News
Madman Announcements from SMASH! 2015
posted on by Jon Hayward
Madman Entertainment made the announcements on Saturday the 8th of August during their Madman Industry Panel at SMASH! 2015. The announcements were also posted to their website. All four titles will soon be added to AnimeLab and will have a home video release at a to be announced date.
- Amagi Brilliant Park
- Yowamushi Pedal
- Kuroko's Basketball
- To Love-Ru (All Seasons)
Amagi Brilliant Park
Seiya Kanie was literally forced to accept an invitation / date to Amagi Brilliant Park by beautiful transfer student named Isuzu Sento. However Amagi is Japan's most disappointing theme-park and will soon be shut down but after being introduced to the "princess" of the park, Latifah Fleuranza, Seiya discovers that the park is a front for magical fairies from another world. Seiya must now take up the mantle of Park manager in order to stop the park shutting down and save the princess and her people.
Yasuhiro Takemoto (Full Metal Panic!, Lucky Star, Hyōka) directed the anime at Kyoto Animation with series composition handled by Fumihiko Shimo (Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu, Infinite Stratos). AKINO with bless4 (Aquarion themes) performed the opening "Extra Magic Hours." The anime premiered in Japan in October 2014 and ran for 13 episodes.
Sentai Filmworks acquired the anime in April for North America and Crunchyroll started streaming the series from May this year.
Shoji Gatoh (Full Metal Panic!) launched the original light novel series with illustrations by Yuka Nakajima (Listen to Me, Girls. I Am Your Father!/Papa Kiki!) in 2013. Fantasia Bunko published the sixth compiled volume in April. Amagi Brilliant Park has created a spin-off light novel series, Amagi Brilliant Park: Maple Summoner, written by Keishō Yanagawa and published under the same imprint and as of February three volumes have been published.
Yowamushi Pedal
Sakamichi Onada is a timid first-year student at Sohoku High School who just wants to join the anime club, but after two of his classmates discover his hidden talent for cycling Onada quickly ends up joining the cycling club. Onada then must complete gruelling cycling training to compete with his team in competitive racing but will his unmatched otaku enthusiasm be enough to pedal the distance?
Based on Wataru Watanabe's original manga, this 2013 series saw Osamu Nabeshima (D.Gray-man, Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas, Zetman) directing at TMS Entertainment. Reiko Yoshida (Tamako Market, K-ON!, Bakuman.) was in charge of the series scripts while Takahiko Yoshida (Welcome to the NHK, Big Windup!) designed the characters. This series went for 38 episodes and was followed by Yowamushi Pedal Grande Road in 2014 that ran for 24 episodes. The series has since seen two compilation movies, Yowamushi Pedal Re:RIDE in 2014 and Yowamushi Pedal Re:ROAD in 2015 and a 3DS game earlier this year.
Crunchyroll streamed the series as it aired and Discotek Media has licensed the series for North America.
Wataru Watanabe launched the original manga in Akita Shoten's Weekly Shōnen Champion magazine in 2008 and the story already inspired stage plays. 40 collected volumes has been published to date and Yen Press licensed the Manga earlier this year.
© Tadatoshi Fujimaki/SHUEISHA, Team Kuroko
Kuroko's Basketball
Teikō Middle School's legendary basketball team became known as "The Generation of Miracles" but after graduation the five star players went to different high schools with top-ranked basketball teams. When up-and-comer Taiga Kagami returns from America to attend Seirin High School he meets super-plain Tetsuya Kuroko who is so plain he's impossible to see on the court. Buy Taiga soon discovers that Kuroko was the shadowy sixth member of the "Generation of Miracles" and they must now work together to take down Kuroko's former team-mates in the inter-high competition.
Tadatoshi Fujimaki's manga has been running in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine since 2008. Production I.G's television anime adaptation was directed by Shunsuke Tada (The Prince of Tennis, Tsubasa Tokyo Revelations) and Noboru Takagi (Durarara!!, Baccano!) was in charge of the scripts. Yoko Kikuchi (Tsubasa Tokyo Revelations, Noir) designed the characters. The series originally premiered in Japan in April 2012, ran for 26 episodes and was simulcast by Crunchyroll around the world. Two more 25 episode series aired in 2013 and 2015 respectively and season 3 was licensed by Daisuki.
Madman Entertainment is the first company to announce a home video release of Kuroko's Basketball outside of Japan.
To Love-Ru
The story is about Yuuki Rito, a high-school boy who cannot confess to the girl of his dreams, Sairenji Haruna. One day when coming home and sulking in the bath-tub a mysterious, nude girl, appears out of nowhere. Her name is Lala and she comes from the planet Deviluke, where she is the heir to the throne. Her father wants her to return to her home planet so she can marry one of the husband candidates, but she decides that she wants to marry Rito in order to stay on Earth.
To Love-Ru is adapted from Saki Hasemi and Kentaro Yabuki's Weekly Shōnen Jump manga series To Love-Ru -Trouble-. The anime adaptation started in 2008 and ran for 26 episodes, produced at Xebec under the direction of Takao Kato (Zoids, Triage X) and series composition by Akatsuki Yamatoya (Gintama, Heroman). The series was then followed by Motto To Love Ru in 2010 (12 episodes) before the adaptation changed over to the second manga series, To Love Ru: Darkness (TV) in 2012 (12 episodes) and most recently To Love Ru: Darkness (TV 2) which Madman has been simulcasting through AnimeLab.
Kentaro Yabuki (Black Cat) and Saki Hasemi's To Love-Ru -Trouble- was originally published in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump between April 2006 and August 2009 which was collected into 18 volumes. The manga was then continued as To Love-Ru -Trouble- Darkness in Shueisha's Jump Square magazine from October 2010 and to this day has been collected into 12 volumes. 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. Anime on Demand simulcast To Love-Ru Darkness in the UK. Crunchyroll has been simulcasting To Love Ru: Darkness 2 in North America and elsewhere.
Madman Entertainment has now licensed all four TV series and will release them on AnimeLab and later to home video in Australia and New Zealand. We are seeking confirmation from Madman if they will also release the OAV episodes in the future.
