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Sentai Filmworks Acquires Ushio & Tora, Gate, School-Live!, Wakaba Girl, Aoharu x Machinegun Anime

Sentai Filmworks announced at its panel at Anime Expo on Thursday that it has licensed the following summer 2015 titles: Gate: Jiei-tai Ka no Chi ni te, Kaku Tatakaeri, School-Live!, Ushio & Tora, Wakaba Girl, To Love-Ru -Trouble- Darkness 2nd, and Aoharu x Machinegun.

Gate: Jiei-tai Ka no Chi ni te, Kaku Tatakaeri (Gate: The Self-Defense Forces Fight Like This in Another Land) adapts Takumi Yanai's light novel series of the same name.

The military fantasy series begins when a gate appears in Tokyo's Ginza district sometime in the 21st century. From the gate pours out monsters, knights from middle-age Europe, and other fantasy-like beings, and they kill many of the citizens of Tokyo. This event is known as the Ginza Incident.

The government sends a small group of soldiers from the Japanese Self-Defense Forces to the alternate world beyond the gate. Led by otaku soldier Yōji (voiced by Junichi Suwabe), they find that the villages in the world are being attacked by a dragon. An elf girl (Hisako Kanemoto) who is a survivor from the dragon's rampage joins the group in their travels across the dangerous new world.

Takahiko Kyōgoku (Love Live! School idol project) is directing the series at A-1 Pictures with series composition by Tatsuhiko Urahata (A-Channel, Black Bullet). Jun Nakai (Silver Spoon, The Sacred Blacksmith) is designing the characters, and Yoshiaki Fujisawa (Love Live! School idol project, The Eccentric Family) is composing the music. Yukio Nagasaki (Love Live! School idol project, Yona of the Dawn) is serving as sound director, and GENCO is producing the series.

The School-Live! anime is based on Norimitsu Kaihō (Nitroplus) and Sadoru Chiba's Gakkō Gurashi! manga, which began in Houbunsha's Manga Time Kirara Forward magazine in 2012.

The story of the manga revolves around girls who decide to stay over at school: the energetic Yuki Takeya (voiced by Inori Minase), the shovel-loving Kurumi (Ari Ozawa), spacey school adviser Megu (Ai Kayano), level-headed underclassman Mii-kun (Rie Takahashi), and Rii-san (M.A.O), who brings everyone together. However, through mysterious circumstances, the girls find themselves the final survivors in a zombie attack, and continue to live at the school.

Masaomi Ando (White Album 2) is directing the anime at Lerche (Assassination Classroom, Carnival Phantasm). Nitroplus is credited with producing the scripts. The original manga's writer, Norimitsu Kaihō (Gunslinger Stratos) is in charge of the series scripts, while Haruko Iizuka (Little Busters!, Tamayura) is designing the characters.

Ushio & Tora is based on Kazuhiro Fujita's supernatural battle manga. ADV Films released the 1992 original video anime project, and it describes the story:

Ushio thinks that his father's talk of an ancient ancestor impaling a demon on a temple altar stone with the legendary Beast Spear is nuts, but when he finds the monster in his own basement, Ushio has to take another look at the family legend! To save his friends and family from the invading spirits, Ushio is forced to release Tora from his captivity. But will the creature prove to be worse than the curse?

Satoshi Nishimura (Trigun, Hajime no Ippo) is directing the anime at Mappa (Rage of Bahamut: Genesis) and a relatively new company, studio Voln. Toshiki Inoue (Chaos;HEAd, Death Note, Ranma ½) and Fujita himself are in charge of the series scripts, and Tomoko Mori (guest character designer on Garo: Honoo no Kokuin, Juden Chan) is designing the characters. Rock band Kinniku Shōjo Tai is performing the anime's opening theme song "Mazeru na Kiken," and Sonar Pocket is performing the ending theme song "Hero."

The 39-episode anime will be split into two seasons. The series will premiere on July 3 and run for 26 episodes until December. Then, 13 more episodes will air from April to June of 2016. The anime's final episode will coincide with the manga's final battle.

The Wakaba Girl TV anime adapts Yui Hara's manga of the same name. Seiji Watanabe (Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid, Munto 2: Beyond the Walls of Time key animation) is helming the anime at Nexus. In addition, Kana Ishida (Aquarion Evol, The Irregular at Magic High School) is designing the characters, and Jukki Hanada (Love Live! School idol project, Petite Princess Yucie) is writing the scripts.

The story centers around the activities of Wakaba Kohashi (voiced by Ari Ozawa), "a slightly out-of-tune super" daughter of a well-to-do family, and her friends. Wakaba (literally, "young leaves") looks like an elegant rich daughter, but she admires the trendy "gyaru" fashion subculture. There is also the pure, innocent, fairy-tale-like Moeko (Mikako Izawa). Mao (M.A.O) is capricious and behaves in her own way. Nao (Rie Murakawa) used to be an athletic type of girl, but now loves the boys-love genre.

To Love-Ru -Trouble- Darkness 2nd is the second season of the To Love-Ru -Trouble- Darkness television anime series.

The new season will reunite the main cast and staff from the first season. Ray (To Love-Ru -Trouble- Darkness, Waiting in the Summer, A Lull in the Sea) will perform the opening theme song and Mami Kawada (Jormungand, A Certain Magical Index, Please Twins) will perform the ending theme song.

Kentaro Yabuki and Saki Hasemi's To Love-Ru -Trouble- Darkness manga, a sequel of the first To Love-Ru -Trouble- series, launched in Jump Square in 2010. The series has 14 million copies in print. Sentai Filmworks licensed the 2012 television anime series, and The Anime Network streamed the series in North America.

Aoharu x Machinegun (Aoharu x Kikanjū) adapts NAOE's manga of the same name. The manga follows high school student Hotaru Tachibana (Mikako Komatsu), a girl disguised as a boy. Through strange circumstances she finds herself drawn into the world of survival games by a host, Masamune Matsuoka (Tomoaki Maeno). The two form a team with ero-manga artist Tohru Yukimura (Yoshitsugu Matsuoka) and aim to be the be the best in Japan.

Hideaki Nakano (Baccano!, My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU, Golden Time episode director) is helming the anime series at Brains Base (Durarara!!, Natsume's Book of Friends), with scripts by Kenji Konuta (Library War, Ace of Diamond). Junko Yamanaka (Detective Conan films, You Are Umasou, Kamisama Kiss 2) designed the characters and is also serving as chief animation director.

Crunchyroll will stream the series in the United States and Canada.