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Moetan English-Teaching Anime to Air in July in Japan

Moetan, a series of quirky manga-inspired guides for otaku learning English, will debut as an anime series in July of 2007. The Sansai Books line teaches English words with the help of a magical girl named Ink-chan and examples drawn from anime and otaku culture. Typical example sentences include Fist of the North Star's "You are already dead," and "What time do you leave for Comiket?"

The title Moetan originally stood for "Moeru Ei-Tango" or "Moe English Vocabulary," but it has also been redefined as "Methodology of English, The Academic Necessity." The four Moetan books have sold over 400,000 copies and spawned an artbook, a comic, two listening CDs, and Moetan Online, a teaching tool on mobile phones. They have already been translated as Korean-English guides (under the name Sassy English Vocabulary) and Chinese-English guides.

Keiichiro Kawaguchi (Hayate the Combat Butler) will direct the animators at Actas (Tales of Phantasia) on the television series. ToHeart2's character designer and chief animation director Kiminori Nishio will adapt the characters that the artist known as POP drew in the original books. To-Love-Ru -Trouble- manga author Saki Hasemi will oversee the scripts and write several of her own. The anime will reunite the listening CDs' voice cast, including Yūji Ueda as the high school otaku Nao-kun, Yukari Tamura as the magical girl helper Ink-chan, and Masaya Onosaka as the magical duck nicknamed Ah-kun.

Source: Moon Phase