Key Announces Angel Beats!, Fans Ponder Heroine…

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.

WTF! is a Haruhi cameo!!.

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.

"...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... :)

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

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

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

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 :))

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.

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

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

Farfetched.

Nissan GT-R coming to America

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

HOLY SHIT. O.O

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

lol Haruhi

Does Key still do ero?

HOLY SHIT ITS HARUHI

/sarcasm

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

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.

The disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi...

I get it now XD

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

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.

fake. has to be.

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.