Visual Art’s Key announced on Sunday at its KSL Online 2021 – Kaginado musical event that they’re producing a new short anime called Kaginado that will premiere in October. The crossover will feature many characters from Kanon, Air, Clannad, Little Busters, and Rewrite in a similar style to Isekai Quartet.
No voice cast or studio has been officially announced, but that should change as we get closer to the fall anime season. A short PV of the series has already been circulating online, but Key has not released any more details on the project aside from a visual and a website.
A teaser visual of Kaginado was initially released on 1 April. Many fans believed it was an April Fool’s joke at first, but this news all but confirms it to be real.
Kanon was first released as a visual novel in 1999, followed by Air in 2000, and Clannad in 2004. All three visual novels have received anime adaptations by Toei Animation and Kyoto Animation. The Little Busters visual novel was released in 2007, followed by the Ecstasy in 2008. It received an anime by J.C Staff in 2012, a second season in 2013, an OVA series in 2014, and a crowdfunded spinoff film in 2021. Rewrite was released in 2011 and received an anime in 2016 from Eight Bit.
I’m pumped for the Kaginado anime, even if it’s a short. It’ll be great to see all my favorite characters from these franchises again, interacting with each other and having fun for the first time. I’ll be interested to see who will voice the late Tomoko Kawakami for Air’s Misuzu Kamio. Color me excited because fall can’t come soon enough.