Winter 2009/2010 Anime List

Source: http://www.animeraku.com/2009/11/winter-20092010-anime-list.html

Visual preview by Chartfag

Winter anime season is slowly approaching so we could take a look at the lineup. The number of new series is not much big so far, but there's still a lot of time for new announcements.

I know I will watch

Ookami Kakushi (alternatively Hidden God)

It's based on the same called visual novel for PSP. The script of the game is written by Ryuukishi07, whom I admire for his previous works (Higurashi, Umineko).

Is it a god (kami)? Or a wolf (ookami)? A secret law in the old part of town ... brings together dread and mystery. It is the summer of Shouwa 58, 1983. Ten stories, intertwined by the idle thoughts of people caught in repeating nightmares ... what could possibly be the truth therein!?

I'm looking forward to this very much. I don't know anything about the original, the visual novel, but I believe it's got high potential, as the story is written by a god. So everything depends on Takamoto Nobuhiro, Machida Touko, Watanabe Atsuko, and studio AIC, and how they will pull it off.

Ookami Kakushi official page

Nodame Cantabile Finale

I've enjoyed the previous seasons so I have high expectations for the upcoming one, too. Let's see how the story about promising conductor Chiaki and promising pianist Nodame will end.

Nodame Cantabile official page

SO・RA・NO・WO・TO

Set in the future on a land that, after being marred by long-lasting wars, has settled into a quiet cycle of decline. Kanata Kumika is a 15-year-old girl who fulfills her dream of enlisting in the army and joins a unit of five girls who protect a fortress that looms over a little village. The girls also play music that reverberates across the skies over towns without people and seas without fish.

Girls play music in the sky, and they look like the members of the light music club at Sakurakou High School. Alternative title for this anime might be "Sora no K-ON!" which can be translated as K-ON of the Sky. But note that this anime is not animated by KyoAni, it's by A-1 Pictures. Still, the resemblance is evident.

Director Kanbe Mamoru (Elfen Lied, Denpa Teki na Kanojo), scriptwriter Yoshino Hiroyuki (Macross Frontier, Denpa Teki na Kanojo), animator Toshifumi Akai (Kannagi) and musical composer Ooshima Michiru (Full Metal Alchemist, Hana Yori Dango).

If it doesn't entertain me at least, I will drop it later.

Dance in the Vampire Bund

After millennia in hiding, Mina Tepes, the Princess of the ancient covenant and ruler of all vampires, wants change. Using the vast wealth of the Tepes line, she has paid off the entire gross national debt of Japan and in so doing, gained the authority to create a "special district" off the coast of Japan that is to become the future haven to vampires the world over!
Now, on the eve of the landmark press conference announcing the existence of vampires to the world, terrorists and rival factions are plotting to assassinate Mina Tepes before she has a chance to make her world-changing announcement.

The plot seems to be interesting and what's more it is animated by SHAFT. I love SHAFT's style, and particularly their experimental scenes.

It is directed by Shinbou Akiyuki, who has directed all of the Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei seasons, Bakemonogatari, Maria Holic, Tsukuyomi, Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha and so on. There's no doubt he's a man of great works.

Dance in the Vampire Bund official page

I might watch, I will check it out

Seikon no Qwaser (Qwaser of Stigmata)

The story takes place on the grounds of St. Mihailov Academy, a Japanese Eastern Orthodox school, and draws heavily on religious references from the aforementioned religion. Here it follows the trials and hardship of two of its students, Oribe Mafuyu and Tomo Yamanobe, until the encounter with a mysterious, silver-haired, Russian boy named Alexander, or Sasha for short. This pits them and the whole school in an all-out war between the Church itself and the so-called "Adepts", a sect of individuals wielding powers linked to the elements of chemistry.

A lot of ecchi and fanservice. Which is obvious as soon as you know that they use breast milk as the main source of power.

Seikon no Qwaser official page

DURARARA!

The author Narita and illustrator Yasuda Suzuhito’s “distorted love story” is set in Ikebukuro, Tokyo, and revolves around an ensemble cast including street thugs, high school students, a female radio host, an underworld doctor, a young information vendor, and a headless Irish fairy.

Don't know about the storyline, I know hardly anything about it, but the trailer looks great. Watch it! The trailer, I mean.

The male cast features an awesome trio, Fukuyama Jun, Kamiya Hiroshi, and Daisuke Ono.

Durarara! official page

Ladies versus Butlers

The school romantic comedy revolves around Hino Akiharu, an ordinary high school student who unfortunately looks like a juvenile delinquent. He enrolls into an academy that was once a school for upper-class ladies, and he is placed in the school's newly established servant training department. The students there are raised to be either maids or butlers, and Akiharu finds himself in the middle of the bickering cliques.

Most likely an ordinary fanservice moe anime that uses maids as its main force of attraction. Some well-known names in the cast, such as Kugimiya Rie, and Nakahara Mai. I might give it a shot, but I will probably pass.

I can't say for sure that I won't give any other series a try. Not even K-ON! was in my roster at first. But I don't give the other series much hope at the moment.

There will be of course new OVAs as well as continuations of earlier released OVAs. Furthermore, three or four highly anticipated movies will come to cinemas. Those are The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha the MOVIE 1st, Eden of the East the Movie II, and Fate/stay night Unlimited Blade Works.