Bones to animate Natsumi Itsuki's manga Jyu-Oh-Sei (now with summary)

[Aiia]

According to MoonPhase and Hakusensha webpage as well as the latest issue of LaLa, Natsumi Itsuki's (known for Yakumo Tatsu aka Eight Clouds) Science Fiction manga Jyu-Oh-Sei will be animated by studio Bones and broadcasted by Fuji Television etc. The manga was published in LaLa and Melody. LaLa is a shoujo magazine and Melody is josei.

I think this is correct:

Original work: Natsumi Itsuki
Director: Hiroshi Nishikiori
Character design: Hiroshi Osaka
Script: Natsuko Takahashi, Reiko Yoshida
Animation studio: Bones

I think this could be good. I own the manga and recommend it.

Update:

Ok, here's an introduction. This is all stuff from the first 3-4 chapters or so (in a 5 volume manga) so its sort of the set up for the whole story. Quite complicated compared to the other LaLa shoujo manga project Bones are doing. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

The manga takes place long into the future, where humanity has spread out on colonies in space. For a long time, they lost contact with their mother planet, Earth, but now it is possible to travel there again. But only people from the top colonies may do that. Touru and Rei are identical twins, and the children to the leader of the colony federation. They attend the best schools, have a bright future ahead of them and know nothing about the harsh reality out there.

One day their father and mother are brutally murdered, and the twins themselves are taken aboard a spaceship. Touru wakes up before his brother, and hears from the pilot that their murdered father fell victim to his closest friend's ambitions. He and his brother Rei are to be deported to the top-secret planet Chimaera. Since death penalty is forbidden, people charged with death penalty has been deported to this hidden planet for over a hundred years.

At Chimaera, the planet of the Beast King, you have to survive the dangers and join one of the 3 "Rings", societies, in order to survive. The rings are seperated by skin colour, reflecting the harsh climate back from the colonies and planets that the deported prisoners come from. The one who survives until they are 30 will get a chance to return to society. Girls are few but quite tough and have quite an amount of power. It soon becomes obious that Rei is too weak to survive on Chimaera, but Touru struggles to protect his twin as they move between different societies on the planet.

[Lego]

Hmm, Bones does do good work. Can you tell us what the plot of the manga is?

[BluWacky]

Hiroshi Nishikori directing? Having seen what the man can do on a limited budget (this is the guy behind Utena, Melody of Oblivion, Azumanga Daioh and Oku-sama wa Mahou Shoujo, who turns a lack of finances into something very interesting on a regular basis) I can't imagine what he'd do with a Bones team behind him. Is the manga a bit brain-melty like Utena and MoO? If so, I'm VERY stoked for this one.

Also looking at the scriptwriters, Reiko Yoshida is becoming one of my favourite writers out there (she was in charge of scripting on Kaleido Star) and has collaborated frequently with Natsuko Takahashi, most recently on the surprisingly well written Sugar Sugar Rune and School Rumble; seeing Takahashi's name attached to Gankutsuou and Fullmetal Alchemist also bodes well for the writing!

Having had a look at the covers on Amazon Japan, it looks very wispy and josei-ish. Me likey a LOT. It seems Bones is going a bit shoujo-mad at the moment, what with Ouran High School Host Club in April and this forthcoming - I'm very much looking forward to all this, especially after having been slightly disappointed with Eureka 7.

[Aiia]

Its interesting to note that Itsuki-sensei had help from some animators for the technical designs etc in this manga. So it should be fun (and easy?) for the animators to work on. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

I couldn't find any reviews online to link to and I'm too lazy to write one now but I'll try to describe the general storyline later.

[harrywang]

Seriously, what the hell is BONES doing animating TWO shoujo series?

[Suwako Moriya]

[ QUOTE ]
harrywang said:Seriously, what the hell is BONES doing animating TWO shoujo series?

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe just maybe BONES is trying to branch out or perhaps they believe in variety. I personally don't care either way. I've given up on the Shoujo/Shounen thing. Heck I've decided these are the only genres.

A: Series I like
B: Series dislike
C: Series I have not watched at all yet.

As for which Juyu-Oh-Sei will fall under for me. I have not decided that yet. I'll worry about it later on when the show starts to air or whatever.

[Dagger]

[ QUOTE ]
harrywang said:
Seriously, what the hell is BONES doing animating TWO shoujo series?

[/ QUOTE ]
What, are they forbidden to animate shoujo or something? /images/graemlins/sweat000.gif

[Suwako Moriya]

[ QUOTE ]
Dagger said:What, are they forbidden to animate shoujo or something? /images/graemlins/sweat000.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Tell me about it. Either way I think of it this way. If the anime is made then people have a choice between watching the anime or not watching it. If the anime is never made then those who want to see an anime version are out of luck.

