Manga and anime quartet CLAMP and musician GACKT have combined to bring an original work to life next year. In July 2012, GACKT will star in a theatre play called ‘MOON SAGA Yoshitsune Hiden’ (‘MOON SAGA: The Secret of Yoshitsune’). It’s scheduled to run for one and a half months from July 15th to August 26th, 2012.

GACKT will play the lead role of “Minamoto no Yoshitsune”, a character based off the general of the Minamoto clan during the Heien and Kamakura eras. Not much else has been revealed regarding the story specifics.

In addition to the theater production, a manga series is also being planned by publisher Kondansha. CLAMP is also hopeful to release anime, game, film, and other other projects revolving around “MOON SAGA”.

Source:

MOON SAGA Official website

CLAMP-NET

GACKT Official web

Oricon manga rankings for the week of September 5th – 11th have the top 7 keeping their places from the previous week so that means Ao no (Blue) Exorcist and Gintama keep their #1 and #2 places respectively. Three new releases round out the top 10.

Top 10 Manga

1. Ao no (Blue) Exorcist #7 170,244 (601,837)
2. Gintama #41 137,427 (319,936)
3. Toriko #16 120,637 (274,848)
4. Nurarihyou no Mago (Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan) #18 111,762 (252,947)
5. Shin Tennis no Ouji-sama (Prince of Tennis) #6 108,446 (246,538)
6. SKET DANCE #20 79,795 (179,664)
7. Beezelbub #13 77,690 (174,866)
8. Babysitters School #4 74,740
9. Akagami no Shirayukihime (Red-haired Snow White) #6  73,506
10. Library Wars: Love & War #8 66,518

Source: Oricon
Images © Shonen Jump (Shueisha)

Summer anime season is fast approaching with what looks to be a great line-up of shows. Some returning friends and a solid group of popular game, manga, and light novel adaptions. Studio GONZO is back for its first anime in 2 years as well as BONES and Production I.G. with highly anticipated shows.  Summaries and similcast links follow on the jump.

Natsume’s Book of Friends, last seen in 2009, is back for a third season and Crunchyroll is similcasting it to go along with seasons 1 & 2 that are available on Crunchyroll. Also a “3” is the a third adaption of Blood, Blood-C coming from studio CLAMP, Production I.G. with creative talents from both previous adaptions (Blood: the last vampire, Blood+) leading this new adaption. Catch Blood-C on NicoNico.com. Another 3 is also a third adaption, Appleseed XIII, which was previously list back in Spring but is on a Summer anime release schedule (its an unique release read the details for more).

Crunchyroll will similcast 13 Summer shows (recently added Moritasan and Idolmaster), Japanese Youtube-like site NicoNico has launched an English site: NicoNico.com and announced 6 similcast shows (though 4 cross with Crunchyroll), Hulu will pickup the second season of shows they streamed season 1 (Baka and Test, Nura Rise of the Yokai Clan), and The Anime Network (TAN) has announced it will similcast 3 shows (Ikokumeiro, Kami-memo, and Ro-kyo-bu). More details and links in the show summaries that follow after the jump. 

Check back for more similcast updates.

All shows summarized after the jump.

Updated 07/22/2011 – More similcast updates from Crunchyroll and TAN

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Spring season is well underway with an excellent line-up of new shows, continuing shows from Winter, and popular returners. Summaries, info and similcast links follow.

Back in full parfait and mayo force after a year hiatus is prime-time comedy/action anime Gintama, it re-starts at episode 202. Winter season’s Gosick, Beezelbub, and Cardfight Vangard continue their 24 (or longer) episode runs while this past Fall’s hit, The World God Only Knows, is back for another 12 episode run. CLAMP’s Maria Holic (2009) anime is back with a long awaited second 12 episode run with Maria Holic Alive. Among the 30 new shows many look quite promising, C – Control and Blue Exorcist come with hype and high expectations, while Tiger & Bunny and Hanasaku get the nod for this season’s sleeper hits. 

Lots of similcast, thankfully, compared to last spring which had ridiculously few. Crunchyroll has 14 of the new shows similcast (plus the 3 continuations from Winter), Hulu/Funimation will stream 4, and TAN winds up with 1. That an awesome 19 of the 30 new shows plus 6 ongoing shows similcast within 1hr to 1week of the Japanese broadcast.

All shows summarized after the jump.

Updated 04/25/2011 – more simulcast info

C – The Money of Soul and Possibility of Control (Official Japanese website) 
C – Control (Office English website) 
FujiTV , April 14th at  (JST)
Studio: Noitamina
Episodes: 11
Action, Shonen, Game, Money

Opening Theme: "Matoryoshika" by NICO Touches the Walls
Ending Theme: "RPG" by School Food Punishment

Similcast: Hulu starting April 14th

Summary: The Japanese government was near the brink of financial collapse when a mysterious group -  the Sovereign Wealth Fund – bailed out the country. For ordinary citizens though life has not improved; unemployment, crime, suicide, and despair are rampant. Kimimaro, raised by his grandmother is an economics student whose only dream is to live a normal and stable life. But one day he meets a man who offers to lend him a large sum of money using his future abilities as collateral and with the only catch that he agrees to pay it back. This draws Kimimaro into the mysterious realm known as "The Financial District" and he must battle through trading and investing to stay afloat and avoid losing everything.

Anime News Network info page

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Winter anime season is upon us with a bevy (17) of new shows. Summaries and links for info and similcast follow. Overall a good quality line-up of shows for a Winter season and a pretty good number of shows too. Only 2 of the shows are 2nd seasons (Mitsudomoe and Kimi ni Todoke) compared to this past Fall season which seem to be mostly additional seasons of previous shows.

Nine of the shows will be similcast on Crunchyroll and recently announced 2 (Fractale, Freezing) will be similcast on Hulu/Funimation, and Infinite Stratos will be shown on The Anime Network. That makes 12 of the 17 being shown, legally, within 1hr to 1week of the Japanese broadcast.

All shows summarized after the jump.

Updated 04/25/2011 – more simulcast info

Beelzebub (Official website) 
YTV, Sunday, January 9 at 7:00 a.m. Japan Standard Time (JST)
Studio: Pierrot
Episodes: 12
Action, Shonen, Demon

Opening Theme: "Dadada" by Group Tamashii
Ending Theme: "Answer" by no3b

Similcast: Crunchyroll starting Jan 8th (Saturdays 4:00pm PST)

Summary: Oga Tatsumi is a first year student at “Ishiyama High”, the high school for delinquents. One day while sleeping next to a river he sees a man floating down it, he pulls him to shore and the man splits in half revealing a baby boy. The baby is the choose son of the demon king and Tatusmi has been chosen as the one to raise it with the baby’s demon maid Hilda. Definitely a new twist on the typical High School coming of age story.

Anime News Network info page

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