I remember being amused that there was an Indian CEO-like character last time I checked the official site. Yeah! Anime needs more Indian characters, there are
far too few
I wonder who the illustrator (GOROBOTS) for that magazine spread is, is it a penname of an animator or something?
Anyway I haven't watched a minute of the old one (decided not to when I heard this was coming out, I want to watch that
after this) but some info from the scan... pardon me if I got anything wrong.
Top right: girl on the left is Sayaka Nakasugi, a new original character who plays a central role in the story and, to Tsutomu, is like a sweet flower among tougher women like Birdy.
The guy on the right is... er... Tyuto? (aka Satoru), I have no idea how it's romanized but in the original he seems to be that octopus-like creature who acts as Birdy's partner, collecting info and stuff. In the anime however he also has a human form as shown.
The woman on the magazine, Arida Shion, is an Akiba-kei gravure idol who is actually Birdy in disguise (?!). She is marketed as a strange alien-like character with a funny accent, and swimsuit pics of her appear in magazines popular among high-school boys.
I'm too lazy to translate the paragraph on the left, but I figure it's probably fluff so who cares.