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Feline Character Neko Pitcher Gets TV Anime Shorts
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
BS Nippon Corporation announced on Thursday that it will air a series of two-minute anime shorts based on Kenji Sonishi's (Neko Ramen) Neko Pitcher manga. The manga itself runs in Yomiuri Shimbun's Sunday edition newspaper. The television anime series will air on Saturday nights starting May 3 within BS Nippon TV's ~Onedari Entame!~ Hapi★Pure news program.
Artist and illustrator Maho Shimao and actor and musician Tomu Miyazaki will voice roles in the series.
The "23-panel" baseball manga revolves around the first professional cat pitcher Miitarō, who plays for the "Nyiants." Miitarō has a great but unusual playing style distinctive of cats: he dozes off on the pitcher's mound and uses the bat to sharpen his claws. Sonishi launched the manga in April 2013, and Chuokoron-Shinsha published the first compiled volume on February 10. The manga has more than 200,000 copies in print. The franchise has also spawned stuffed toys and other character goods.
Tokyopop published four volumes of Sonishi's six-volume Neko Ramen manga, which ran from 2004-2012. The manga inspired a television anime adaptation in 2006-2007.
Source: Yomiuri Online
