The software developer Ryukishi07 (Seventh Expansion) revealed on Wednesday that the Higurashi no Naku Koro ni franchise's first video anime series, the Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei collection of side stories, will begin shipping on December 26 on DVD and one month later on Blu-ray Disc in Japan. The first of five volumes, "Hajisarashi," will be a gag story set in the municipal swimming pool. The next three volumes, which will be the "Saikoroshi" arc, will be a serious drama involving one of the story's heroines after the resolution of the two previous television series. This arc will be released between February and June of next year. The final volume, "Hirukowashi" on August of 2009, will be a slapstick romantic comedy based on a novel spinoff from the Higurashi Daybreak game, which is being ported to the PSP.
Toshifumi Kawase, the series supervisor of the previous anime versions of Higurashi, will direct the new series with new character designs from Kazuya Kuroda (Chrono Crusade, Vandread, Spice and Wolf). Kenji Kawai will return to compose the music. Funimation has taken over North American distribution of the first Higurashi television series from Geneon Entertainment, but no announcement has been made yet of future Higurashi anime licenses in the region.
The Rei anime announcement and the earlier Umineko no Naku Koro ni anime announcement was not apparently affected by media reports of links between Higurashi manga and a recent stabbing death. On Sunday, police in Japan's Kawaguchi City reportedly confiscated mystery novels and manga, including those based on the Higurashi no Naku Koro ni games, in the room of the 15-year-old girl accused of stabbing her 46-year-old father to death the day before. The third-year middle school girl, her father, her 49-year-old mother, and her 12-year-old brother lived in an apartment in this city in Saitama Prefecture, west of Tokyo.
Source: Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web, Famitsu, FNN, Yomiuri
Reply
