Somemost fans prefer to look to the past and reflect on how anime was far better back in the day. You know, when everything was original and panning shots were used like they were going out of fashion. When these people see a season preview they say ‘yawn, looks crap, I want more of what we got in the 80’s’. But not me! I thoroughly enjoy scanning sites to find what the next big thing in the world of anime is going to be. I created this page so I could have somewhere where I could inform all you anime fans out there what I think will be the next big thing. This is NOT a season preview. You can read the Autumn/Fall 09 preview here.

No particular reason why I picked this picture, bar the fact it's fucking awesome and I would watch any anime that had Guu and Freddy as the main characters

The info on these have been taken from a variety of places. Anime News Network (obviously), MyAnimeList (unreliable to be honest), Moetron (always the quickest to hear about any sequel),and the Animesuki forums (who have a tendency to list shows that will never air).

 

New Anime 

 

Most of the links go to the anime’s homepage although a few go to random announcement pages that include nice pictures of the anime in question. I also kept each preview short enough because I’ll write up a longer preview when I do the relevant season preview. The letter at the end of each preview corresponds to how much I’m looking forward to each anime.

Omamori Himari: Based off some manga where an ordinary guy has a girl he has to protect, or protects him or something similar. She even has cat-ears! Goddam you Spice and Wolf for making cat-ears fashionable again. ZEXCES are animating this and I’ve yet to enjoy any of their work. Airing this winter. D-

Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu‎: Not quite sure what to make of this. It’s about some magical school in which idiots get crappy straw mats and geniuses get reclining chairs and the school gets involved in all out war, except this seems more Seto no Hayanome style. Being animated by Silver Link (I haven’t heard of them either) and the homepage has loads of chibi’s, which generally means crap but the director has worked on some pretty good stuff. Basically, I haven’t a clue. Airing this winter. C-

Black Rock Shooter: It’s an anime based off a really bad Hatsune Miku song. Yeah I know that sounds like some stupid otaku pandering nonsense, which was why I was an eensy bit confused when they shipped out the money to get the director of Haruhi and Kannagi behind it. All I can say is ‘just look at the homepage’. Fuck does it look brilliant! Huge financial backing, amazing animation (the animation company is called Ordet, made by a bunch who worked for Kyo Ani and A-1). It could still be some otaku rubbish but it’s kinda hard to tell. Worth keeping an eye on anyway. Airing Spring 2010-

Dhurarara!!:The next best thing to a Baccano sequel. Same author, same director, same studio (Brains Base). In fact it basically has the exact same people behind it. Out of all the anime I’ve listed here, this is the one I’m looking forward to most. Airing Winter 2010. A+

Dance in the Vampire Bund: SHAFT and Shinbo’slatest work. It’s based off a dark ecchi manga with cute loli’s being vampires and going around totally naked and also going gradually insane. So basically it had SHAFT written all over it from the start. But hey, I’m liking SHAFT more with every anime they make so I’m looking forward to this. Airing Winter 2010.  B

Seikon no Qwaser: It’s a bit like Soul Eater except there’s an important difference. Soul Eater had a little bit of ecchi. This has loads. And quite scary ecchi too, the characters get their powers through breast milk. I’m actually a bit afraid of this series. E+

Angel Beats!: Ah yes I remember reading about this one. The Key game production that’s not being done by Kyo Ani. It’s being done by HAL, who did shit like Aria and so on. either way, it will undoubtedly be the exact same as all Key’s other work so you know what to expect. What I do know for certain is it’s going to be 13 episodes long, Airing Spring 2010 and has a Haruhi look-a-like. C+

Hanamaru Kindergarden: Remember folks, it takes over 5 years for Gainax to produce their next big hit and they seem to know this themselves. So they aren’t going to try make the next Gurren Lagann with this and instead make an anime about 3 year olds. Of course this could be an critical social commentary about the trials of growing up (it does have the director of Gundam 00 and FMA) but I’d say it’s just some cute show. Airing Winter 2010. B-

Despera: Elitists rejoice for the next anime by ABe (Haibane Remnei and Lain) is on it’s way. Unfortunately this looks more like Lain than Haibane, it even has the Lain director on board. That said, this guy has one of the most warped imaginations in anime so they are always worth checking out, although maybe not for the more casual fan. B

CHU-BRA!!: It’s about a girl who likes underwear so much she starts a school club to appreciate it. If you can’t guess what this anime is about from that then you need to visit the homepage. If you’re still not sure what the point of this anime is then you are an idiot. Airing Winter 2010. F

Break Blade: I see giant robots on the horizon!!! This actually looks really cool, it’s a joint production by Production IG and Xebec and is being done as 6 films starting in 2010 (same format as the Kara no Kyokai movies I assume). That means plenty of money for fantastic animation and it also means the producers have a lot of faith in this project. Definately one to watch out for. A

