Winter 2005

History, folklore, school life, famous artists, and complete nonsense collide in a barrage of short comedy stories where almost no subject is treated with dignity. Familiar historical figures may behave like fools, legendary achievements collapse into petty arguments, and ordinary situations can derail without warning.With each new tale abandoning the last cast and premise for another absurd setup, the only constant is a rapid rhythm of visual jokes, wordplay, and deliberately ridiculous conclusions.

After the Wicked King is defeated, Nagisa Misumi and Honoka Yukishiro expect their duties as Pretty Cure to be over. Instead, the Light Garden's Queen is reduced to separated parts of her essence: her life appears as the mysterious Hikari Kujou, while twelve beings known as the Heartiels carry her scattered will.Nagisa and Honoka receive new powers and return to battle beside Hikari, who awakens as Shiny Luminous. As old darkness gathers strength again, the three girls must find the twelve Heartiels and protect Hikari, whose existence is inseparable from the Queen they hope to restore.

A rapidly expanding black hole forces the Autobots to evacuate Cybertron and seek refuge on Earth. Vector Prime reveals that the disaster can be stopped only by recovering four Cyber Planet Keys scattered across distant worlds, each inhabited by a different civilization of Transformers.Optimus Prime divides his forces for the search while Megatron pursues the same keys to reshape the universe in his own image. On Earth, three human children become unlikely allies in a race that crosses planets and awakens powers capable of saving or consuming the galaxy.

Yukito Kunisaki travels from town to town with a small puppet show, following a story his mother told him about a winged girl bound to the sky. His search brings him to a quiet seaside town, where the cheerful but unusual Misuzu Kamio invites him into her home and gives him a reason to stay longer than planned.As Yukito becomes involved with Misuzu and other girls carrying their own lonely burdens, fragments of an ancient promise begin to surface. The winged maiden he has pursued as a distant legend may be far closer than he imagined, and finding her means confronting a cycle of love and separation that has endured for centuries.

Negi Springfield is a ten-year-old wizard in training with only one final assignment standing between him and his dream of becoming a full-fledged mage: teach English at an all-girls boarding school. He is placed in charge of Class 2-A and its thirty-one students, all older and far more experienced with ordinary life than their tiny new teacher. Asuna Kagurazaka quickly discovers Negi’s magical secret.Asuna agrees to keep quiet in exchange for his help, but magic only makes his school life more chaotic. Between language lessons, exams, hostile mages, and complicated feelings growing throughout the class, Negi struggles to become a responsible teacher while learning things no magical training ever prepared him to understand.

A young girl escapes the country where an irreversible fate had been chosen for her, but her freedom costs the life of the traveler who helped her flee. Taking his name, Kino, she sets out with Hermes, the talking motorcycle left by her savior, and eventually finds shelter in a forest with an elderly woman skilled in firearms and survival.As Kino trains to shoot, ride, and live on her own, the practical lessons are easier than the burden she carries inside. Guilt over the dead traveler makes her question whether adopting his name means erasing the person she used to be. Before she can truly begin travelling, Kino must decide what that new name will mean as her own life moves forward.

Long ago, Kanna was the last of a winged people feared by the world. Confined far from ordinary life, she longed to see the outside and reunite with her mother. The warrior Ryuuya tried to grant that wish, but their escape ended in tragedy when Kanna was bound to the sky by a curse that carried her suffering through the centuries.In the present, wandering puppeteer Yukito Kunisaki arrives in a seaside town shortly before its summer festival and meets Misuzu Kamio, a lonely girl fascinated by the sky. As the two grow closer, Yukito recognizes the echo of the winged girl his family has searched for across generations. Breaking the ancient curse may finally be possible, but doing so means confronting a sorrow that has survived far longer than either of them.

Keigo Atobe uses the wealth and influence of Hyoutei Academy to organize an extravagant festival that gathers middle-school tennis teams from across the country. Games, attractions, competitions, and a fierce inter-school relay turn the day into a celebration every bit as excessive as its host.Although Atobe presents the event with his usual confidence, the enormous effort hides a more personal motive. As Seigaku and their familiar rivals compete and enjoy the festivities, it gradually becomes clear that the entire celebration was created as a gift for someone important to him.

Ryoma Echizen and Seigaku's regulars accept an invitation to play exhibition matches aboard a luxurious cruise ship owned by the wealthy Hikomaro Sakurafubuki. Their surprise grows when Ryoma meets Ryoga, a young man claiming to be his older brother and serving as captain of the opposing team.The elegant voyage soon exposes an illegal gambling scheme. Seigaku is ordered to lose after the first matches were deliberately arranged to make wealthy passengers bet on them, and refusing could cost the boys their lives. Trapped at sea, the team must outplay both their opponents and Sakurafubuki's armed men, while Ryoma's confrontation with Ryoga becomes a match of its own.

Yggdrasil, the host computer governing the Digital World, decides that its rapidly growing population must be reduced. The brutal X Program is released to erase countless Digimon while a new Digital World is prepared for selected survivors, turning the old world into a place of mass extinction.Dorumon, an unusual Digimon carrying the X-Antibody, becomes a target of the Royal Knights enforcing Yggdrasil's will. As he searches for the meaning of his own existence, friendships with other hunted Digimon pull him into resistance against Project Ark. The answer hidden inside Dorumon may ultimately force even the Royal Knights to question the system they were created to protect.

Once every fifty years, the mysterious island of Hourai emerges from the mist. When Inuyasha and his companions rescue a half-demon girl named Ai, they learn that she escaped the island and that several other children remain trapped there beneath the rule of the Four War Gods.Inuyasha has encountered Hourai before, and returning forces him to confront memories he would rather leave buried. The children carry cursed marks that bind them to the island, while their captors intend to use them as sacrifices. To break that cycle, Inuyasha, Kagome, and their friends must challenge four demons whose power has terrorized Hourai for generations.

A young girl takes in a tiny fish and tries to give it a home, but the creature keeps growing beyond every space she can provide. From one container to the next, its world expands along with its body until no ordinary boundary can hold it. What begins as simple care for a small life gradually becomes a dreamlike journey toward waters and skies vast enough for the creature to be free.

Ryoutsu's police work takes an unusual turn when he ends up aboard a fishing boat, where a routine assignment becomes entangled with the crew, the sea, and an enormous tuna. Far from his familiar Kameari streets, his reckless confidence collides with the realities of commercial fishing, ensuring that a supposedly straightforward job becomes a thoroughly chaotic maritime adventure.

On Christmas Eve, everyone is preparing a musical celebration built around a song called “A Prayer to the Star.” Anpanman hears from Santa about the mysterious Christmas Star, while others share memories of the same light and the hope people place in it.Baikinman, determined to ruin the festivities as usual, causes trouble at the penguins' ice festival and eventually becomes stranded in the snowy mountains. When Anpanman goes to help, an avalanche places the hero himself in danger, turning the Christmas Star from a beautiful story into a focus for everyone's wish that he return safely.