Comic Markets come and go, the calendar flips a page, but the news marches on and HD with it. In today’s update: a blizzard of new anime series are announced, including a couple that may actually turn out to be good; a trio of new games from Jellyfish, an eroge surfaces after four years (!) of development, Comiket 69 reports start to snowball, and a new year is upon us.
A sketch whipped up for the occasion, complete with overused Shakespeare quote:

Media Side
- Kicking off anime announcements in 2006 is a second season of School Rumble, set to air in the spring.
- Comic Blade announces that the Aria anime will see a second season in 2006 as well.
- There’s something bewitching about the designs for Simoun, a new fantasy / SF anime in production. This picture says it all, really, along with the fact that it’s slated to begin serialization in the third volume of Yurihime on sale January 18th.
- From the makers of Rozen Maiden, Hime-sama Goyoushin is a new original series from the makers of Rozen Maiden. Did I mention that it was from the makers of Rozen Maiden? I think the site does, if I missed it. [official WOWOW site]
- Android! Werewolf! Vampire! Witch! Magical Pokahn Official Site Grand Open!!
- According to Wings Magazine, Tsuda Mikiyo’s Princess Princess manga is being animefied. Probably the last you’ll hear of it here.
- Mag Garden provides some staff details for the spring 2006 Nishi no Yoki Majo anime, scooped by HD earlier.
- Currently serialized in Comic Ciao, Kirarin☆Revolution is slated to become an anime. Looks like typical magical girl fare.
- Akiba-kei BB Channel has a promotional video for Papillon Rose New Season available for viewing. [direct link] The show itself is slated for a February broadcast launch.
- Marvelous Entertainment announces the planned production of a new original Tennis no Oji-sama OVA.
- The official site for the April 2006 anime Yoshinaga-san Uchi no Gargoyle is now online.
- The official Magikano anime site has recieved an all-around update.
- A new wallpaper for the Disgaea 2 PS2 game is available at its official site. [direct link]
- I have never wanted to play a PS2 game more than I want to play Ar Tonelico, which was recently updated with a new five-minute demo movie. This is worth watching for the music alone, which is stirring, riveting – a must purchase OST indeed.
- Weekly Web Radio Roundup
- Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl
- Joshikousei
- Rakugo Tennyo Oyui
- To Heart 2
- Kiminozo Radio
- Mahou Sensei Negima
- Lemon Angel Project (starting January 10th)
- Comic Rush has an online “tachiyomi” section where you can read through the first several pages of various current manga, including the soon to be animefied Tonagura and Clannad.
- An A3 size clear poster for Witchblade was on sale at Comiket, and I missed it. ;_; Based on the sample image provided, Uno Makoto’s designs are indeed going to deliver… I can’t wait to see more.
- An interview with “Nabeshin” (Watanabe Shinichi), acclaimed comedy anime director of Excel Saga and Puni Puni Poemi among others, is online courtesy of Web Anime Style. Apparently he’s at the helm of the upcoming series Nerima Daikon Brothers, an item which I’ve panned here before without knowing anything about and will continue to baselessly taunt despite this development.
- Robomoe has acquired a Kamichu 2006 calendar, but I can’t find evidence that such an item exists anywhere online. Not on the official Kamichu site, not on Amazon.jp, not at Media Works / Dengeki Daioh, not at Animate’s web shop. If anyone can provide positive confirmation (or denial) of its existence it would be much appreciated.
Ero Side
- After a long period of silence, Jellyfish, maker of the smash-hit Lovers eroge, has announced a trio of games currently in the development pipe: Green (DVD Edition), a DVD reissue of the brand’s first game with additional material; Black and White, a “high quality” game with undecided plot particulars, and Sisters, a loli-type older sister / younger sister story. I’m most interested in Black and White at this point, provided the art is by the same designer as the fellow behind Lovers… here’s hoping it gets developed beyond the vaporware stage.
