News
Siren Visual Announce Three New Titles
posted on by Jon Hayward
The announcements went up on Siren Visual's facebook page at 12:00am AEST on Tuesday the 8th of April 2014. The three announced titles are as follows;
Chihayafuru 2
Chihayafuru follows a schoolgirl named Chihaya Ayase (Asami Seto - Amelita Trumbe in Dog Days) who only dreamed about her sister making it as a fashion model. But when Chihaya discovers a obscure card game based on Japanese poetry (karuta) from a quiet high school transfer student named Arata Wataya (Yoshimasa Hosoya - Nezumi in No. 6) she decides to forge her own path in life.
The second season continues to follow the Karuta club as two new members join the team, however the new members don't share Chihaya's passion for Karuta which will make the Karuta high school championships harder to win.
The anime series is based on the manga of the same name written and illustrated by Yuki Suetsugu, published in Kodansha's Be-Love josei (women's) magazine since 2007. Morio Asaka (Aoi Bungaku Series, Cardcaptor Sakura, Chobits, NANA) continued to direct the project at Studio MADHOUSE with most of the crew returning for season 2. However Naoya Takayama who handled series composition in season 1 was replaced by Auako Katoh and Yuuko Kakihara.
Chihayafuru 2 ran for 25 episodes and was originally broadcast in Jan 2013, both season 1 and 2 were streamed on Crunchyroll. Siren Visual is the only company to release Chihayafuru on DVD in English speaking countries.
Chihayafuru Season 2 will be released at some point in 2014 on DVD in Australia and New Zealand.
Queen's Blade Rebellion
After the events of Queen's Blade, Gainos and the rest of the Continent has fallen under tyrannical rule after Leina renounced the title of winning the Queen's Blade Tournament. Annelotte is a wandering knight who becomes involved in the fight against the corrupt nobility and the fanatical church as she and her fellow warriors work towards restoring justice, peace and order to the Continent.
The Queen's Blade franchise is based on the visual combat books by Hobby Japan, itself a spin-off of Flying Buffalo's Lost Worlds game series. Since the first visual combat book was released in 2005 the series has had four manga adaptations, three anime adaptations, three light novels, three OVA's and a video game adaptation. The Rebellion storyline in particular already spawned two prologue original video anime DVDs that were bundled with the Queen's Blade Premium Visual Books.
The first anime season, Queen's Blade: Exiled Virgin, premiered in 2008 and was followed by Queen's Blade 2: The Evil Eye in 2009. Queen's Blade Rebellion premiered in April 2012 under new director Yousei Morino (I''s, Kakyūsei 2) helmed the third series at the studio ARMS. Hideki Shirane returned from the OVA Queen's Blade Utsukushiki Tōshi-tachi to handle series composition and scripting and animation directors Takayuki Noguchi and Yukiko Ishibashi joined Rin-Sin on the character design duties.
Siren Visual will be releasing Queen's Blade Rebellion on DVD in July.
The Devil is a Part-Timer!
On the world of Ente Isla, Devil King Sadao is just about to conquer the entire world when he is defeated by the heroine, Emilia Justina. Forced to jump dimensions he ends up on Earth with no powers, no cash and no job skills beyond "conquering the world" the Devil King is forced to take a part-time job at a fast food restaurant to make ends meet. Now living under the name Sadao Maō, the Devil King must work his way up the MgRonald corporate ladder to conquer Japan and avoid Emilia who has followed him to Earth to ensure that he is destroyed.
The Devil is a Part-Timer! is adapted from Satoshi Wagahara's original fantasy light novel series that have been published by ASCII Media Works on the Dengeki Bunko imprint since 2011, ten books have been published to date. The series has also inspired two manga adaptations alongside this 13 episode anime series.
Naoto Hosoda (The Future Diary, Shuffle!) directed the anime at WHITE FOX and Atsushi Ikariya (Fate/Zero) adapted original novel illustrator 029's characters for anime. Masahiro Yokotani (Free! - Iwatobi Swim Club, Maria Holic) was in charge of the series scripts. The series premiered on the 4th of April 2013 on Tokyo MX and several other channels. Funimation licensed the title and streamed the series in North America and will be releasing the title on home video sometime in the American summer. There are no details confirming a English audio dub at this point in time.
Siren Visual will be releasing the series on DVD and Blu-ray in 2014. An exact release date is not yet known.
