Sentai Filmworks and Section 23 Films have announced an ambitious slate of April anime releases including the first 13 episodes of the long-running (and hugely popular) Gintama anime, as well as the 12-episode Living for the Day After Tomorrow Complete Collection, the 14-episode (plus 2 “Specials”) Hidamari Sketch X 365 Complete Collection, and the 3-OVA Le Portrait de Petite Cossette (previously released here by Geneon).

Hideaki Sorachi’s Gintama manga (published inNorth America by Viz Media), is a science fiction saga set in the Edo Period in which aliens have defeated the Japanese samurai and banned the wearing of swords in public.  The ongoing 32-volume Gintama manga series is one of the most popular in Japan, largely due to the series’ abundant humor, which comes from parodying shonen manga and science fiction clichés as well as from slapstick action.  The Gintama manga spawned a prose adaptation that was the top-selling novel in Japan in 2006 (see “Manga-Based Novel Tops in Japan”) as well as an ongoing anime series that has reached 189 episodes.  While Crunchyroll has streamed some Gintama episodes, Sentai’s Gintama Collection 1 (325 min., $39.98), which is due out on April 27th, will be the first Gintama DVD release here in North America.

Sentai’s Living for the Day After Tomorrow (Asatte No Hoko) is another manga-based anime series, though J-ta Yamada’s 5-volume shonen series about a girl who gets her wish for an immediate transformation to adulthood and a woman who involuntarily reverts from a young woman to an 11-year-old girl has yet to find a North American publisher.  The 12-episode Living for the Day After Tomorrow was animated by J.C. Staff (Honey & Clover) and was broadcast on Japanese TV in 2006.

Sentai has just released the first Hidamari Sketch anime series (see “January 12th DVD Round-Up”) that was produced in 2007 in a nice package that includes all 12-episodes as well as 2 OVAs, and it appears that they are doing the same thing with the Hidamari Sketch X 365 (400 min., $39.98).  The two-disc set that contains all 14 episodes of the 2008 series and also includes two "TV Specials, which were broadcast in Japan last October.  The Hidamari Sketch X 365 anime continues the adventures of a group of young girls intent on becoming manga artists.  Yen Press is publishing Ume Aoki’s ongoing Hidemari Sketch manga series here in the U.S.

Unlike the manga-based properties discussed so far, Le Portrait de Petite Cossette (120 min. $19.98) originated as a 3-episode OVA series produced by Aniplex that aired in Japan in 2004.  It spawned a 2-volume manga adaptation by Asuka Katsura, which Tokyopop published here in 2006.  The anime, which was previously released in the U.S. by Geneon, is notable as much for its “Gothic Lolita” character design and stylish visuals as it is for its fairly predictable supernatural/horror narrative.