- According to the official site for Jidaiya’s Mio Cid, publicity for the game has been appearing in magazines since 2002 (!!!!!). I’ve never heard of an eroge that’s spent four years in development without being dropped, but there you have it: a revised release date to spring 2006. From the sample CG it doesn’t look half bad, either…
- Galge.com scoops the 10 eroge titles on sale over the past week, an incredibly underwhelming crop for the last week of the month, but less so considering the chilling effect of Comiket on other otaku-oriented sales. The only real item of note is Sister Scheme from M de Pink, the third INO-designed game to see a December 2005 release. I often wish such prolific creators would focus on a single game and make it mindblowingly awesome instead of spreading a few dozen CG around between a handful of titles. Alas.
- If you want an exercise in puzzlement, check out Galge’s 2005 access popularity rankings. None of the year’s most popular titles (Hollow Ataraxia, To Heart 2 xrated, Tsuyokisu) make a showing, except for School Days, which isn’t even ranked very high. Galge forces registration for access to the “free” content that was so highly saught after by its members, so you can’t even do a little empirical analysis to figure out why, for instance, the two top demo downloads are both from Atelier Kaguya, or the two top demo movies are from Tech Arts brands (Squeez and May-Be Soft). Bizarre.
- In eroanime news, D3 / White Bear has updated its official sites for the Cleavage OVA and Yakin Byoutou 2 vol. 5 with further sample screenshots.
- New Site Launches / Release Announcements
- Carriere’s Koiotome
- Axl’s Hidamari
- Spirit Speak’s CC Hospital (well-endowed doctor alert)
- Stellar’s Honey x Bunny
- Psycho’s Shimai Donburi [sample CG]
- Marron’s Himawari no Chapel de Kimi to
- We’ve Got Movie Sign!!
- Tiger Soft’s Musunde, Hiraite
- M de Pink’s Sister Scheme
- Artel’s Horizont
- Liar Soft’s Salvatore!
- Demo Downloads
- Tiger Soft’s Musunde, Hiraite
- Bloomhandle’s Nami no Ma ni Ma ni
- S.M.L’s Re:
- Sample CG
- Silver Bullet’s Setsuei
- Interheart’s Boin ni Kakero!
- Sirius’s Maid-san★Spirits! [official site CG update]
- Cyc’s Senjou de Shoujo wa Karada wo Kakeru
- Crowd’s Sodatete Miryu?
- Maika’s Revenger Zero
- Artel’s Horizont [official site]
- Artel’s Horizont (this time with ero!)
- Purple Software’s Aruto
- Atu Works’ Tokitama Phantasm
- Wallpapers
- Stoneheads’ Maid in Heaven SuperS
- Kadokawa’s Fragments Blue
- Black Cyc’s Gore Screaming Show
- Runrun Soft’s January Calendar
- GA Graphic’s Koin wallpapers
- Comiket Corner
Hobby Side
- The few. The proud. Was Maritan planning for 2006 from the start? [direct link]
In addition to giving my feet a rest over the past couple of days I’ve been working on various site-related tasks, not the least of which has been a design for the relaunch I’m aiming for within the next week. Here’s a not-so-sneaky preview of the new face of Heisei Democracy (disclaimer: actual face may be altered by plastic surgeons in its ghoulish conversion to web standards, currently being undertaken by fine compatriots Buffered and shut).

Along with catching up on correspondence, basic life maintenance tasks, and putting this update together (not quite caught up yet, as can be seen by the giant sucking sound that is the Hobby section) I’ve only barely scratched the surface of my own C69 report and the latter parts of the How to Comiket piece, not to mention Genshiken and NHK reviews. I have a full week of unplowed virgin vacation time ahead, though, and these tasks will be conquered in that time, oh yes they will. I hope.
Properly speaking, this should be a season of reflection on the past year and determination leading into the next, but I feel right now like I’m stuck at full throttle and looking back will only increase the risk of a crash. A whole lot happened in 2005 (including this site, really, in its current incarnation) but this break between years seems particularly arbitrary to me – things keep moving at a breakneck pace and if I blink I’ll be left behind. This can’t be entirely healthy; I haven’t had the time to watch anime for the past few months, nearly every last second of my free time has been consumed with some project or another. It’s a fine way to feel alive, but not so good for relaxation… I guess I’m realizing that youth is a vanishing commodity and I’d better start using what I have left while it’s still here to get something done I can look back on and be proud (horrified?) of.
