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Maria the Virgin Witch Anime's New Web Ad Streamed

A new web commercial for the television anime of Masayuki Ishikawa's Maria the Virgin Witch (Junketsu no Maria - Sorcière de gré, pucelle de force) manga debuted on Friday. The video features the anime's opening theme song, "Philosophy of Dear World" by ZAQ.

Maria: I'm Maria, a witch who lives in France. France is right in the middle of its Hundred Year War, but I HATE war. Maria the Virgin Witch. Broadcasts start in January 2015.

The cast includes (from top left to bottom right in the images below):

• Hisako Kanemoto as Maria, a witch who lives in the forest
• Yōko Hikasa as Artemis, Maria's succubus
• Mikako Komatsu as Priapos, Maria's incubus
• Kana Hanazawa as Ezekiel, an angel dispatched by Michael to watch Maria
• Kenshō Ono as Joseph, a young French man who often visits the forest where Maria lives

• Yūki Ono as Garfa, a soldier in the French army
• Bin Shimada as Guillaume, Garfa's lord
• Kenta Miyake as Yvain, the leader of Garfa's unit
• Sachiko Kojima as Lolotte, one of the prostitutes for the soldiers
• Takahiro Sakurai as Bernard, the head of the town's monastery
• Natsuki Hanae as Gilbert, a novice monk under Bernard
• Mamiko Noto as viv, a witch who came from Winchester in southern England
• Ai Kakuma as Anne, a girl who visits Maria with her mother
• Miyuki Ichijou as Martha, Anne's grandmother

• Kikuko Inoue as Michael (not pictured)

ZAQ (Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions!, Rail Wars!, Trinity Seven) is performing the opening theme song "Philosophy of Dear World," and True (Buddy Complex, pictured below) is performing the ending theme song, "ailes." The "Philosophy of Dear World" single will go on sale on January 21, and the "ailes" single will follow on February 11.

Goro Taniguchi (Code Geass, Fantasista Doll, s-CRY-ed) is directing the anime at Production I.G, off scripts written and supervised by Hideyuki Kurata (Read or Die, Oreimo, The World God Only Knows). Yuriko Chiba (Planetes, Sacred Seven, To Heart) is designing the characters with concept visual designs by Eiji Nakada (Code Geass, Eureka Seven, Sacred Seven).

Seiichi Shirato (Jormungand, Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, Mobile Suit Gundam AGE) is serving as chief researcher. Narumi Sakai is serving as the color key artist with Hiroshi Tanaka as the director of photography. Yasuhiro Mikami is directing the 3D, and Seiji Morita is editing. Masato Kōda (Arpeggio of Blue Steel, Magical Warfare) is scoring the music at Lantis. Jin Aketagawa is the sound producer.

The story follows Maria, the most powerful witch who lives during the Hundred Years' War in France. She despises war, so she obstructs battles with her strong magical powers. Her meddling with her succubus Artemis and incubus Priapos has caught the attention of the heavens, and so the Archangel Michael issues an edict. When Maria loses her virginity, she will also lose her magical powers. A beautiful angel named Ezekiel is supposed to watch Maria and make sure the witch does not use magic in front of people, but Maria continues to use magic anyways.

Ishikawa launched the manga in the inaugural issue of Kodansha's Good! Afternoon magazine in 2008, and the manga ended its run in this magazine last year. Ishikawa is also serializing a Junketsu no Maria Exhibition (Maria the Virgin Witch Exhibition) spinoff from July until December. Kodansha Comics announced at Anime Expo in July that it start publishing the manga in North America in early 2015.

Ishikawa also drew the Moyashimon: Tales of Agriculture manga in Kodansha's Evening and Morning 2 magazines until this past January, and Del Rey published part of the manga in North America. Moyashimon inspired two television anime series and a live-action television series.

The anime series will premiere on Tokyo MX and other channels on January 11, 2015.