On May 16th ADV Films is launching a Website for This Ugly Yet Beautiful World, a 12-episode anime series from Studio Gainax (Neon Genesis Evangelion). This Ugly Yet Beautiful World is Gainax's 20th Anniversary production and ADV's major release of the summer.  The first DVD in the series, This Ugly Yet Beautiful World: Falling Star (MSRP $29.98), will be released on July 4th.

Created by the same unit that produced Mahoromatic, This Ugly Yet Beautiful World appears at first to be a similar production filled with sexy mysterious female characters and plenty of fan service, but the romantic comedy elements of the story are interwoven from the beginning with dark science fiction threads--the 'hero' has to fight off giant armored worm-like creatures that attack the girls--and the final third of the series includes plenty of NGE-type philosophical musings about the Earth's various mass extinctions and the nature of relationships.  This genre-blending series may not be as 'deep' or as indecipherable as Neon Genesis Evangelion, but it is always surprising and a real delight in its own right.