Star Driver Kagayaki no Takuto
Takuya Igarashi is a talent who came up through the Toei machine. In his case he cut his teeth on a variety of magical girl shows before going elsewhere (in this case BONES). Despite what some might say, I still think Toei produce some strong talent (like Mamoru Hosoda and Kenji Nakamura).
Igarashi’s got a strong eye for design, as you could see on Ouran High School Host Club and Soul Eater. This marks a return to working on original material, with a scenario by his collaborator on Ouran (and various Magical Girl shows), Yoji Enokido. Word is that this will be a mecha show with magical girl show sensibilities, which combined with Igarashi’s eye and BONES production values should make for a show free of the usual mecha show cliches.
Looking forward to this a lot.
Iron Man
This is curious, as we have Yuzo Sato, the man behind Madhouse’s gambling manga adaptations for NTV, in charge of a show that you would assume has more action than the likes of Akagi, Kaiji and One Outs had. Sato is very good at amping up tension however, so he may be a good match for the non-action parts of Warren Ellis’ scripts. Don’t know if the rest of Sato’s team from his recent projects will be on this too. I expect strong boardroom scenes and action with acceptable tolerance levels.
Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt
It’s an Imaishi project. I’m all over it like a rash.
I’m hoping for something resembling his episode of Re:Cutey Honey – namely a hyper-kinetic cartoon that recalls both Hanna Barbera and Tatsunoko Pro. As it happens, the trailer makes it look like we’ll be getting exactly that. So, yay!
Kuragehime
Brains Base & Takahiro Omori (Durarara!!, Bacanno!) arrive at the noitaminA time slot. This has the potential to be pretty, pretty, pretty good. Omori’s a really flexible director and the show looks to have some really nice Kenji Hayama (Mazinkaiser, Getter Robo Armageddon) character design. Not to mention it has a very noitaminA premise, so will likely be a bigger TV ratings hit that Durarara!! was.
Miyanishi Tatsuya GekijÅ: Omae Umasou da na
Curious about this dinosaur series, and its related film. A lot of Doraemon talent working on it. It’s another series of shorts which is always something I’m interested in.
Rita et Machin
Karl to Fushigi na to
A couple of kids shows from Nippon Animation that look like they have visual styles that make them worth checking out. Not sure who’s on Rita et Machin, but Jun Takagi’s on Karl to Fushigi na to and that’s a good match.
Robin with his 100 Friends.
Directed by Max Weintraub. This should be interesting as Weintraub is pretty awesome.
Pretty curious about the kiddie shows (last three you mentioned) too. I doubt anyone will sub them, though.
But then again, maybe I don’t really need subtitles to get a kids show.
Also – watched the trailer for Iron man, and couldn’t shake the feeling that Stark looks like an Italian porn actor, which kept distracting me. I still noticed the not-so-good CG, though.