Summer 2007 Anime

This sequel is a continuation of the previous season, not long after the war. Louise and Saito seemingly getting along now since she knows that he had given up his only chance to return to Tokyo for her. The story continues as Louise begins to use Void Magic from a mysterious secret book she had recieved from her majesty Henrietta, while a new villain has appeared in town causing trouble.

(Source: Anime News Network)

During the early 1930s in Chicago, the transcontinental train, Flying Pussyfoot, is starting its legendary journey that will leave a trail of blood all over the country. At the same time in New York, the ambitious scientist Szilard and his unwilling aide Ennis, are looking for missing bottles of the immortality elixir. In addition, a war between the mafia groups is getting worse. On board the Advena Avis, in 1711, alchemists are about to learn the price of immortality.

Based on the award winning light novels of the same name, this anime adaptation follows several events that initially seem unrelated, both in time and place, but are part of a much bigger story—one of alchemy, survival and immortality. Merging these events together are the kindhearted would-be thieves, Isaac and Miria, connecting various people, all of them with their own hidden ambitions and agendas, and creating lifelong bonds and consequences for everyone involved.

(Source: MAL Rewrite)

Makoto Ito is a young Japanese high school student beginning his second term at the fictional Sakakino Academy. During his daily train rides to and from school, he becomes infatuated with fellow student Kotonoha Katsura; a girl that also commutes. When a new classmate acquaintance of his, Sekai Saionji, discovers his secret crush on Kotonoha, she helps introduce both of them to each other and over time they grow closer and agree to date. However in spite of her proud and triumphant matchmaking efforts, Sekai inadvertently becomes jealous of the new couple, having also developed feelings toward Makoto.

The following afternoon on her way home at the nearby train station in front of the school, Sekai finds Makoto waiting for Kotonoha to rendezvous for a date. He sits with her and reiterates his appreciation for her help, and feeling heavily indebted, offers repayment anyway he can. Though she believes he is overreacting, Sekai decides to redeem her obligation by placing a kiss on his lips as her train pulls in; quickly rushing into an open passenger car and happily bidding a dumbstruck Makoto luck on his date.

(Source: Wikipedia)

In the small village of Hinamizawa, Rika Furude and her friends live together in relative harmony. Beneath this mask of peace, however, lies a hidden darkness, one that Rika understands all too well. In this eternal summer, she has been witness to unspeakable horrors. Every time the clock resets, Rika must try to find the villain behind these senseless deaths before tragedy strikes again. However, trying to decipher a mystery when only half the clues are present proves time and again to be disastrous, and each time she believes that things will change, she inevitably fails. As the annual festival approaches, Rika begins her descent from hope to despair in her struggle to break the chains of fate entangling them all.

(Source: MAL Rewrite)

Itoshiki Nozomu is always in despair! Even simple things like paying for the toll on the subway can send him to a despair so deep only attempted suicide is the answer. How Strange is it then, that he should be the teacher of a High School Class filled with students with even more emotional problems than his. This great Comedy will leave you in anything but 'Despair' as you meet each of his students and watch their wacky adventures.

Mononoke is a spin-off of the Bakeneko story arc of Ayakashi: Japanese Classic Horror. It follows the Medicine Seller as he deals with various spirits or "Mononoke" in feudal Japan. Just like in the Bakeneko story, he combats with a series of tools and his vast knowledge of the supernatural on his side, but can only slay the Mononoke when he uncovers its form (Katachi), the truth behind its appearance (Makoto) and the reason for its unusual behavior (Kotowari).

(Source: Wikipedia)

At the beginning of the Edo Era, when people enjoyed a time of peace, Lord Tokugawa Tadanaga holds a fighting tournament. In the past, matches were fought with wooden swords. This time, real swords will be used.

One-armed Fujiki Gennosuke and blind Irako Seigen will fight each other in this match. Both are disciples of Iwamoto Kogan, who is known as Japan's greatest swordsman. Each of them are determined to prove himself the successor of Iwamoto's school. However, there can only be one champion.

So begins a story of intertwining fates, conflict, and strange destinies.

(Source: Anime News Network)

Do you know when you are going to die? Michiru Kita does, as she has the ability to see the ring of death around people's necks. The darker the ring, the closer to death someone is. She notices that two boys in her class, Chika Akatsuki and Shito Tachibana, have completely black rings. Seeking to warn them of their impending demise, she stumbles onto their secret: they are already dead, but they are kept alive due to a contract with Zombie-Loan. Of course, nothing comes without a price. The boys must hunt down and destroy zombies; seeking to use Michiru's "Shinigami Eyes" to help them in their endeavor.

