Wakaranai

I have to admit it’s been some time since I’ve been excited about a CLAMP project. As far as I’m concerned Cardcaptor Sakura is *the* crowning achievement of the magical girl genre and features some of the best character designs in an anime (especially Sakura herself). Since then CLAMP have written some intriguing stories such as XxxHolic, but haven’t recaptured that magic. Their anime adaptations have been fairly unappealing. I definitely am not a fan of Tsubasa Chronicles, nor the way that CLAMP’s designs have increasingly been of the “noodle-people” style. I found their design work on Code Geass was especially underwhelming. However this new anime project has some potential.

Currently scheduled for 2009, Kobato is an anime adaptation of a recent CLAMP series of the same name. The tone of the manga is cute and fun and could be described as magical girl with a bit of a seinen slant to it (given that it was originally published in a seining magazine). The most endearing aspect of Kobato is the exceptional character designs and the cute costume designs. The plot is simplistic but has the potential to develop into a charming tale with a sweet heroine and maybe some affecting romance.

Kobato is sweet and perky girl, but also extremely naive about the world around her. She has a “mission”, which is to fill a mysterious bottle of hers with the suffering from people’s hearts so her wish to go a certain place that she desires to go can be granted. However, she has a restriction, she is not allowed to fall in love with any person whom she heals the heart of. (wikipedia)

With studio Madhouse behind it, as well as some high-potential staff, this could turn out very well. The animation quality, artistic direction and general production is crucial to turn a premise like this into something captivating.

Staff:
Original Creator: CLAMP (Kobato, Wish)
Director: Mitsuyuki Masuhara
Series Supervision: Morio Asaka
Series Composition: Michiko Yokote / Nanase Ohkawa
Scenario: Mamiko Ikeda / Miharu Hirami / Reiko Yoshida / Tsutomu Mizushima / Yuka Yamada
Character Design: Hiromi Kato
Animation Director: Satoshi Tazaki
Color Design: Harue Ono
Art Director: Hideyuki Ueno
Director of Photography: Kouhei Tanada
Editing: Kashiko Kimura
Sound Directer: Masafumi Mima / Toshihiko Nakajima
Music: Takeshi Hama
Production music: FlyingDog, Inc.
Animation Production: Madhouse Studios

Thanks to Shiroth posting on animesuki.

Apparently, this latest hit of news from Newtype also clarifies that it’s going to be a crossover of an earlier CLAMP title, Wish and Kobato (according to Shiroth). On the one hand I’m a bit relieved because, having read a bit of the Kobato manga, the light story didn’t seem enough to extract an anime from (especially not a 24-ep series!). But I’m getting a bit sceptical of CLAMPs incessant crossovers. I’d rather something totally new and standalone than another addition to CLAMP’s franchise. The director has been involved on some high quality series in an episode director or assistant director capacity (Paradise Kiss, Abenobashi, and cult classic Tokyo Tribe 2) but this appears to be his first full-on shot at being the overall director. First-timers in the director’s chair always intrigue me, so I look forward to seeing what he can do with this.

Satoshi Tazaki’s involvement as animation director has also got my attention because he was the chief animation director behind the visually impressive ‘Rideback’. That show didn’t go down too well but I liked it a lot, and was consistently impressed by the quality of the animation production. Hiromi Kato is doing the character designs, and she should already be familiar with drawing Kobato for ‘CLAMP in Wonderland 2’. She gave some good comments about the designs for this series:

“Kobato. itself is kind of different from past CLAMP works, specially the way the eyes are drawn, we are trying to make it as close as we can to the original. The costumes will change in each episode.”

Mmmm .. new costumes each episode, it’s like going back to the days of CCS or Uta Kata! Here’s hoping for some costumes that might at least rival some of Sakura’s. They’ll never beat her “Platina” costume, or her pink-black nekomimi one. I owe a lot to Tomoyo! Ultimately, I can’t say I’m thrilled by this announcement but I am intrigued by it and I’m really hoping it will turn out well.

Updates

● 11 Sept .. Sirn writes: Edit: Another piece of new from the official site. Megumi Nakajima will be voicing the twins, Chiho Mihara and Chise Mihara. Nakajima is also singing the ED for the series. // Yay! I was pretty fond of her as Ranka in Macross Frontier (until Ranka became an annoying tool), and I haven’t heard her in anything since. Ranka twins !!

● 21 Sept .. A short but sweet trailer finally popped up for Kobato. The art looks very high quality, with a warm colour palette and very detailed and attractive character designs. I’m now sure that Kobato is the best character design CLAMP has done since their sublime work on Sakura (CCS, not Tsubasa), both in manga form and in anime form. We also get to here Kana Hanazawa go at it as Kobato herself. A lot of people commented on her portrayal of the air-headed and sweet Kobato, suggesting that she’s perhaps leaning too much towards the ‘genki girl’ approach. I disagree. Admittedly, I haven’t read much of the manga, but I think Kana really nailed the character with this; she has charisma and charm but you can still detect the required hint of air-headedness! Either way, she’s so cute! I can’t wait to hear her as the new Darker than Black girl, because from what I’ve seen of her she has a real ability to make each of her characters have a really distinct voice. It’ll be interesting to directly compare her two roles next season and see just how much individuality she can imbue them with.

● 21 Sept .. Maaya Sakamoto previewed the full-length OP song recently. I have to say, it’s not all that grabbing, but with Maaya Sakamoto’s amazing voice, it’s pleasant enough!

● 23 Sept .. It seems a TV station aired a lengthy promotional spot for Kobato, which briefly highlights CLAMP’s past (Cardcaptor Sakura and Tsubasa Chronicles) before giving us the best look at the show we’ve seen thus far. Once again, I have to say I like Kana Hanazawa as Kobato, and her irate animal mascot, Iroyogi also sounds awesome. Warning: the narration voice is pretty annoying!