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Muse Asia Licenses Girls' Frontline, Police in a Pod, Saiyuki Reload -ZEROIN- Anime

Muse Asia announced last week that it has licensed the Girls' Frontline, Police in a Pod, Saiyuki Reload -ZEROIN-, My Dress-Up Darling, and the third season of the Teasing Master Takagi-san anime.

Girls' Frontline is the television anime adaptation of Sunborn Network's Girls' Frontline smartphone game. The anime will premiere in January.

The anime was originally scheduled to stream globally this year.

The game's story is set in an alternate timeline near-future Earth in the 2060s. The aftermath of a military accident that resulted in widespread disease, as well as the recent conclusion of careless nuclear war, has massively depopulated the planet, rendered much of the surface uninhabitable, and reduced once-great nations to shadows of their former selves. Androids used for labor and combat have become an important facet of life, and easily replicable and disposable androids known as Tactical Dolls (T-Dolls) are used by private military companies in the frontlines of numerous brushfire wars. In the game, the player takes the role of a fresh commander in a PMC, commanding T-Dolls to fight against a new AI threat.

Shigeru Ueda (Gekidol, Peach Boy Riverside) is directing the series. Hideyuki Kurata (Made in Abyss) is in charge of series composition and scrpts. Masaki Yamada (Deadman Wonderland, Tiger & Bunny) is designing the characters. Takashi Watanabe is composing the music. Asahi Productions is animating the series, and Warner Bros. Japan is producing the project. Sunborn Network Technology and Mica Team are credited with the original story. yukaDD will perform the opening theme song "BAD CANDY." Team Shachi will perform the ending theme song "HORIZON."

The television anime of Miko Yasu's Police in a Pod (Hakozume: Kōban Joshi no Gyakushū) manga will premiere on January 5. Muse Malaysia has also licensed the anime.

The police comedy centers on female police officer Kawai, who had enough of a career she wasn't even that into. She was about to hand in her resignation, when the unthinkable happened — she met the new, female director of her station! And after spending a little time with this gorgeous role model, Kawai realizes that maybe she isn't quite done being an officer after all.

Yuzo Sato (The Gokusen, Kaiji) is directing the anime at Madhouse, and Ryunosuke Kingetsu (Ninja Nonsense, Samurai Girls) is in charge of the series scripts. Kei Tsuchiya (Laidbackers, Shōnen Hollywood - Holly Stage for 49) is designing the characters.

Singer Riko Azuna is contributing the opening theme song "Shiranakya" (I Gotta Know), and singer nonoc is contributing the opening theme song "Change."

Saiyuki Reload -ZEROIN- is the television anime of the "Even a Worm" arc from Kazuya Minekura's Saiyuki Reload manga. The anime will premiere in January 2022. Muse Malaysia has also licensed the anime.

The anime features a returning cast for the main cast, and new cast members include:

• Kouichi Toochika as Hazel Grouse, a bishop who arrived from the west, and who is critical to the story arc
• Rikiya Koyama as Gatti "Gat" Nenehawk, who works with Hazel
• Houchu Ohtsuka as Ni Jianyi, a Sanzo practitioner with Muten Sutra and a scientist on Gyumaoh's side

Liden Films is animating the project.

Saiyuki, the original 1997 "fantasy road movie" manga series loosely inspired by the Chinese novel Journey to the West (Saiyūki in Japanese), has spawned the Saiyuki Gaiden and Saiyuki Ibun manga spinoffs. The Saiyuki Reload Blast sequel manga launched in Ichijinsha's Comic Zero Sum in 2009, but Minekura slowed down her publication of the manga in 2013 due to her health. The manga franchise as a whole has 25 million copies in circulation worldwide.

The various manga series also inspired four television anime series, an anime film, three original video anime (OVA) series, and several stage musical productions.

The television anime of Shinichi Fukuda's My Dress-Up Darling (Sono Bisque Doll wa Koi wo Suru) manga will premiere in January 2022.

Keisuke Shinohara (Black Fox, A3! Season Spring & Summer) is directing the anime at CloverWorks. Yoriko Tomita (As Miss Beelzebub Likes, Osamake: Romcom Where The Childhood Friend Won't Lose) is in charge of the series scripts. Kazumasa Ishida (Kiznaiver, Saekano the Movie finale character design assistant) is designing the characters and serving as chief animation director. Takeshi Nakatsuka (Magical Girl Ore, Brothers Conflict) is composing the music, and Akiko Fujita is the sound director.

Square Enix Manga & Books publishes the manga in English, and it describes the story:

Traumatized by a childhood incident with a friend who took exception to his love of traditional dolls, doll-artisan hopeful Wakana Gojō passes his days as a loner, finding solace in the home ec room at his high school. To Wakana, people like beautiful Marin Kitagawa, a trendy girl who's always surrounded by a throng of friends, is practically an alien from another world. But when cheerful Marin--never one to be shy--spots Wakana sewing away one day after school, she barges in with the aim of roping her quiet classmate into her secret hobby: cosplay.

The third season of the television anime based on Sōichirō Yamamoto's Teasing Master Takagi-san (Karakai Jōzu no Takagi-san) manga will premiere in January 2022.

The third season will feature a returning staff, including director Hiroaki Akagi at Shin-Ei Animation. Aya Takano is returning as character designer, and scriptwriters Aki Itami, Kanichi Katou, and Hiroko Fukuda are also returning. Yuiko Ōhara will perform the opening theme song.

The first television anime based on the manga premiered within the "Anime no Me" programming block in January 2018, and it also adapted Yamamoto's Ashita wa Doyōbi manga as segments within the show. Animax Asia aired a simulcast of the anime in Southeast Asia.

The second television anime season premiered in July 2019. The season debuted on Netflix in December 2019.

Karakai Jōzu no Takagi-san VR 1&2 Gakki (Teasing Master Takagi-san VR 1st and 2nd Semester), an expanded version of the virtual reality (VR) anime of the manga, launched for the Oculus Quest in December 2020.

The franchise will also have an anime film.

Source: Muse Asia's Facebook page (link 2, link 3, link 4, link 5)