[Chiyosuke]

[ QUOTE ]
BluWacky said:
Hiroshi Nishikori directing? Having seen what the man can do on a limited budget (this is the guy behind Utena, Melody of Oblivion, Azumanga Daioh and Oku-sama wa Mahou Shoujo, who turns a lack of finances into something very interesting on a regular basis) I can't imagine what he'd do with a Bones team behind him. Is the manga a bit brain-melty like Utena and MoO? If so, I'm VERY stoked for this one.

[/ QUOTE ]

Um, Ikuhara did Utena, not Nishikiori /images/graemlins/sweat000.gif. But I have to agree, Nishikiori has done good work whether the budget is limited or not (I doubt some of of these were limited with 4, 5, or 6 companies backing the production --Azudai, Oku-sama, MoO and Gadguard for instance).

[Sandrylina]

Hm...I've liked what little I've come across of Natsumi Itsuki's work and would love to see her manga over here...so this might interest me as well. I'll be waiting on that story summary. /images/graemlins/catgirl0.gif

-Sandrylina-

[Aiia]

Updated the original post with story summary, taken from the first half or so of book 1 (of 5).

In the latest issue of LaLa there was character designs for the main characters and it looks quite similar to the manga designs from the short look I had at it in the book store. I hope that this is a 24 or 26-episode series, there is certainly story enough for it. 13 episodes would be a bit too short. I'm looking forward to seeing some official art and more information about the series. /images/graemlins/catgirl0.gif

[ibby]

[ QUOTE ]
BluWacky said:
Hiroshi Nishikori directing? Having seen what the man can do on a limited budget (this is the guy behind Utena, Melody of Oblivion, Azumanga Daioh and Oku-sama wa Mahou Shoujo, who turns a lack of finances into something very interesting on a regular basis) I can't imagine what he'd do with a Bones team behind him. Is the manga a bit brain-melty like Utena and MoO? If so, I'm VERY stoked for this one.

Also looking at the scriptwriters, Reiko Yoshida is becoming one of my favourite writers out there (she was in charge of scripting on Kaleido Star) and has collaborated frequently with Natsuko Takahashi, most recently on the surprisingly well written Sugar Sugar Rune and School Rumble; seeing Takahashi's name attached to Gankutsuou and Fullmetal Alchemist also bodes well for the writing!

[/ QUOTE ]

As I quite enjoyed Utena and Melody, and having quite strong scriptwriters I'm looking foward to this.

[Aiia]

According to the author, Natsumi Itsuki's, homepage (http://ina-inc.jp/top/index.php), Jyu-Oh-Sei will be 11 episodes long.

I was hoping for longer but I guess a short series is nice once in a while.

[Fort Max]

This sounds interesting, sci-fi + Bones is a great match & the director sounds good as well.

[Rogueman_8]

bones updated their site w/ some artwork of the charas from the show.

link (http://www.bones.co.jp/news/archives/000051.html)

[Aiia]

[ QUOTE ]
Rogueman_8 said:
bones updated their site w/ some artwork of the charas from the show.

link (http://www.bones.co.jp/news/archives/000051.html)

[/ QUOTE ]

Great. This saves me from having to buy LaLa and scan the pictures in there. On the left is "Third" (his real name is unknown in the manga) and on the right is Tohru, one of the twins. I'd love to see some designs of <span style='color:#dddddd;background:#dddddd'> the characters as they get older </span>.

[Rogueman_8]

the official site (http://www.hakusensha.co.jp/jyu_ohsei/index.html) is finally opened for this april anime. you can see more of the anime designed characters now.

[Aiia]

I thought it would be a good idea to post the official anime HP link (http://jyu-oh-sei.com/) in this thread as well.
Very good picture of Tohru as he's grown up a bit.

Some of the cast has been posted:

Tohru (as a child): Minami Takayama (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=845)
Tohru (as adult): Kouichi Doumoto (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=53867) (also intro song: he seems to be a member of Kinki Kids /images/graemlins/depresse.gif)
Third (I've seen this romanized as "Saado" but that's just the phonetic pronounciation of "Third"): Shun Oguri (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=18009)
Zagi: Kazuya Nakai (Zoro!!) (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=551)
Tiz: Nana Mizuki (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=436)
Chen: Rica Fukami (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/people.php?id=3926)

Intro song: Deep in your heart Artist: Kouichi Domoto
Outro Song: Younha (Known for singing the Bleach intro)

edit: Bones also updated their homepage (http://www.bones.co.jp/index2.html) with some art from Jyu-Oh-Sei.