This has been a pretty amazing week for new anime adaptation announcements, and that trend is continuing for at least one more day. On Tuesday, February 2nd, it was revealed that the manga series The Duke of Death and His Maid will be getting a television anime later this year along with all the juicy details regarding cast, crew, a key visual, and a promotional video!
The 60-second promotional video provides us a solid look into the character designs and the basic story beats; essentially in this series, the main character is The Duke of Death (played by Natsuki Hanae) who is cursed to kill any living thing he touches. The only person left in his life is Alice (played by Ayumi Mano), his maid, who enjoys teasing him.
In terms of the crew bringing this series to life, the animation is being produced by J.C. Staff with Yoshiki Yamakawa serving as director. As you can see by the promotional video though, there will be some CGI mixed in which will be produced by Shogakukan Music and Digital Entertainment. Hideki Shirane will compose the series composition and the anime character designs are being provided by Michiru Kawabata and finally, the background music is being composed by Gen Okuda and Takeshi Watanabe.
Despite the use of CGI animation (which has been the subject of scorn), that promotional video really impressed me with its simplicity. This looks like it could be quite a fun series, though it’s definitely hard to be certain of that based on only 60 seconds worth of choice footage. Regardless, I will certainly be keeping my eyes peeled on this one as more information is released in the coming weeks and months. Please stay tuned to the J-List blog for more information as it is revealed.
Sources: Getchu, Anime News Network, A.I.R. on Twitter