I keep saying this, but I am joyful over the string of original story anime series we’ve been getting this decade. I am also pleased to see that this trend is going to continue in 2023. While I understand that not every one of these original stories is going to be incredible, the ones that do work will probably make up for the ones that fail. We’ve already talked about one of the other original story series that was recently announced for January, Buddy Daddies, now we’re going to talk about another that seems to skew in the opposite direction in terms of tone, Kaina of the Great Snow Sea (Japanese title: Ōyukiumi no Kaina).
Scheduled for a January 11th, 2023 premiere, Kaina of the Great Snow Sea recently released a brand new promotional video to introduce lots of adventure themes, theme songs, and a solid look at the characters.
The story for Kaina of the Great Snow Sea is credited to the creator of the manga series Knights of Sidonia, Tsutomu Nihei. Polygon Pictures is producing the animation for this series with Hiroaki Ando as the director while Sadayuki Murai handles the series composition. The actual scripts are being penned by Murai and Tetsuya Yamada. Finally, the team of Kohta Yamamoto and Misaki Umase are composing the background music. Speaking of the music, if you’re wondering about the theme songs featured in the promotional video, the opening theme song performed by Yorshka is titled Telepath while the ending theme is Juvenile by the band GreeeN.
The series has already been announced for a worldwide (outside Asia) online premiere on Crunchyroll. It’s worth noting that this is the second series to come out of a partnership between Crunchyroll, Fuji TV, and Slow Curve and that Crunchyroll screened the first four episodes at their official convention in August 2022.
In the series, the story follows a boy named Kaina (voiced by Yoshimasa Hosoya) and a girl named Liliha (voiced by Rie Takahashi) who will begin a quest to save their world from the very first time they meet.
Sources: Crunchyroll News, Anime News Network