It's Friday night, so all I've got is another invaluable anime link post.

*One upcoming television show I'm very much interested in is Ghost Hound, the big 20th anniversary project from beloved animation studio Production I.G. With a title like that you'd think I.G. mainstay Mamoru Oshii would be all over it, but the actual list of head talents is no less impressive for his absence - the director is Ryutaro Nakamura of Serial Experiments Lain and Kino's Journey (aka Kino no Tabi), the writer is his sometimes collaborator Chiaki J. Konaka, who's also worked on shows like Texhnolyze and The Big O, and it's all based on stuff created by Masamune Shirow, proud papa of multimedia franchises such as Ghost in the Shell, Dominion, and Appleseed, in case you've forgotten.

A nice headlining crew. Glaring lack of Yoshitoshi ABe, of course, but I guess Shirow's filling his role already. I'm looking forward to it.

Well, maybe I should say I'm still looking forward to it, since I.G. just released the first teaser to the show's official page (blue PLAY buttons, bottom left corner), and it's... kind of terrible. Not that a teaser will ever tell you much of substance, but this thing completely failed me as a taste of what's to come. The emphasis is on Mariko Oka's unimpressive character designs, as a moé type of girl slowly blinks her jewel eyes in bed while PVC-looking youths stare at things and walk around, possibly encountering menacing computer graphics of a shadowy nature and fuzzy video horror images that already seemed derivative before I graduated college. Not much appeal in that, but I'd be silly to presume that a creative team this strong won't have something good to bring to the table.