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Love Live! gets second season and game

The “Love Live! μ’s 3rd Anniversary Love Live!” event announced on Sunday that a second television anime season of Love Live! has been green-lit for next spring. The event also announced that the “μ’s →Next Love Live! 2014 ~Endless Parade!” event will be held on February 8 and 9, 2014 at the Saitama Super Arena. The franchise will have a PlayStation Vita game next spring.

Two earlier “Next Projects” were already revealed: the μ’s group’s sixth single and the three 2nd session unit singles.

NIS America describes the story of the franchise:

Otonokizaka High School stands on the border of three cities: Akihabara–a pop culture mecca that’s evolving by the minute; Kanda–a conservative, cultured city where history and tradition reign supreme; and Jinbo–a quiet area reserved for a more mature, sophisticated population. Amidst this culture clash, the school now faces closure due to the enrollment of fewer and fewer students.
With the school planning to close within three years, nine female students come together with one thing in mind—form a pop idol group to revive the school’s popularity and keep it from shutting down. “In order to protect our beloved school, there’s only one thing we can do…become pop stars!”

Their goal is simple: Become an overnight sensation and use their nationwide media exposure to promote their school and bring in a wave of new students to the ailing area. A simple but solid plan, they figure. Naturally, they’re nervous and wonder if this plan can really succeed, but for better or worse their new journey has begun…

“All we can ask for is just a tiny bit of support from you. We truly believe that with your help, we can change the world around us. We will make our dreams come true!”

In 2010, the anime studio Sunrise, Lantis, and ASCII Media Works’ Dengeki G Magazine launched Love Live! as a self-described “ultimate user-participation project” which lets its fans vote on the future of the fictional idols. A series of music CDs and animated music videos then followed. The members of the project announced in 2012 that an full anime series has been green-lit for this year.

The first anime season premiered in Japan on January 6. The media service Crunchyroll began streaming on January 8 at 11:00 a.m. EST. NIS America has licensed the series for North American release.

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Kodoku no Gourmet gets third season

The live-action television adaptation of Masayuki Qusumi and Jiro Taniguchi’s Kodoku no Gourmet (Solitary Gourmet) food manga will return for a third season. The manga follows a solitary salesman named Goro Inagashira as he travels all over Japan and samples the local cuisine found on street corners. The 12-episode second season aired from October to December last year.

Kodoku no Gourmet Season 3 will premiere on TV Tokyo on July 10 and will air on Wednesdays at 11:58 p.m. Yutaka Matsushige (Sukiyaki Western Django, Crows Zero) will again star as Goro in the series. The third season will feature Yokohama’s Hinodechō Station and Akabane Station in Kita, Tokyo, among other locales.

Qusumi himself will continue his own mini-segment within the series called “Furatto Qusumi” (Casual Qusumi), where he will talk with guests and provide more information about the food shops featured in the series.

Fusosha’s Weekly Spa! magazine and its other publications have been serializing the manga on an irregular basis since 1994. Only one book volume has been compiled so far, but its various editions have sold more than 200,000 copies. JManga had published some of the original manga in English before shutting down last month.

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Future Card Buddyfight anime green-lit

Bushiroad Inc. (Cardfight!! Vanguard, Tantei Opera Milky Holmes) announced on Thursday that it had opened a website for its new Future Card Buddyfight trading card game, and simultaneously announced that the trading card game already has a television anime and manga series green-lit.

The illustration on website is by animation studio Oriental Light and Magic (Pokémon, Utawarerumono), and the illustrations for the cards are being done by artists Muranako and Fuyu Nagazaki.

The website describes the trading card game as “the ultimate card game of this century,” and teases that more information about the property will be released soon.

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Sakura Trick anime green-lit

The August issue of Houbunsha’s Manga Time Kirara Miracle! magazine is announcing on Saturday that a television anime adaptation of Tachi’s four-panel yuri Sakura Trick has been green-lit.

The story revolves around Haruka and Yū, two girls who go to a high school that is slated to be shut down in three years. To share “something special” between them, they share a kiss, and their relationship deepens from that moment onward.

Tachi launched the manga in Manga Time Kirara Miracle! in 2011, and Houbunsha published the second volume in February.

