Shinichiro Watanabe and MAPPA Team Up!

[caption id="attachment_6769" align="aligncenter" width="567"] Image courtesy of Deculture.es[/caption]

You read it correctly. Shinichiro Watanabe, the man who has brought us brilliant anime such as Samurai Champloo, Cowboy Bebop and most recently Sakamichi no Apollon will be bringing out another anime with the studio MAPPA.

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This newly formed team-up doesn't come as much of a surprise after the airing of Sakamichi no Apollon in the Spring season, but there is one noticeable difference: this time round Watanabe will be making an original anime. Needless to say this is great news!

Shinichiro Watanabe-sensei has been great in pretty much everything he's directed, but original anime's are more perfect for him than adaptations. Don't get me wrong, Sakamichi no Apollon was great but you could feel the awkward pacing at times created by the 12 episode restriction. Can you imagine properly squeezing in 8 volumes of manga into just 12 episodes Hard task indeed, but with an original series that can all be avoided.

As for our good friends at MAPPA, there are some mixed feelings. Why would they willingly follow up their debut series, that aired in the noitaminA slot, with a anime shorts adaptation of Teekyu Honestly this move is ridiculous and you'd expect the new studio being headed by the former top dog at MADHOUSE to bring out something that can be semi-decent.

There was not much else about the project - even the projected broadcast timeframe wasn't disclosed - so all that is left is to wait and see.