Holy f****** shit! Okay, I knew this one was coming, but damn, seeing the announcement just makes me go “Yeees! Take that, biatch!!” Anyway, the tentative air date is July. The channel is WOWOW. The animation will be produced by Madhouse (who else?!). If done right, this mother could blow both Basilisk and Ninja Scroll out of the water. Mark my words!

Here is the announcement that came with the latest volume of Shigurui:

Update 1:
Official homepage
Teaser

Update 2:
According to Animate TV, the series will be directed by Hirotsugu Hamazaki, the director of TEXHNOLYZE. Apparently, Takayuki Yamaguchi was very impressed by the storyboard Hamazaki showed him. Let’s hope this can translate into an impressive adaptation.

Update 3:
Two more staff members have been announced.

• Series Composition/Screenplay: Seishi Minakami
  (He co-wrote the screenplay of Paprika together with Satoshi Kon; his other works include Yomigaeru Sora -Rescue Wings-, Asatte no houkou, Paranoia Agent, Alien 9, Boogiepop Phantom.)
• Character Design: Masanori Shino
  (Black Lagoon [both seasons], Gungrave, Crest of the Stars)

The staff looks better and better with each new name. I’m starting to get a good feeling about this.

You have waited. We have waited. Now it’s finally here: Kotonoha and Lililicious again join forces to bring you the second volume of Takako Shimura’s delightful girl-meets-girl story. Expect everything that made the first volume such an enjoyable read and more. If you can’t wait to find out what happens in this volume, check out Erica Friedman’s spoiler-lite review over at Okazu.

Inio Asano’s new series is entitled Oyasumi Punpun (おやすみプンプン; “Good night, Punpun*”). The description on the homepage of Young Sunday doesn’t reveal much about the story, but it looks like it’ll be a comedy (not exactly Asano’s strong suit IMHO).

* Note that “punpun” can also mean “to smell strongly” or “to fume [with rage].”

All right, here’s the deal. To get more people in our new IRC channel, I have decided to make some of our new releases available in the channel 48 hours before they go up on BT and direct downloads. All you need to do to get the latest chapter of SWWEEET is start your IRC client and join us at #kotonoha @ irc.irchighway.net. Pretty easy, right? It’d be nice if you could stick around instead of just leeching and leaving, though.

It has been announced that Inio Asano will start a new series in Vol. 15 of Young Sunday (to be released on March 15th). Asano mentioned in an interview that his next project would be a fantasy story set at a hot spring resort. I suppose he was talking about this one.

What a Wonderful World and Hikari no machi (Asano’s follow-up to WaWW that we plan to pick up after we finish WaWW) both contain fantasy elements, but a full-fledged fantasy story? That sounds like it could be another deviation from the author’s usual style, as was the case with Nijigahara Holograph. On the other hand, Young Sunday is not Quick Japan. While QJ’s editor-in-chief basically told Asano to do whatever the hell he wanted, I’d expect YS’s one to be a bit more conservative in terms of artistic freedom. I think it’s likely that we’ll get a story that resembles Solanin (Asano’s previous series in YS) in style and mood, which is, of course, not a bad thing at all. In any case, we’ll keep you informed.

In other news, I’m happy to announce that Kotonoha has finally created its own IRC channel. You can find us at #kotonoha @ irc.irchighway.net

Since the channel is still new there isn’t a lot of activity yet, but I hope you, dear loyal readers, can change that. If you are “in the area,” we’d be glad if you drop by and say hello. Kotonoha members are a friendly and sociable bunch, we won’t bite (not hard, anyway). Just use common sense (don’t pester ops for upcoming release news or troll around) and you will be fine.

See you there.