I tweeted this a few weeks ago:
Question: has there been any new standout people in anime (from directors, voice actors, writers, etc) that caught your attention this year?
— Justin Stroman (@Kami_nomi) December 20, 2013
Because as the year winded down and everyone started thinking about their Top Ten lists and stuff, I started to think about who made their debut in 2013, and drew a blank. Which seems about expected, but I look around to video game publications and they always talk about new studios and people that did good things and stuff or, since I’m into sports, there are always articles and stories of rookies for one thing or another. But you can forget about doing that in anime. Now, there are reasons for that, and even I can admit I don’t keep track of everything, but the plan is to avoid doing that. So I’m going to try and have a list of newbies who made their debut in their respective seasons, cause there’s a good chance they’ll pop right back up in the future. For better or for worse!
Winter Anime 2014 Rookies:
Studios
- Project No. 9 (Recently, My Sister is Unusual; Only did 6 episodes of Ro-Kyu-Bu!)
- NAZ (Hamatora)
- Production IMS (Inari, Konkon, Koi Iroha)
Directors
- Yasuhiro Tanabe (Debut for Buddy Complex)
- Hiroyuki Hata (Debut for Recently, My Sister is Unusual)
- Shigetaka Ikeda (Debut for Future Card BuddyFight)
- Nobuhiro Kondo (Debut for Nobunagan)
- Seki Sugawara (Debut for D-Frag!)
- Yoshiyuki Fujiwara (Debut for Mikakunin de Shinkoukei)
- Kotaro Tamura (Debut for Noragami)
Series Composers
- Meteo Hoshizora (TV series composer debut for World Conquest Zvezda Plot)
- Midori Gotou (Debut for Cool-Headed Hoozuki)
Voice Actors
- Kiyono Koneko (will make her TV lead debut in Hamatora as Koneko)
- Yuri Yoshida (will make her lead debut in Mikakunin de Shinkoukei as Mashiro Mitsumine)
- Haruka Terui (will make her TV lead debut in Mikakunin de Shinkoukei as Kobeni Yonomori)
- Eriko Matsui (will make her TV lead debut in Mikakunin de Shinkoukei as Benio Yonomori)
- Shiori Mutou (will make her lead debut in Nobunagun as Shio Ogura)
- Chinami Hashimoto (will make her lead debut in Recently, My Sister is Unusual as Mitsuki Kanzaki)
- Erii Yamazaki (will make TV lead debut in Sekai Seifuku: Bouryaku no Zvezda as Roboko)
- Misaki Kuno (will make TV lead debut in Sekai Seifuku: Bouryaku no Zvezda as Kate Hoshimiya)
- Minoru Hirota (will make TV lead debut in Sekai Seifuku: Bouryaku no Zvezda as Gorou Shikabane)
- Uki Satake (will make TV lead debut in Space Dandy as QT)
- Airi Eino (will make lead debut in Wake up, Girls! as Airi Hayashida)
- Nanami Yamashita (will make lead debut in Wake up, Girls! as Nanami Hisami)
- Minami Tanaka (will make lead debut in Wake up, Girls! as Minami Katayama)
- Kaya Okuno (will make lead debut in Wake up, Girls! as Kaya Kikuma)
- Yoshino Aoyama (will make lead debut in Wake up, Girls! as Yoshino Nanase)
- Miyuu Takagi (will make lead debut in Wake up, Girls! as Miyuu Okamoto)
- Mayu Yoshioka (will make TV lead debut in Wake up, Girls! as Mayu Shimada)
- Yuusuke Kobayashi (will make lead debut in Witch Craft Works as Honoka Takamiya)
- Rui Tanabe (will make TV lead debut in Wizard Barristers as Cecile Sudou)
Some random observations:
- ….That’s a lot of female Voice Actress/Seiyuu huh?
- Dogakobo, the place where dreams of getting the lead immediately come true — 4 of their last 6 series (Mangirl, GJ-Bu, Majestic Prince, Love Lab) they’ve worked on pretty much had some rookies as main leads. This doesn’t change in the slightest with Mikakunin de Shinkoukei. Just something to keep an eye on in their future works, or more like how long will this trend continue?
- No new female directors this season.
