Manaria Friends, formerly Rage of Bahamut: Manaria Friends, is a Japanese anime television series based on the Rage of Bahamutsocial game. It was originally scheduled to premiere in April 2016, before being postponed and rescheduled to January 2019. The anime series is licensed worldwide excluding Asia by Sentai Filmworks.
Originally titled Rage of Bahamut: Manaria Friends, the series is an adaptation of the "Mysteria Academy" or "Manaria Mahō Gakuin" event in the Rage of Bahamut social game, and is unrelated to the earlier Rage of Bahamutanime, which was also adapted from the game. Cygames announced the adaptation in August 2015. The series was originally announced as being written and directed by Takafumi Hoshikawa, with animation by Studio Hibari. Megumi Ishihara was to provide the series' character designs and serve as chief animation director. Kenichi Kurata was the art director for the anime, and the music was to be composed by Takashi Watanabe. However, on 8 March 2016, all of the series' staff was removed "due to various circumstances." On 2 October 2018, it was announced that the series would be released as Manaria Friends, with CygamesPictures stepping in to animate the series. Additionally, Hideki Okamoto directed, Satoko Sekine wrote the scripts, Minami Yoshida is provided character designs, and Takashi Watanabe composed the series' music.
Broadcast and release
The series was scheduled to air as part of the Ultra Super Anime Time program of anime shorts from Ultra Super Pictures, alongside Space Patrol Luluco and the second season of Kagewani. It was to have premiered on 1 April 2016, and been broadcast on Tokyo MX, BS11, and AT-X. However, on 8 March 2016, it was announced that the series' broadcast had been delayed until further notice, and its slot in Ultra Super Anime Time block was filled by a rebroadcast of the 2014 series Puchim@s!! Petit Petit Idolm@ster, a spinoff of The Idolm@ster franchise. After the staff was replaced, it was rescheduled to premiere from 20 January 2019 to 24 March 2019. Sentai Filmworks announced that they had acquired worldwide rights, excluding Asia, to the anime series. It was released under the title Mysteria Friends. The series ran for 10 episodes. On April 21, 2019, Sentai Filmworks released an English dub on HIDIVE.
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Reception
The series was highly appreciated by Western critics, both because of the high quality of the animation and the attractively depicted relationship between the main characters with a large number of homoerotism and lesbian subtext, which allowed Theron Martin from Anime News Network to relate this show to the best examples of the "slice of life yuri" works. Although he agreed that overly measured telling a story might seem boring and thereby repel many viewers, Theron recommended this series to those who like to enjoy the slice of life anime or are looking for a show with a lot of yuri potential.
