Key Announces Angel Beats!, Fans Ponder Heroine…

nekomimi cosplay wat?

Haruhi-sama! The second season is come! (albeit under a disguised name)

What's with the random nekomimi idol?

wait, what about Rewrite???

It's a little late for April Fool's.

fap fap fap fap.

Can't see the similarities...

That cosplay gallery should be for another post altogether...
I need to fix the numbering it seems

Ahh... What?

is this some kind of a joke mate? even the eyes don't match and what the hell, plagiarism? plagiarism is for words not for image or likeness..

They're just answering the call to all those out there wanting Haruhi in an eroge.

Yeah, I was expecting to see some Haruhi pic. But then a nekomimi 3D girl popped out in the article... somehow [?].

I can't remember the last anime character with such green eyes. Normally its just a tinge but this was is pure midori.

fake. has to be.

It will be interesting to learn more details about the game, mainly the genre. Although its not very hard to speculate.

On topic, I do indeed recall the cult, it was no small one, but feasibly a little visual analysis will be in order, to aid those who fail to behold the resemblance.

The disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi...

I get it now XD

I love those eyes. I'll be rooting for this.

Uhh. nekomimi cosplay..? Well at least the PV looked convincing.

And yeah what about Rewrite?! >_>

hmmm... coincidental? probably not. but the resemblance is hard not to notice.

Original character. Do not steal.

Haruhi + Little Busters?

If she don't have the same personality as Haruhi i would love to play it.

sometimes, every character will get his double. The design-varieties will be wore out.

Go finish making Rewrite first.

Another shitty key game.

Just what the world needed.

I wonder what the theme it is about now. It's really hard to tell from just the title and image. Is it about going to church now?

I will buy this game. Mark my words

tsun tsun eyes... i can see it already in a mile

hope she dies.

Interesting pictures, but the underlying assumption is a little silly. ("The resemblance is uncanny...once we alter numerous key features")

Kagami pulled of a damn good Miku in the Lucky*Star OVA, but I don't think anyone would accuse 美水 of ripping of Vocaloid.

That the character in question shares a resemblance to Suzumiya Haruhi after you put her in twin ribbons and change her hair and eye color isn't really making me want to shout artistic plagiarism.

When I was scrolling down the front page, I thought this was going to be a Haruhi article; then I read the title and thought "wtf".

I smell a lawsuit.

and Jun Maeda should be by now retired from his post from key whats the deal with this... seriously late for april fools more likely? and rewrite is still not yet done

See, I thought of another purple-haired with ribbons, Key girl with attitude. Kyou:

http://tinyurl.com/dhacvo

I know originality is dead, but hell, this is nothing but a color swap of teh Har hee.

she is pretty cute... probably the stockings and the ribbon

So Rewrite doesn't involve Maeda, but this one will?

It's hard for me to accept that this isn't a belated April Fool's, the resemblance with Haruhi is too uncanny to be a coincidence. But if it's true, we'll just see what it's all about.

i'm relatively sure they did this on purpose considering kyoto animation turns all their stuff into anime.

That does NOT resemble Haruhi Suzumiya at all.
The eyes are different and doesn't Haruhi have 2
knots on her hairband?

They deliberately do this so that KyoAni would choose to animate it over Haruhi 2(after Litter Busters! obviously)

First things first, Maeda isn't a writer but a scenario writer. He never did a story alone, only character routes(which tends to be the best of the games he worked). In fact, he's primarily a composer, so he's probably working on this with the music.

And this possibly isn't a Key work, but one of the other companies affiliated to VisualArts. When you say "Key announces..." is nothing but speculation, there isn't a single Key logo in this website just a flash animation with two names.

She does resemble Haruhi a bit though, specially the pose, but everything else is baseless conjecture.

Certainly just a coincidence. Anyone can look like haruhi if they have the proper accessories.

Nissan GT-R coming to America

Farfetched.

Lol perfect green tsuntsun eye isn't it?
Even she resemble haruhi but still she still have some charm on her :)
But, key sure have their hands working on many project, aren't they :))

Ouch. Can't wait to hear the explanation for this one.

Huh, when I first saw the pic I thought it was Haruhi photoshopped to look like some other character, I guess the similarities are striking.

WTF! is a Haruhi cameo!!.

Inb4 world ending.

I wish they learn not to do to much palate swaps on characters. They're either getting lazy like Mio says or they're out of ideas.

