will have lots of differences from the anime.
It’s not a very cheerful book (might apply to the anime as well).
There are dancing and singing scenes in the first half of the anime, but in the book these scenes will be replaced with different scenes that would be happening simultaneously .

[Xard]

- Anime will be hard to follow

o gee how surprising

Might as well post teaser trailers here too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYWTSH_r ... ture=share

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HkJkUru ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv1K8RKt ... re=related