Otaku Review

Hanasakuru Seishounen
aka: 花咲ける青少年
Genre: Romance
Premiere Date: 4/5/09
Studio: Studio Pierrot
Official Website

Story

Originally a manga from the 80’s and early 90’s, ‘Hanasakeru Seishōnen’ tells the story of a half Japanese heiress who has started high school for the first time in the United States. While attending school, she’ll meet new people and get caught up in a plot involving oil and wealth.

Artwork

While no animation from the series has managed to make its way onto the interwebs, the character designs that I’ve seen so far aren’t leading me into optimistic territory.

Early Impressions

With little to go off of, I’m going to be walking to this series with a blind eye and open mind. While the romantic story of a Japanese heiress suddenly going to school in the US doesn’t really sound like something that I would get into, I’ve been known to get into (and enjoy!) stories that are far more ridiculous or overly dramatic than that. In defense of this series however, quite a few names have been attached to this project that will make it an aural treat for fans such as Aya Endo (Kajika Burnsworth), Daisuke Ono (Eugene) and Jun Fukuyama (Carl).

Sanrio and Sega revealed (via Famitsu Magazine) at the Tokyo Toy Forum that the ‘JewelPet’ line will be getting an anime series. The ‘JewelPet’ line are toys in the form of impossibly cute animals all named after various jewels. The toys are aimed at young girl in Japan who can access a special website with a code included in each toy. I’m not really sure what the girls do after going to the website (since as AnimeVice points out, you can’t actually look at the website unless you’ve bought one of the toys). No further details have been released as of yet.

In a quick and unrelated note, the official website for the upcoming series ‘Hanasakeru Seishonen’ has opened. The TV series will be adapting the manga of the same name first serialized in the late 80’s to early 90’s in LaLa. So far only a couple of names have been revealed as attached to the project including seiyuu Aya Endo (‘Lucky Star’, ‘Sora Kake Girl’) in the role of Kajika Burnsworth and Chiaki Kon (‘Higurashi’, ‘Nodame Cantabile: Paris’) as director. The Studio Pierrot series will air in April ’09.