Zaidanhoujin Occult Designer Gakuin: Right, Aniplex and TV Tokyo have joined together to create a new timeslot called ‘Anime no Chikara’ which focus on creating original anime material, not based from manga, games etc. Which sounds bloody fantastic if I may say so myself. I think they’re all being animated by A-1 Pictures. This one is some dark high-school comedy with the director of Blood behind it. B

Senkou no Night Raid: The second anime in this Anime no Chikara project. This one is an spy-action anime set in 1931 Shanghai. Bit of a nothing crew behind it though B-

So-Ra-No-Wo-To: The third of the Anime no Chikara anime. Actually this one will be the first one to air, this Jan 2010, and the only one with it’s homepage up as of now. In English this is called Sound of the Summer Skies which is far easier to remember for us English speakers. This one should tell us what the quality of the other two will be so I’m really hoping for something worthwhile, although the promo looks worryingly like ‘K-ON joins the army’. Airing Winter 2010. B+

RAINBOW Nisha Rokubou no Shichinin: Name look familiar? This was because it was meant to air Spring 09 but never showed up so we might never see it. It had lots of child slavery, starvation and murdering of kittens so obviously it will be a critically acclaimed masterpiece that common folk will not appreciate (aka: it will be dull and depressing). Actually the manga has won awards and sold over 30 million copies so it will probably be good, but depressing never-the-less. Airing Spring (maybe) 2010. B-

COBRA THE ANIMATION: Madhouses animation of the old ‘classic’ was meant to air in Summer 09, classic now apparently meaning a badly animated show where women wear only thongs. Was put on hold until Winter ‘10 because it’s hard to make an anime with a budget of 2000 yen and half a packet of milk-chocolate hobnobs. D-

Katanagatari: From Nision, the guy who wrote Bakemonogatari (damn him and his big wurds) comes his latest piece of brilliantly written madness. However any bit of joy you might have had that this isn’t being done by SHAFT disappears when you realise it’s been done by White Fox, an absolutely nothing studio. It’s an OVA with one episode coming out each month of 2010 and I hope it’s fansubbed because it looks pretty interesting. B-

Asobi ni Ikuyo!: It’s about an alien girl needing protection from a normal high-school boy. She even has cat ears! Can’t you just smell the dvd sales. E

Mini-Skirt Space Pirates: Set to air in Spring 2010. Asides from that, every other bit of info can be got by simply reading the title…actually I have no idea what to rate this as I only saw it on ANN.

Valkyrie Complex: An anime based off an eroge is usually quite bad but sometimes they can be OK if the original game focused on having a story. This is not the case with Valkyrie Complex. It’s based off an RPG adult game. So not even any plot. E-

Wolverine and Ironman Anime:The two links lead to their respective trailers. Both are being made by Madhouse and you know how experimental they can be. It seems to have worked in Ironman but the Wolverine trailer looks absolutely awful. E- and B-

Harry Potter Anime: This is still in the very early stages on production but they have a website up and everything so this looks like it might actually be for real! A combination of Bones and SHAFT although I find that hard to believe. Since when have Bones and SHAFT worked on anything together. Still, this is HP, anything can happen. A

Halo Legends: An Anime based off the Halo games. I must say the more I watch the trailer the more I like the look of this. Being made by 5 different studios, all of them pretty big studios although Toei’s version looks like a bit of a joke. Should be worth checking out for the pretty animation even if the story is a disaster. B

Uragiri wa Boku no Namae o Shitteiru: Some generic crappy BL bishie angsty rubbish. No interest whatsoever. F-

Deadman Wonderland: God this looks bizarre. Some guy gets sent to prison where they hold some futuristic Gladiator. There’s violence in this manga to match the likes of Gantz, which is really saying something. However there’s no other info on the anime for now.

The Legend of Koizumi: A mahjong anime in which the Pope plays against George Bush. There’s not much point in looking forward to this because some angry Koreans will get it banned anyway

WORKING!!: Yes the title is entirely in capital letters with two fecking exclamation marks. Based off a 4-koma and animated by A-1 Pictures, it all looks too cutesy for my liking. Still, they’ve proven me wrong before with Kannagi. D+

Arakawa under the Bridge: When searching for info on this I ended up reading the first chapter and I love it already. It’s a gag manga about some guy who’s life gets saved by a girl living (you guessed it) under a bridge. Even better, it’s being made by Shaft! Does Shinbo ever get tired? I’m really looking forward to this now. A

King of Thorn: A movie based off the manga of the same name. It kinda reminded me of Half-Life to be honest. Looks cheesy yet awesome, typical Sunrise material. Airing sometime 2010. B-

Kaichou wa Maid-sama: Some shojo manga about a girl in a maid cafe and some hot guy finds out. He will almost certainly be a dickhead who the girl seems to like anyway. No other info for now but I’ve never really liked shojo so I’m not getting my hopes up, although it is pretty highly rated on MAL. C

