Upcoming Japanese Anime TV Series

Anime News Network has learned that a third television series (following the 52 episode TV series and Taihou Shichaouzo Special) based on Kosuke Fujishima’s You’re Under Arrest manga is being produced for a spring premier on Japan’s TBS network. The You’re Under Arrest movie will have it’s debut TV broadcast on TBS on December 30th.

The Gaming Intelligence Agency reveals that an anime series based on the upcoming PlayStation2 game Zone of Enders, by Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima, is currently is in the planning stages. The production staff of the game included such names as Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear series, Snatcher) as producer, Noriaki Okamura (Tokimeki Memorial) as director, and Nobuyoshi Nishimura (Gundam X) as character designer. The game story is the well known one of an angst filled teen (in this case, 14 year old Leo) who is brought by destiny to pilot a giant robot. Living on a Jupiter colony he is caught in an attack on the colony by the “Enders,” and stumbles across an abandoned mech.

And according to Anime News Service Bandai Visual of Japan is at work on an upcoming TV anime titled Earth Defense Family, described as an Earthbound comedy with sci-fi elements. The series focuses on a postmodern, somewhat typical Japanese family living in a Chiba Prefecture apartment house. A salaryman computer programmer dad grapples with the collapse of the family home structure and possible divorce when a mysterious fax is received reading “Defend The Earth,” and subsequently a mysterious object crash lands nearby. Broadcast starts on scrambled WoWoW January 9th. Directing is Satoshi Kimura.