It’s happening!
On December 22, 2014, Key (not just Maeda and Na-Ga as was the case with Angel Beats!) announced that they will be working together with Aniplex, Dengeki G’s, and P.A. Works to produce a new anime series entitled “Charlotte,” to air sometime in 2015!
Official website and more info here: http://charlotte-anime.jp/
So it’s been a while since Charlotte has been announced, and news about the series has been popping up, mostly from consecutive issues of Dengeki G’s magazine since December. Here is the information we have so far:
Charlotte takes place in a world where some selected people have special abilities. These abilities start appearing as people approach puberty. Specifically, Charlotte is set in Hoshi no Umi Academy, a school that caters to teenagers with special abilities. This school helps out with the students and how they manage their abilities, and pays close attention to the students, to the point of keeping surveillance cameras on-campus.
The opening song has been revealed to be entitled Bravely Song and will be performed by Lia, and the ending song is entitled 灼け落ちない翼, roughly translated as Burning Unfallen Wing, to be performed by Tada Aoi. Marina has been slated to return as a performer of the in-series band, ZHIEND, where she acts as the singer for the lead vocalist, Sala. ZHIEND’s lyrics are going to be written by Jun Maeda, and will be composed by Hikari Syuyo, and has been described as a “foreign, post-rock band”.
Charlotte focuses on Hoshi no Umi’s student council and the four students who make up the council. The primary job of the student council is to observe the other students and help them out when they experience problems due to their powers. The members are:
Yuu Otosaka
Yuu is the main protagonist of our show, and is said to be pretty rude and egotistical. His special ability is that he can ‘hijack’ another person for up to 5 seconds. He uses this ability to hijack honor students’ bodies during exams and copy their answers. He also has a little sister, Ayumi, who he seems to care greatly for. Yuu will be voiced by Kouki Uchiyama.
Nao Tomori
Nao is popularly known as the cover girl of Charlotte and is also the president of the student council. She likes getting attention for what she does, but does her job well, and records progress of students’ abilities with her handycam. Her ability is that she can remove herself from the view of one person, rendering her pseudo-invisible to that person. She is a huuuuge of ZHIEND, and despite her serious personality, she goes crazy when it involves anything related to them. Nao will be voiced by Ayane Sakura.
Joujirou Takajou
Joujirou is, for lack of better words, a Takamatsu (Angel Beats!) clone. His special ability is that he has access to very high speed movement from one point to another, which makes it seem like teleportation. However, he can’t really choose where he stops, and usually ends up in funny situations because of this. He wears protective armor under his uniform, just in case. His personality is, also like Takamatsu, one that tries to be serious but fails at it. Joujirou will be voiced by Takahiro Mizushima (also the voice of Takamatsu), and he is also a huge fan of the next character…
Yusa Nishimori
Yusa is the popular and cheery school idol. She is the lead vocalist of the school band How Low, Hello and has a part-time job as an actual idol. Her ability is that he can channel the dead. Specifically, she can channel her dead, older sister. However, she doesn’t really have control over when to channel her, and her sister seems to just take over Yusa’s body at will. Yusa will be voiced by Maaya Uchida, who will also be performing the songs for How Low, Hello, whose music will be written and composed by Jun Maeda.
Misa
Misa is Yusa’s deceased older sister who seemingly takes over Yusa’s body at will. When she takes over, Yusa’s appearance changes to that of what you see above. Not much is known about her except her voice sample seems to portray as a very brash character. She also has her own special ability: Pyrokinesis, or creation of fire from thin air. Misa will also be voiced by Maaya Uchida, and her voice sounds totally different from Yusa’s despite coming from the same person.
Ayumi Otosaka
Ayumi is Yuu’s younger sister, who Yuu cares a lot about, and who cares a lot about Yuu. They seem to be quite close, which is ironic considering Yuu’s personality. Not much else is known about her, but Nao seems to know her personally. She will be voiced by Momo Asakura.
We don’t know quite yet what direction the story will go towards, but all they have to say is that it will be a very Key-like story. The official website states that, after Yuu meets Nao, the fate of the special abilities shall become uncovered. We also don’t quite know yet why the anime is called Charlotte . But, as most of us already know, the story is written by Jun Maeda, and the character design is by Na-Ga.
Just recently, it has been announced that Charlotte will be airing in July 2015, during the summer anime season. No word yet on the episode count yet. Also recently released is a Charlotte 4-koma manga which started serialization in Dengeki G’s Comics on March 2015.
Now, for some interesting observations!
- On the website, we see a picture of Nao with a video camera at her feet pointing towards her. Notice the screen of the video camera doesn’t show her, but an image of the stars (and there’s a small red light under implying that it is currently recording). This might refer to her own special ability, and thus may be a big plot point for the drama to ensue
- @Bonecuss mentioned about “Charlotte” being the name of a minor planet orbiting the sun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/543_Charlotte). With the theme seemingly closely related to heavenly bodies, this may be more than just coincidence. Or at least, I think it’s a pretty interesting idea.
- Aside from stars, another theme seems to be videocameras. Aside from the obvious one on the picture, the official website shows a videocamera screen containing the PV, and a space where the tweets from the official twitter are supposed to be
- The school is shown to have videocameras all around the perimeter. Either the administrators are using it for the students’ own safety, or they are worried about something else…
- The official twitter (https://twitter.com/Charlotte_AB_) is shared with the formerly official twitter of AB anime. It may signify some relation between the two… or it may just show aniplex being lazy
So, any additional speculation and added information would be greatly appreciated as we all anticipate this unique project from Key!