So, going into 2006: onward and upward! Better things are ahead for Heisei Democracy, and I hope you’ll join me as we continue on this (long, strange) journey into otakudom.
Happy new year, Shingo! Looking forward to the new HD, hopefully it will pack twice the punch :D
Re: Kamichu calender
If you search for
かみちゅ!2006カレンダー
in Google, then click the cache link of the third result, you’ll see that Animate -had- it. Must have been a preorder only thing.
Happy new year!
Edge: thank you sir, and same to you! I’m not so big on dogs myself, can’t wait for the year of the cat to roll around again… Not that the sheep was bad either, and I’d take the cow any day. :3
As you can probably tell the new HD will be patterned rather closely off of blogs such as Akibajin and Akiba Blog, although the content will be pretty much the same as it is now… I’m hoping an approach with more integrated visuals will make things more compelling and accessible. We’ll see, I guess.
Momotato: thanks, I appreciate the tip-off. Your sleuthing skills are next to none, although the news is rather sad this time around… at least we know the item is now firmly beyond reach (aside from a few bloated auctions I suppose). Happy new year to you as well!
About that Ar Tonelico OST…
I said before that I’d buy it, and I made good on that promise. A fine OST indeed (the second disc being much better than the first), but most the music from that demo movie *isn’t* on the OST.
There are 2 *more* Tonelico albums coming out yet, the “Concert Side” albums:
http://shop.salburg.com/product/at_hyummnos_concert/index.htm
I don’t know much about them due to my lack of knowledge of Japanese, but they look to be vocal albums based on two of the characters. According to CDJapan, they have 6 vocal tracks, 3 instrumentals, and a bonus (at least, that’s what it says about one of them). It seems to me that most of the music from that demo movie comes from these two albums. There are a few samples up, with a new one coming every Thursday/Friday.
As for me, I hope that the music from that movie is located on the Blue disc. I’m not sold on the Red disc, but I definitely like what I’ve heard from the Blue so far (especially that “EXEC_PAJA” track–that one sounds to be killer).
The cover art for them is rather pretty, too.
VanRaily: awesome, thanks for the clarification. I’ll take a listen to those samples as soon as I can… overall, would you recommend purchase of the OST (regardless of its lack of the particular tracks used for the demo movie)? Three discs (or sets thereof) is getting a bit pricey no matter how you slice it… thanks again for the update, I haven’t been able to keep track of this nearly as well as I would like.
[edit] after listening I like all three of the available samples a lot… damn it, my wallet is bleeding. ;_;
Sorry for taking so long to get back about this-
I’m kind of split about the Tonelico OST. There’s some great music on there, especially on the second disc (like I said earlier). And if you didn’t know, the site for the OST put up a new sample every day up until the OST’s release. So, there’s a lot of tracks available to see what the thing sounds like. Personally, I recommend 1-1, 1-31, 1-38, 2-10, 2-21, 2-27, and 2-31. Also, the second track used in the demo movie *is* on the OST (as well as the Blue Hymmnos disc). So what’s my problem with it?
It suffers from the “Team Entertainment Syndrome”. TE seems to follow the philosophy of putting as many tracks as possible onto the fewest discs possible. As a result, the 2 discs of the Tonelico OST have 39 tracks each, meaning that the individual tracks are only 1 – 2 minutes long and don’t repeat. I don’t know what your position is on short tracks like this, but it bothers me.
So, if you’re not bothered by the short tracks, then I see no reason not to get it. Although I don’t like how TE handled the release, I’ll say this–I don’t regret buying it.
Of course, if you’re tight for money, then maybe you’d want to hold off until the Hymmnos discs are released. I’ll be getting the Blue disc for sure (once I actually get around to ordering it), so I could tell you how the OST stacks up to those.