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Cardfight!! Vanguard gets two more seasons

Bushiroad president Takaaki Kidani said on Sunday that the Cardfight!! Vanguard anime will continue into its fourth and fifth seasons. Kidani was responding to a Twitter follower who had asked if the original card game will end when the current third anime season ends.

Along with the card game that inspired it, the anime is a collaboration between Yu-Gi-Oh! R manga creator Akira Ito, the original Duel Masters technical advisor Satoshi Nakamura, and Kidani. The first season premiered in 2011, and Crunchyroll streamed it into several countries as it aired in Japan. The second season, Cardfight!! Vanguard: Asia Circuit Hen, premiered last year, and Crunchyroll streamed that season as well. The site has been streaming the third season, Cardfight!! Vanguard: Link Joker Hen, since it premiered in January.

There has also been a live-action television adaptation, starring BREAKERZ band musician DAIGO. DLE is producing a Flash anime of Quily’s four-panel Mini Van (Mini Vanguard) manga.

Bushiroad is releasing the original card game in English, along with a English-dubbed version of the anime.

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Riddle Story of Devil anime green-lit

The July issue of Kadokawa Shoten’s Monthly Newtype magazine is announcing on Monday that an anime adaptation of the Riddle Story of Devil (Akuma no Riddle) manga has been green-lit for next year. Story creator Yun Kouga and artist Sunao Minakata launched the manga in Newtype last September, and Kadokawa will publish the first compiled book volume next month.

The story is set at Myōjō Academy, a private girls’ boarding school. All the students in the 10th year’s Kurogumi class are assassins with one target, Haruka Ichinose. Tokaku Azuma is a recent transfer student who is also targeting Ichinose, but she gradually develops feelings for Ichinose.

Kouga’s earlier Loveless, Earthian, Genji, and Gestalt manga also inspired anime. She designed the characters in the television anime Mobile Suit Gundam 00 and Un-Go, as well as those for the video anime projects Carol and High School Aurabuster. Riddle Story of Devil already inspired a social game for Japanese phones.

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Trick or Alice anime green-lit

AnDerCen, the new otome brand spinoff from the anime brand Prime Time, posted a video on Wednesday to announce its next anime project. The video reveals that its next project will be based on little-cheese’s Trick or Alice romance game for female players.

The otome game’s story follows Arisa Minase, a cheerful, gentle girl who lives peacefully with her kind parents and older brother, and who has a lot of friends. The story starts on the night before Arisa’s birthday, and she is eating cake with her brother when the clock strikes midnight. At the exact moment the clock strikes midnight, suddenly the ground opens beneath her feet and Arisa is taken to Wonderland where the inhabitants, who resemble people she knows in her world, all call her Alice. Arisa relives the same day in Wonderland over and over, and she must find the real Alice to be able to break the cycle and return to her own world.

The original adults-only adventure game shipped for Windows computers last August.

AnDerCen previously released an original anime DVD adaptation of little-cheese’s Kuro to Kin no Akanai Kagi game in two 30-minute episodes, which shipped on February 28 and May 30.

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Arpeggio of Blue Steel anime green-lit

The seventh volume of Ark Performance’s science-fiction naval manga Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio (Arpeggio of Blue Steel) is announcing on Thursday that a television anime adaptation has been green-lit. In the story, a “Fleet of Fog” loaded with super weapons suddenly appear all over the world. Without the ability to withstand this fleet, humanity was defeated and could no longer travel the seas. 17 years after the devastating naval war, Gunzō Chihaya and his friends somehow commandeer a “Fleet of Fog” submarine and rename it I-401. Together with Iona (I-401′s “mental model” or physical incarnation in humanoid form), they take on the “Fleet of Fog.”

Seiji Kishi (Persona 4 The Animation, Angel Beats!, Devil Survivor 2 The Animation) is directing the anime at SANZIGEN Animation Studio (009 Re:Cyborg, Black Rock Shooter). Makoto Uezu (Devil Survivor 2 The Animation, The Qwaser of Stigmata) is in charge of the series scripts, and Masato Kōda (Monster Hunter & Devil May Cry games) is composing the music.

The creative team “Ark Performance” launched the manga in Shonengahosha’s Young King Ours magazine in 2009. Flying Dog, the anime label of the Victor Entertainment Group, already registered the domain name aokihagane.jp.

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