One of my favorite characters from the Black Moon arc of the manga was Asanuma.  I always thought he was so cute with how much he looked up to Mamoru and I loved that cute little subplot between him and Makoto.  I'd really love to see him included in Crystal and it'd be great to see some manga only characters in the new series.  Crystal has been mostly following the manga so far but I worry that since there's so much material in Act 15 of the manga, either episode 15 of Crystal will have to be seriously rushed or they'll have to cut stuff out to have it fit in 22 min.  We haven't seen any news about casting for Asanuma or any art of him yet either so I really hope he'll be included.  What do you think they'll do and are you an Asanuma fan too?

(Asanuma actually appeared briefly in the old anime though he never spoke)

I think he will be in Crystal but we haven't heard any news about him because he's just a backgrounder. We didn't see any designs for Ikuko or Kenji