We had a good time a few years back with the 2014 anime series The World is Still Beautiful, which adapted the manga Soredemo Sekai wa Utuskushii. With it streamed and a home video release by Sentai Filmworks, the manga itself never got a pickup, which was unfortunate. We learned back in February 2020 that Dai Shiina’s work is scheduled to end in three more chapters and that’s now happened. The latest combined installment out today in Japan of Hana to Yume magazine has brought about the conclusion of the series. It’s confirmed that the 25th volume will be the final one and that’s due out on August 20th, 2020.
The series was directed by Hajime Kamegaki who has handled a couple of feature films as well as Fushigi Yugi OVA’s and several TV episodes, a number of Lupin the 3rd specials and served as an episode director for part of Magic Knight Rayearth. Character designer for the series will be Ichiro Uno, whose most recent work has been in the new Hajime no Ippo series as doing key animation for the opening and first episode. Largely working in the key animation side of many shows for the past decade, this is his first full character design job.
Based on the manga series that began in 2011 after a pair of one-shots by Dai Shiina, it was serialized in Hana to Yume.
Plot concept: Based off of the manga Soreseka by Dai Shiina, The World is Still Beautiful is a fantasy romance that centers on Nike Lemercier, the fourth princess of the Rain Dukedom with the unique power to call forth the rain. After losing a game of rock, paper, scissors with her sisters, she has to marry the king of the Sun Kingdom, Livius I. Upon meeting him, she discovers he is still a child, despite conquering the world in only three years before ascending to the throne. Although they are total strangers at first, they soon grow to understand and develop an emotional bond with one another.
[Source: ANN]