"...certain egomaniacal schoolgirl who was once the subject of a minor cult."?! Ehhh?! I thought she still was! :D
The resemblance is indeed too obvious though.
But I guess it's one of those insane coincidences.... still, if the main character turns tsundere, then I'll retract that statement.
Another Key game? ~~AWESOME!! They still haven't released Rewrite and they're already announcing another one!
Jun's returning? heh I wonder why, but that's cool anyway ^^

Now to wait for the inevitable KyoAni anime adaption... :)

Heh, before reading the title, i immediately thought it was haruhi. plagiarism!

I've seen much of Rei clones sightings and now Haruhi clones emerges.

First I apologize that I can't find the exact link or title of the game, but there's already been an eroge that has an entire cast seemingly ripped from Haruhi. They look similar, and their personalities seemed similar too.

I think visualart's key should take a break from producing new visual novels

HOLY SHIT. O.O

The resemblance is uncanny. I sense billions of "Separated At Birth?" fanarts on the near horizon.

lol Haruhi

HOLY SHIT ITS HARUHI

/sarcasm

Does Key still do ero?

Willing to bet KyoAni commissioned this so they can milk even the Haruhi likenesses for all they're worth.

Sweet, Maeda's back. And I was afraid Key's stories would go downhill after he left, but I guess at least one more game will grace his name.

Interview from Dengeki G:

Summary of Interview:
* Around the time when work on Little Busters! was finished, Jun Maeda was approached by Aniplex's Toba(?) who said that he wanted to work together. The official presentation was in October of 2007.
* "The story takes place in the afterlife." "The main characters are all dead persons." "Battles are a highlight [of this series]."
* The main characters have all led unreasonable lives previously, and belong to the SSS (Shinda Sekai Sensen, Dead World Battlefront), which battles angels(Angel?) in order to rebel against God, who had bestowed them such a fate. Their leader is Yurippe.
* The SSS members use guns and the angels use supernatural forces in battles that unfurl.
* The main characters have led unreasonable lives and then died, and thus are rebelling against God. The story of their rebellion against God is intended to hopefully convey a feeling of "life is wonderful, and even though it is unreasonable at times, it is still precious."
* Na-Ga was chosen by Maeda at the beginning of 2008.
* Yurippe's design is supposed to be that of a girl with "a demanding(?) personality, an air of leadership and long hair."
* Maeda: "Since my current favorite heroine is Persona 4's Yukiko Amagi, heroines obviously should have hairbands!"
* About 30 or so characters (including minor characters) have been designed.
* In the SSS, in addition to Yurippe, there's a Decoy Squad and a Tsurikichi.
* The Decoy Squad "Girls Dead Monster" (GalDeMo for short) would put on a sudden live event to grab everyone's attention and Yurippe and the main squad would carry on their battle plans. A(?) tsurikichi is a professional at baiting.
* Na-Ga: "I've completed the designs, so right now I'm just waiting to see if there's more work to be done."
* Maeda: "I've finished the general structure of the story and the plot for all the episodes."
* Opening and Ending Themes are currently in production. If possible, Maeda(?) would like to have a hand in the composition of all the vocal songs. GalDeMo song(s) are also slated.

Staff:
Planning: Jun Maeda
Director: Yutaka Yamamoto (Ordet)
Series Composition: Jun Maeda
Character Design: Na-Ga
Lead Animation Director: Satoshi Kadowaki
Prop Design: Keiko Nakaji
Color Setup: Kazuko Nakajima (?)
Art Director: Atsushi Morikawa
Art Setup: Emi Kesamaru (?)
Cinematographer: Takeshi Hirooka
Editing: Kentarou Tsubane (?)
Music: Jun Maeda, Shinji Orito
Sound Director: Hiromi Kikuta
Production Assistance: Ordet
Animation Production: A-1 Pictures
Production: Aniplex

So this is an original project between Jun Maeda/Aniplex/A-1 Pictures, KyoAni isn't involve here so whatever Key game KyoAni plans on adapting it won't be affected/delayed by this.

Anyways looking forward to this. Considering this is being writen by Jun Maeda who's the writer for Key games and it's being directed by Yutaka Yamamoto who directed Kannagi, this may turn out to be pretty good. Music should be great as well since it's being done by Shinji Orito who did music for Air/Clannad.