(Source: MAL Rewrite)

The battle against Tendou Kodzunu is over, and the Magami Five begin to look forward to their senior graduation, hopefully planning for their adult futures. However, life in Tokyo is not at peace...

The underground assassin group known as the Twelve Heavenly Generals of the Martial Fist begin to move against those protecting the city from demons. Normally rumored to kill criminals that the mundane law was unable to bring to justice, the Martial Fist now set their sights on Tatsuma Hiyuu, Kyouichi Houraiji, Aoi Misato, Komaki Sakurai, Yuuya Daigo, and Hisui Kisaragi.

What is the purpose of this cruel turn of events? And who ordered the hit? New threats emerge as others awakened to powers unleashed by the Ryumyaku seek out the Magami kids - and old friends now return as enemies.

Destinies will collide as the Stars of Fate begin to merge; Yin and Yang will meet. And soon the shadowy figure pulling the strings will reveal himself, in an effort to raze Tokyo to the ground and awaken the Vessel of the Golden Dragon.

(Source: MAL)

Based on a seinen manga by Kusunoki Michiharu serialised in Young Magazine.

The story gets its roots from the actual street racing that occurs on Tokyo's Shuto Expressway, one stretch of which is known as the "Wangan", literally meaning "bay side" (although it is generally used to refer to the freeway), the longest, straightest road in the entire country. Of course, there's also lots of traffic to contend with, including a fair number of heavy trucks. Because of this, the action is inherently hazardous, and wrecks are common. Blown engines are also a frequent hazard, especially with the extreme-high power engines.

One day, Akio Asakura, a third year high school student, is driving his Fairlady Z (Z31) and is challenged by Tatsuya Shima, a doctor, in his black Porsche 964 Turbo (nicknamed the "BlackBird"). With a friend in the passenger seat and two girls in the back, Akio pitifully tries to win, but is defeated. Determined to become faster, he goes to the junkyard to buy parts for his car, when he sees a pristine, unscratched midnight blue Fairlady Z (S30) in the junkyard. Intrigued as to why such a machine is about to be junked, he buys it. He soon finds that the car is unnaturally fast due to a tuned L28 engine, bored and stroked to 3.1 liters combined with twin turbos, which produces 620bhp. He also finds that all of the car's previous owners had unfortunate accidents in it, starting with the first owner's death. The manga follows Akio's various encounters, though the central plot revolves around his constant battle with the BlackBird for superiority.

(Source: AniDB)

Kaname Okiura, a student of Prefectoral Umineko Shougyou High ("Umishou" for short), joined the school's swimming club in order to learn how to swim, but the club is filled with weirdos, let alone who can teach him swimming. Then, a sunny, happy-go-lucky girl named Amuro Ninagawa who transferred from Okinawa joined the club. Her extraordinary underwater speed and unorthodox swimming style (plus her personal habit of nude swimming—a powerful magnet to teenage boys) surprised every club member, especially Okiura, because she reminds him of a mermaid-like creature he saw only once in his early childhood.

(Source: Anime News Network)

Ink Nijihara is a girl in high school. Unfortunately her crush Nao Tezuka barely recognizes her. To make matters worse, she is very short. Now Ink meets a duck and becomes a "mahou shoujo" and teaches Nao english in disguise.

(Source: Anime News Network)

Chinami Ebihara is girl with a strange ability to generate electromagnetic waves when her emotions run high. However, since this 'ability' affects anything electrical, it resulted in her having to transfer from school to school when she was younger. As Chinami, now 18 years of age, transfers to a new school, she once again affects the electronic devices in the school, but this time, when another student, Kotaro Kannagi, sees her do this, he becomes obsessed in studying her "TYPE-E" ability.

(Source: Anime News Network)

Sunao Moriyama finds a strange but cute creature that he names Potemayo. Potemayo starts following him everywhere, usually riding on top of his head. His discovery becomes the center of attention in his class at school. Soon after, a similar creature appears, and is named Guchuko by one of Sunao's classmates. However, Guchuko doesn't seem to be as good-natured as Potemayo.

(Source: Anime News Network)

In the near future, Earth is at war with aliens called Worms. The war leaves the population of Earth decimated, with young men the main casualties. The Worms were beaten back but their re-emergence heralds the creation of a mecha unit called the Sonic Divers, piloted by 3 young girls to counter this threat.

