Guillotine

A TV ad has run in Japan for the March issue of Kadokawa’s Newtype magazine, and according to the cover (from what others are saying since I haven’t learned to read Japanese quite yet) the new Suzumiya Haruhi anime series will premiere in April, and that there will be interviews and details on the upcoming season. There is also an interview with “Brigade Leader’s Assistant” Yasuhiro Takemoto who directed the first season.

Interestingly the new season will run in Japan at the same time the first of the translated light novels goes on sale here in the US. That coupled with the March release of the Suzumiya Haruhi Chan 4 panel comic and the additional upcoming releases of the 2nd and 3rd volumes of the manga (in the US) pretty much assures that there will be Haruhi everywhere we look in 2009.

The issue of Newtype containing the announcement will ship on February 10. No further details about the series have been reported at this time, but according to rumors that have been floating around the internet (some started by Kadokawa and Kyoto Animation themselves) since Christmas of 2007 the new series may be based on “The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi” Which is the 4th volume in the light novels series by Nagaru Tanigawa who originally created the stories and characters of the “Suzumiya Universe”.

Maybe too soon to say this is probably the biggest anime related announcement of the year, but it will definitely be hard to top.

P.S. I may have to score a copy of this issue for myself to frame because of the awesome Nagato cover.

Update: According to a follow up article on Anime News Network it is said that a PR representative of Kadokawa-Shoten has stated that the April running of Haruhi Suzumiya will be a re-run of the first season, and that they are not announcing a new season at this time. Well… I guess we’ll all have to wait until the March issue ships to know if that is true or not. We’ve possibly fallen prey to yet another false rumor of a second season of Haruhi.

Here is the ad:

Hmmm… Still wondering why they included a picture from The Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi in there. Maybe Kadokawa is having a bit of fun with us?