Kurokami: Manga Art & Anime Preview

For the most anticipated show, at least in my book, let me give some extra art drawn from the first eight volumes of the manga.

For the preview, more images and my expectations continue reading ...

Kurokami: The Animation
黒神
aka Black God
AniDB, ANN, Official, Thread@AnimeSuki
Studio: Sunrise
Directed by: Kobayashi Tsuneo
Character Designs by: Nishimura Hiroyuki
Original Character Designs by: Sang-Woo Park
Original Manga by: Dall-Young Lim
Series Composition by: Yoshida Reiko
Shitaya Noriko (Kuro), Namikawa Daisuke (Keita)

Keita Ibuki is an independent and struggling freelance computer programmer high-school student who had a chance meeting on one night with a high Mototsumitama named Kuro. He gives her his dinner, a bowl of ramen, and tries to protect her when she is attacked in an ambush by an unknown Mototsumitama. Keita loses his entire left arm during the fight between the Mototsumitamas, but Kuro was able to save his life by exchanging the decapitated arm with her own left arm since she has enhanced healing abilities like all Mototsumitamas. This creates a contract between them, which makes her more powerful than before. However, Kuro warns Keita that they need to be together all the time in order to be at their strongest.

Another $unrise show? I think not! First of all the director is the one and the same that pulled out the epic of Twelve Kingdoms. Second the male lead is not your usual annoying and useless brat, nor a pervent in trainging ... well, this was true for the manga, but the anime reduced his age, put him in high school and who knows what else. Another issue though, is that from the little I've seen (and not read) the manga is quite graphic, which does not go well with the studio and its stuff. Also there is going to be a simultaneous broadcast in Japan, Korea and USA and guess what the foreign ones are going to be dubbed! WTF! Now this show is a certain watch for me and most certainly raw, I don't wish to here again several wash-out hollywood actors ruining everything!

Anyway, here are also some images more suitable for wallpapers:

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Shikabane Hime Wallpapers

Since I could not find anywhere decently sized images, I sat down today and used the captures from the raw opening and ending along with GIMP to produce some wallpapers.




Some rather reveling captures of Makina!




Also our two tragic male leads, along with my favorite shikabane-hime.




Here is also the opening theme ... quite good in my opinion.





Also here are the images from the ending credits ... without the credits ;-)







And the ending theme itself, which I love.



And three new images from the first episode of KURO:




Don't be too critical, it's the first time I erase credits and glue images and especially those three portraits were quite tricky, because the background was moving at a different rate than the foreground image. Read more!

CANAAN (aka 428)

I bet that almost everyone is quite oblivious about the new work from TYPE-MOON. Well CANAAN is based on an extra animated scenario (well ... sort of) that Takeuchi/Nasu team worked on for the "live-action" visual novel 428.

Here is the opening.

New video thanks to arudoc. Click if you're into reading his usual whining and see some screenshots.

CANAAN
aka 428
AniDB, AnimePlanet, ANN, Official, Thread@AnimeSuki, TV-Tropes
Studio: P.A. Works
Directed by: Ando Masahiro
Character Designs by: Sekiguchi Kanami
Original Character Designs by: Takeuchi Takashi (of TYPE-MOON)
Original Game by: Chunsoft, Sega (just in case you've never heard of it)
Original Scenario by: Nasu Kinoko (of TYPE-MOON)
Series Composition by: Okada Mari
Sawashiro Miyuki (Canaan), Sakamoto Maaya (Alphard), Nanjou Yoshino (Maria)
Tanaka Rie (Liang-Qi), Tomatsu Haruka (Yun²), Minagawa Junko (Natsume), Noto Mamiko (Hakkoo)
Hamada Kenji (Minoru), Oukawa Toru (Kamingusu), Hirata Hiroaki (Sentana)

Now, I must admit that I am completely unfamiliar with 428 and all the info here are second hand (ANN and BeastLair). But given that the TYPE-MOON duo is heavily involved with CANAAN, at least it will certainly be decent! Though the "newbie" chief director makes me a little worried. On the other, hand character designs and series composition come from qualified (at least in my eyes) people.

If you want some speculation, we should expect CANAAN later in 2009 (summer or autumn), since there is absolutely nothing about it in this winter's comicet. But, in any case it is still nice news since Rakyo will be over by summer ;-)

And since the actual show has started, check below some stills of what you are either missing or enjoying ;)

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