Mushi-uta's story takes place in the near future. Ten years before the story's opening, strange insect-like creatures known as "Mushi" began appearing. The Mushi are able to consume peoples' dreams and thoughts in return for supernatural powers. At the end of episode one, protagonist Daisuke "Kakkou" Kusuriya encounters a young girl named Shiika Anmoto. The two, in time, become quite close. However, unbeknownst to Kakkou, Shiika is an escapee from a secret prison known as GARDEN where those posessed by the Mushi, known as the Mushitsuki are held. GARDEN's military force, the Special Environmental Conservation Executive Office, dispatches its finest killer to track down Shiika. However, they are faced with resistance from the Mushibane resistance organisation, led by the secretive "Ladybird".

(Source: Anime News Network)

Tsuwabuki is a normal student, though not very social. One day he meets a new transfer student, named Sumomo Akihime, and another girl, both the only members of the gardening club. Tsuwabuki is forced by a teacher to join this club. But then he bumps into a strange guy with dog ears, switching his drink with they guy's by mistake. Drinking it, he is turned in a stuffed animal. The teacher tells him that the only way to turn back to normal is to find the chosen girl and let her catch the seven stardrops. This girl is Sumomo, that accepts to help him, though she's not allowed to know the animal's true identity.

(Source: Anime News Network)

After being drafted into the Earth Team - a basketball team comprised solely of humans - street-punk-turned-pro Hideyoshi couldn't be more cocky. The team is still up against the Gorons, a physically superior race of aliens who have dominated the game for some time. New challenges and problems stand in their way. Hideyoshi is unhappy with the team and the Gorons have new tricks up their sleeves.

(Source: Anime News Network)

The second season of Moonlight Mile.

Happy Happy Clover recounts the everyday life of a bunny named Chima and the other animals in the Crescent Moon Forest.

Based on a seinen manga by Kikuchi Naoe and Yokomi Hirohiko, serialised in IKKI.

The "story" is that a manga artist is asked by her boss to accompany him and a travel-writer on various train trips around Japan and draw a manga about it.

The kicker though, is that it's completely non-fiction —the creator really did go on all these trips, and the manga simply records what happened, with no embellishment. There's a little disclaimer at the front that says "This is non-fiction, so I apologize for the lack of drama," and indeed, it mostly is just about them riding trains from place to place, waiting on platforms, etc.

The "travel writer" turns out to be a super train-otaku who has vast knowledge of the train network, but also micro-manages all their trips, planning every detail down to the second. He cares mostly about following the schedule and successfully achieving his planned goals (e.g. visiting all stations on a line in a completely bizarre order to accomodate infrequent trains). The mangaka doesn't really care about trains; she's cynical, sarcastic, and rather lazy (she mainly just looks forward to the next eki-ben); he's completely gung-ho as long as he's following the schedule, and the inevitable conflicts are pretty entertaining.

Throughout, though, it feels real —if you've travelled by train in Japan it will all seem very familiar, not just the scenery, but also the atmosphere and feel— and the artist does a great job of pacing and applying little tweaks to keep it consistently entertaining. In an additional bit of recursiveness, some of the characters who show up in the manga (who of course are real people, who really did show up) do so because they (really) read previous episodes of the manga!

In addition of course, you can learn about various out of the way and interesting Japanese train lines and stations; some of them really do look cool. There's always this vague sense of surreality about it however, the trips are all planned by the train-guy (goal: visit all 9,843 stations in Japan) who seems to consider everything as part of a checklist rather than an experience to be enjoyed. You learn a bit about train-otaku culture too; there's really only the one guy in the story, but train-otaku culture is a sort of constant peripheral presence.

(Source: AniDB)

Doujin Work follows the life of a young girl named Najimi Osana and her exposure into the doujin world. She was first tempted into becoming a doujin artist after seeing how much one of her friends can make at a convention. Najimi loves to draw, though soon learns contrary to what she expected that this new world is anything but easy. As she attends more conventions and meets more people, Najimi eventually manages to find a group of very interesting friends. These friends already have some experience in the field and help her out along the way so that she can someday make a name for herself creating doujinshi.

(Source: Anime News Network)

The second season of the Dokan-kun franchise. It aired within the "Fight Tension☆School" variety program.

