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Kaitō Reinya Manga Gets Anime Green-Lit for January
posted on by Egan Loo
The KDDI telecommunications company has announced that it, the Kadokawa Group, and the Upfront Group are producing a series of 12 anime shorts based on the Kaitō Reinya "nonsensical comedy" manga for a January 9 premiere. Reina Tanaka (standing in the center in the photograph below), a member of Hello Project's girl band Morning Musume, serves as the inspiration for the main character Reinya, a thief that is the stuff of urban legends. The four-panel manga runs in Kadokawa Shoten's Weekly The Television, Monthly The Television, Newtype, Comptiq, and Monthly Shōnen Ace magazines.
Tanaka (Onegai My Melody Kirara's title character) will play Reinya, a girl who wears a signboard for the Faminya convenience store near a police station by day. By night, she is a whimsical thief chased by bumbling police officers, led by the handsome Keiji-san ("Detective," Kousuke Okano) and the cool Keibu-san ("Inspector," Sō Yōki). Joining Reinya on her escapades is her trusty assistant, the mouse Chūtarō (Okano).
Takahiro Yoshimatsu (a.k.a. "Something Yoshimatsu," standing to the right in the photograph) was the character designer and animation director of Slayers and Trigun before becoming the chief director and storyboarder of Kaitō Reinya. Technical director Hideaki Iwami and the animator "Mr. A" are working at the Stringray animation studio with UP-FRONT STYLE, the entertainment agency that conceived of the story. Kenichi Kanemaki (Negima!?, Hell Girl franchise) is supervising the series scripts, and Fullmetal Alchemist and Mobile Suit Gundam 00 director Seiji Mizushima (standing to the left in the photograph) is serving as the sound director.
The anime will premiere on the KBC channel in Japan's Kyūshū area and then run on KDDI's LISMO Video Store/Movie Splash service for mobile phones.
Images © Kaitō Reinya Production Committee
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