Okamikakushi: Based off a PS3 game by the same guy who made Higurashi and Umineko. However instead of Deen working on it, we have AIC. No I’m not the biggest fan of Deen by any stretch but they are far better than bloody AIC. Plus the director’s craptastic. Get ready for mountains of people complaining that the VN is better. C

Sengoku Gyoujin Dullahan: Japanese history re-written with giant robots doing samurai fighting. Sounds a bit like Sengoku Basara (very meh anime that one) but what I like about this is because it won an animation contest which allowed it to be made, a bit like Cencoroll. Not quite as excited about this as I was for Cencoroll though. B-

Shukufuku no Campanella: Some bishojo ero game. Sounds unbelievably stupid from the plot description and the promo pic looks unbelievably generic. E-

Ichiban Ushiro no Daimao: A light novel turned manga turned anime. It’s a fantasy school based setting as far as I can tell from the synopsis. Problem is, the manga is listed as having ecchi as one of it’s genres. Never a good sign. C-

Ladies vs Butlers: Based off a light novel series, it’s about some guy enrolling in a posh school except he looks like a badass. I’m pretty sure this has been done 53872029 times before but maybe that’s just me. Being animated by Xebec. Airing 5th January 2010.  D-

Loups-Garous: A movie by Production IG based of a novel by the guy who wrote Phantom and it’s about werewolfs. Despite all that sounding pretty cool, for some reason I just can’t summon any enthusiasm for it at the moment. Maybe if a promo vid comes out I’ll be more excited. C+

Heroman: I honestly thought this was a joke but apparantly Heroman, an anime about a guy called Joey who pilots a ginat robot in the colours of the American flag, is actually going to be produced. Stan Lee, the guy behind Spiderman and X-Men, is somehow involved. As are Bones. Why? Make a proper anime Bones. D

 

Sequels

 

Sequels don’t really count in ’searching for the next big thing’ because…well, we already know how good the series is so I won’t bother giving them a rating or linking to a homepage. But either way, here’s the list of sequels that have been green-lit. Note that I’m not including OVA’s otherwise I’d be here all day.

Nodame Cantabile Season 3:This will be the last Nodame. Ever. So savour it while you can. Airing Jan 2010

Eden of the East Movies: King of Eden will air 28 November 2009 and Paradise Lost will air January 2010. But they’re movies so god only knows how long we’ll have to wait for the DVD release for them to be fansubbed.

Macross Frontier Movie: Airing 21 November but ditto as to it’s movie release.

Gundam 00 movie: Airing sometime 2010. Seems to be the new thing to do. Remember the Gurren Lagann Movies and the Eureka Seven ones already ran.

Sengoku Basara Season 2: Sometime 2010

Shakugan no Shana 3: Well, first of all there will be an OVA called Shakugan no Shana S, then the third series will air.

Black Lagoon Season 3: After all that wait and all they announced was it’s a bloody OVA. Still, I’m keeping it here in case they announce a series after the OVA, like Shakugan no Shana.

Kuroshitsuji 2: Anyone who’s seen the first season will know how little sense it makes to have a sequel. It could be a manga-follower, like the new FMA.

Gundam Unicorn: What a fabulous name for the new Gundam don’t you agree? It’s divided into 6 OVA’s at 50 minutes each. Airing Spring 2010 and I must say, I’m really looking forward to this.

Strike Witches Season 2: …I want a second season of Baccano…

Kanokon 2:This was the extreme ecchi one right?

Trigun Movie: I must have missed this when it was first announced. Airing sometime 2009

Fate Stay/Night Movie: Yup, Type Moon like to make movies

Sekirei Season 2:Why do all these crap anime get second seasons?

Hidamari Sketch x ☆☆☆:Is that pronounces ‘times star star star’ or would you pronounce it ’star 3′ like C.C?

Negima Movie: This was actually the second anime I ever watched. It was awful

Hetalia Axis Powers Movie: How the hell are they going to make this work?

Dissapearence of Haruhi Suzumiya Movie: It’s probably a troll…

Gintama Movie: More movies based off tv series. Meh, Gintama is awesome so I don’t mind

There’s also rumours of a Beserk sequel and a Full Metal Panic sequel. No actual concrete evidence to support either of these claims though so don’t get your hopes up.

If there is any anime you know is airing and I haven’t put in then by all means tell me. Plus, if you have any info on any of the series listed here that may point to a quality series then again, please do tell me. Although do keep it spoiler free please if it’s a manga, game or novel.

Since it’s apparently the moral thing to do, here’s the guy who made that totally awesome header image. According to some people you are human trash if you don’t credit artists so cheers fella. Go click on the link and make him feel loved and stuff.