Japanese animation licensing group Sentai Filmworks and its distribution labels Section23 Films and Maiden Japan have had a busy Winter 2012 thus far, announcing the acquisition of several new and a few older titles for domestic release. Many of these titles are scheduled for online broadcast somewhere across the net, much like the company’s acquisitions from last autumn, which included mecha anime Break Blade, mystery anime UN-GO, and film series Towa no Quon [recent A.I. news: "Sect23 Films Autumn 2011 Anime News" (11/2011)]. The anime series announced here are all presently scheduled for home video release during the 2012 calendar year.
New to Japanese TV this past week is the supernatural romantic comedy Inu x Boku S.S., in which a little girl takes up residence at a dormitory for demonkind. To be sure, Ririchiyo is socially inept. She can’t interact with her peers at all, and even though the girl’s lineage blesses her with immense wealth and status, Ririchiyo still fears she’ll always be alone and unprotected. In the twelve-episode anime Inu x Boku S.S., Ririchiyo moves away from home and into the Ayakashi Kan, a mansion rumored to be the home of demons and weirdos of all sorts.
But as the anime comedy continues, viewers are also introduced to Soushi, Ririchiyo’s servant. Each tenet of the highly guarded mansion is assigned a skilled devotee, and Soushi, tall, dapper, and kind, is a perfect match for Ririchiyo — sort of. The girl’s berating commentary is always met with kindness, making her quest for personal growth away from home a little more challenging than she thought. According to Sentai Filmworks, Inu x Boku S.S. will be available for digital and television platforms soon and home video in late 2012.
The sequel to a previous release, Motto To Love Ru is a fanservice-heavy comedy returning to the narrative of a hapless teenager besieged by an alien princess.
Princess Lala is inching closer to admitting how fond she is of her new charge, but her usual encounters with naked teleportation, intergalactic politics, and less-than-forgiving bounty hunters are making things difficult. Motto To Love Ru, originally broadcast in 2010, is twelve episodes long; and like the series before it, is also based on the manga title of the same name.
The anime’s first season was distributed to home video by Section23 Films last autumn, in September 2011. Motto To Love Ru will be available on subtitled DVD spring 2012.
Mouretsu Pirates (originally, Bodacious Space Pirates) is a mash-up of adorable high school girls and the venerable space opera. When a first-year student by the name of Marika is approached at her part-time job (waitress at the yachting club cafe) by some suspicious looking folks, the girl discovers in no uncertain terms that her future has been decided for her.
Marika’s lat father, it turns out, was the captain of a fierce band of space pirates, and now that he’s dead and gone, she’s next in line for the captainship. As Mouretsu Pirates continues, Marika stumbles into “the family business” of intergalactic buccaneering.
Mouretsu Pirates is based on a novel series (Miniskirt Pirate) by Yuichi Sasamoto. The twenty-six-episode anime lands in-between the genres of pure comedy and sci-fi, debuting on Japanese TV earlier this year. The anime is directed by Tatsuo Sato (Stellvia). Additional digital, television, and home video distribution is reported for the remainder of 2012.