After the second impact, all that remains of Japan is Tokyo-3, a city that's being attacked by giant creatures that seek to eradicate the human kind, called Angels. After not seeing his father for more than eight years, Shinji Ikari receives a phone call in which he is told to urgently come to the NERV Headquarters, an organization that deals with the destruction of the Angels through the use of giant mechs called Evas. Shinji's objective is to pilot the Eva Unit 01 while teaming up with the Eva Unit 00 pilot, Ayanami Rei.

A group of ninja is planning to revive a powerful demon, and once its spirit is reunited with its body, the world will be destroyed. The only way to prevent this from happening is for Shion, a shrine maiden, to seal it away for good.

Naruto Uzumaki is tasked to guard her, but one thing stops Shion from accepting his help: she also has the ability to predict death—and she has foreseen his demise approaching soon. In order to escape his fate, Naruto must stay away from Shion; however, undeterred, he chooses to challenge the prophecy in order to protect Shion and the world.

(Source: MAL Rewrite)

While touring Alamos Town-home of the Space-Time Tower- with the beautiful Alice, Ash and his friends discover that the town's special garden has been decimated! Baron Alberto, a dashing but arrogant fellow, immediately blames the destruction on Darkrai.

As if it just overheard the accusation, Darkrai appears and confronts our heroes!

Who is Darkrai? Is is a fiend... or a friend in disguise? And as a battle between Legendary Pokemon Dialga and Palkia rages directly abouve Alamos Town-and threatens to tear a hole in the space-time continuum- will Ash and his friends survive this showdown and learn Darkrai's true nature?

(Source: DVD Cover [English Version])

An anthology of seven short animated films from Studio 4°C:

1.) Genius Party (directed by Atsuko Fukushima)

A bizarre bird-like creature runs through a barren desert and finds what seems to be a smiling egg lying on the ground.

2.) Shanghai Dragon (directed by Shouji Kawamori)

An imaginative Chinese boy finds a futuristic device that can make his own drawings come to life. After discovering the device, the town he lives in is about to be invaded by spaceships and machines of mass destruction that are all centuries ahead of Earth's time.

3.) Deathtic 4 (directed by Shinji Kimura)

A tale set in a world full of zombies, living their normal zombie lives. A living frog falls from the blackened sky of the zombie world, and a little zombie boy with his friends try to bring the living creature back to its own world.

4.) Doorbell (directed by Youji Fukuyama)

The main character is a ghost in his own world. He must outrun the other versions of himself, or they will take over his life.

5.) Limit Cycle (directed by Hideki Futamura)

An existential examination of the world as seen through the lens of a man seemingly trapped in an endless cycle of work.

6.) Happy Machine (directed by Masaaki Yuasa)

An infant who is happily secured in his own nursery suddenly discovers that everything about the nursery is fake. Soon the infant is forced out of the nursery into the world that exists outside, where adventure awaits, and there are many alien-like creatures to encounter.

7.) Baby Blue (directed by Shinichirou Watanabe)

A small adventure of two young students who decide to go anywhere they can for just one day, to enjoy that day without caring about the rest, and simply be together.

(Source: Anime News Network)

Kouichi Uehara is a fourth grade student living in the suburb of Tokyo. One day, he picks up a large stone which turns out to be a fossil of a baby "Kappa" sleeping underground for the past 300 years, and names it "Coo". Koichi and Coo become good friends and starts living with his family. However, Coo could not adjust to the life style in Tokyo and starts to miss his family. On a hot summer day, Koichi and Coo decide to go on an adventurous road trip to find his peers.

(Source: AniDB)

n an alternate 21st century, the robotics industry undergoes a period of rapid advancement worldwide. By the year 2050, Japan has firmly established itself as the leader in robotic technology and manufacture with Daiwa Heavy Industries. As the technology evolves to include robotic enhancements to the human body, the blurring of the line between man and machine triggers a sudden shift in world opinion. In response, the U.N. passes a unilateral ban of further research and development on robotics in 2067. Japan fiercely objects to this ban, but is unable to prevent its passage. In protest, Japan withdrew from international politics and chose to pursue a policy of high-tech national isolation. While only trade continues, Japan disappears from the world scene.

Ten years later, a series of bizarre incidents lead the American technology police agency SWORD to believe that Japan has concealed extensive development of banned technologies through the use of the RACE network. SWORD dispatches a unit of special agents to infiltrate Japan and gather intelligence on the country. Vexille, a veteran agent among the group, uncovers the horrifying truth behind the ten years of isolation.

(Source: MAL)

Recap of the original anime's second quarter.