Starchild released the first promo video for Mayochiki!, a new anime planned for the summer season.

The title is a multi-meaning pun on the abbreviation for mayonnaise chicken, and also for the term “lost sheep” (mayoeru hitsuji), so Mayochiki! is short for Mayoeru Shitsuji to Chikin Yarou (Lost Butler and the Chicken Dude).

Based on a light novel by Asano Hajime (with illustrations by Kikuchi Seiji), it’s the story of a young man named Sakamachi Kinjirou who’s just going through his own average life with his own problems when he bumps into Konoe Subaru by accident in the boy’s bathroom at school. Which would be no big deal under normal circumstances, except that… Subaru is a girl, but no one is supposed to know. (The novel won Media Factory’s Rookie of the Year Award in 2009.)

Konoe Subaru, as drawn by Kikuchi Seiji for the cover of Mayochiki! volume 1.

The cast includes Hino Satoshi (Saito in the Zero series) as Kinjirou, Iguchi Yuuka (Index) as Subaru, Kitamura Eri (Sayaka in Madoka Magica) as Subaru’s mistress Suzutsuki Kanade, and Hanazawa Kana (Kuroneko in Oreimo) as Kinjirou’s little sister Kureha. The animation studio is feel (Yosuga no Sora, Fortune Arterial) and the director is Kawaguchi Keiichirou (Zettai Karen Children, Hayate no Gotoku).

I have some hopes for this one, as I’ve read the first novel and it’s decently entertaining (if not terribly original). The voice casting seems like a stretch, it’s as if they’re trying to cast everyone against type to see how well they can do. But I guess we’ll see for sure when it hits the screen, which should be some time in July.