Welcome, all to another new series I’m starting on this blog: This Week in Anime. Here I’ll be keeping you up to date on important, interesting or crazy Anime related news. Since I am in my high school newspaper, I thought I would put my journalistic disposition to use and help keep you all updated on whats happening, just in case there was anything you missed.

Kyoto Animation Announces Their Next Series

Just as quickly as they have been promoting their new show Violet Evergarden, fan favorite anime studio Kyoto Animation has already released the title of their next series. Tsurune will focus on a high school freshman named Minato who, after having given it up in middle school, decides to once again pick up archery after an incident at one of the club’s practice. The novel that the book was based on was written by Kotoko Ano and was illustrated by Kyoto Animation key animator Chinatsu Morimoto. There is currently no set release date for the TV anime.

The Anime Industry Just Set a New Record

The anime industry has seen a large amount of growth over the past years, mainly do the opening and expanding markets in both North America and China because of access to streaming services like Crunchyroll and Billi Billi. That market expansion led the industry to a new milestone of being worth over 2 trillion Yen, roughly 17.5 billion U.S. dollars. That information came from The Association of Japanese Animators yearly 2017 report, which showed the industry grew nine percent last year from 1.83 trillion in 2016. The gaming industry, by comparison, is expected to reach  100 billion dollars by the end of this year due in large party to expansions in PC and mobile games.

Funimation Announces the Cast for The Ancient Magus Bride

On Tuesday, Funimation announced the cast of the highly anticipated The Ancient Magus Bride. For the main cast, Dani Chambers will be playing Chise and Brian Mathis will be cast as Elias Ainsworth. Chambers has relatively few credits as a voice actor, aside from a few video game jobs. Mathis, on the other, has had a quite a few anime-related roles, including Bacchus in Rage of Bahamut: Genesis(2016) and Macao in Fairytail(2011). They will be joined by Garret Storms playing Seth Noel, Rachel Glass voicing Silver lady and Tia Ballard as Jade.

Yasuhiro Irie starts Kickstarter Campaign for “Halloween Pajama in Seattle.”

Director Yasuhiro Irie of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood fame recently launched an ambitious project on Kickstarter: to turn his own manga into an anime. Irie talks on his Kickstarter page about the passion he had for drawing manga, saying ” To me, as an artist who normally works with animation, drawing manga was a fun and exciting experience.” This project would include turning a chapter from his own manga, Halloween Pajama, into a 20 minute special with an opening and ending. This wouldn’t be any anime special, as he further describes on his page, “..the most significant change will be that the anime will be a musical!” The project has already gathered around 30,000 of its 175,000 dollar goal, with over a month still left in the campaign. If all goes well for Irie, this could be something unique and enjoyable.