Wakaranai

One of the latest written work to fall victim to an anime adaptations is a shounen light-novel series of the fantasy persuasion. This particular novel series is lucky enough to receive the honour of being adapted by the creative and unpredictable studio Manglobe. I’ve always found Manglobe’s works to be hit and miss (the few anime that they’ve actually produced). Samurai Champloo was a big hit for everyone, Ergo Proxy was a sad miss for me, and Michiko to Hatchin was both hit and miss rolled into the same eclectic package. But when they do get around to doing a series at the very least you can be assured that it will be something different from the standard moe-harem output of the rest of the industry. With that in mind, I’m hesitantly excited about this upcoming series set to air next season. The premise reads as follows:

Several decades from the fierce “Substitute Agreement War” that shook the continent sacrificing great numbers…Cecily Campbell, member of the independent city Hausman’s Order of Self-Defence, is saved by a boy called Luke Ainsworth in her terrible pinch. Luke was a blacksmith from outskirts of the city. Enchanted by the mysterious sword owned by Luke, Cecily asks him to create a new blade for her to replace her broken sword. Little does she know about the twisted fate of the Sacred Sword involving her since the moment she met him.

➡ Read full ‘upcoming’ post for Sacred Blacksmith, including PVs.

➡ EPISODE 04
➡ EPISODE 01

● 21 Sept .. Already starting to fanboy over Cecily it seems. The cover of the new light novel (v. 7) has her in a different outfit. She’s totally cute! I hope she gets different costumes throughout the series ♡! Interestingly, it’s almost identical to Aria’s usual getup. Hmmm…



● 21 Sept .. Mediafactory put up a new CM on their youtube channel. It’s only ~40 seconds like but again it showed a few new bits of animation and also has the OP song, Justice of Light, playing through it. The OP sounds pretty catchy.

● 14 Sept .. AkibaBlog has posted a bunch of screencaps from (presumably) the first episode. This is the best quality glance we’ve had of the series and it’s looking like some good quality stuff from Manglobe. I hope they can maintain a good animation quality with this kind of detail throughout the whole show (unlike Ergo Proxy and Michiko to Hatchin). The battles look promising, and if you clock the image to follow the link you’ll see the red-haired Cecily is looking very sexy as well. She had poise and cuteness - I love her already!



● 5 Sept .. Midonin writes: We have info on the OP and ED themes. Columbia will be handling the music releases, and were thus my source for these.

The OP is “JUSTICE of LIGHT”, by Mayumi Gojo, best known for singing the Futari wa Pretty Cure themes.
The ED is “Miracle Happy Day” by Aki Toyosaki, who’s been everywhere lately.

So, we’re looking at some typical jpop tunes for the OP and ED. I do believe that’s a first for Manglobe. It seems they’ve been assimilated into the otaku industry like everyone else!

● 14 Aug .. The series featured in an anime magazine recently, and the scan has been uploaded. I have to say, that’s some nice background art, and Cecily looks really cool with that strong, determined expression. I hope she turns out to be as great a character as I’m imagining her..



● 14 Aug .. A new PV is out! This one shows off a lot more animation, with a few more expressive character moments and some extended battle scenes. As someone pointed out to be it does seem very ‘gamey’, in that the scenario and battles look like they’re lifted from an RPG. But this doesn’t neccesarily bother me if it can provide entertainment. This new PV shows that, for at leats the first few episodes, this anime will have top notch production qualities. The animation is exceptionally detailed, especially in the monster designs (which also look really cool).