When you're looking at upcoming anime, it's best to suppress your expectations as much as possible.  No matter how compelling its promo art and trailer is, you have almost no way of telling if the production is going to be a rushed, struggling affair with garbage animation and inane storytelling.  A rushed (read: cheap) production is the one thing that turns any show to shit no matter what it is, and it just so happens that the majority of anime every season is blessed with that certain attribute.
    Usually half of what I'm hyped about ends up letting me down, while something else comes out of nowhere to slap me silly with quality.  Honey & Clover, Mushishi and Noein, my three personal mega-favorites of 2005, all lept out like ninjas from the shadows.  With that in mind, let's begin:

    The Sky Crawlers is the new Mamoru Oshii (GitS etc.) film about an air war in an alternate history.  Oshii tends to work best when he's collaborating with other artists like Itoh and Amano, which explains the unconstrained weirdness of his previous film, Innocence, which he both directed and wrote.  The Sky Crawlers is based on a novel series which will provide him some firm ground on which to express his unique style, and a separate scriptwriter will keep him in check.  I'm cautiously optimistic about this film -- hopefully it'll harken back to the golden era of Production I.G. Mamoru Oshii films back when they were producing the near-height of cinema.

    Birdy the Mighty: Decode is the next TV series from Noein & Escaflowne director Kazuki Akane and key animator & character designer Ryo-Timo.  It's been announced ages ago so hopefully they had a nice long head start in production.  The original comic was previously adapted into a short OAV series back in 1996-- a funny Men in Black-like anime about a boy who gets mixed up with an organization that polices aliens living on Earth.  The damn thing was directed by Kawajiri of all people, usually known for his gritty 80s-fashioned action fare like Ninja Scroll.  Anyway I can't help but be hyped for the new TV show because everything from the staff to the character design suggests that it'll be an animation explosion.  The old one's quite good too so you may as well watch it.

    Suzumiya Haruhi 2 is a continuation of the tremendously popular anime parody series.  Go see that shit if you haven't already.  Haruhi is a smorgasbord of everything anime, practically MST3K'ed by the voice of Honey & Clover's Mayama, featuring the consistently high quality animation of Kyoto Animation.  Also coming from KyoAni is another season of Clannad, a very fun and similarly well-produced moé anime.

    Gotham Knight is an anime omnibus of six shorts based on a Hollywood franchise; it's not dissimilar to The Animatrix.  It should be a pretty high quality production at the least.  Among the directors is Yasuhiro Aoki of Kung Fu Love, and then a bunch of key animators making their directorial debuts.

    Genius Party is a 2-film omnibus of shorts, 12 in total.  As the title suggests, they are helmed by mostly animation geniuses.  In particular, I'm looking forward to Koji Morimoto's, Shinya Ohira's, Tatsuyuki Tanaka's, Masaaki Yuasa's, Atsuko Fukishima's and Kazuto Nakazawa's (this dude practically animated half of the fights in Samurai Champloo).  Genius Party has been in the works since forever.  The home video of the first flick will be out in July...  go go gadget fansubs.

    BLAME! The Movie is in production from the guys who made the CG Appleseed flicks.  I question the wisdom of using videogamey CG as the medium of choice for the gritty comic book style of BLAME!, but it's something to keep tabs on nonetheless.  A couple of demo videos illustrate what the film will go for.  BLAME! is one of the few manga I've read the whole way through.  I usually don't care for comics but Nihei's vision and artwork is both terrifying and awesome.

    Red Line... a new film from animator Takeshi Koike of Trava: Fist Planet and Animatrix: World Record.  Like Hiroyuki Imaishi (Dead Leaves, FLCL ep.5), Koike's animation pops with hyper kinetic comic style.

    Not too much is known about the rest of these:

    Michiko & Hatchin is some funky looking thing from the studio behind Samurai Champloo and Ergo Proxy. "Michiko is a free-willed "sexy diva" who destroys a supposedly inescapable prison fortress, while Hatchin is a girl fleeing her strict foster parents. The two join forces on an improbable escape to freedom."

    Guskobudori no Denki... Gisaburo Sugii is a director I always like to follow and it seems like he's doing another Kenji Miyazawa story.  His Night on the Galactic Railroad, The Tale of Genji, and Street Fighter II flicks are great.  His most recent one, Arashi no Yoru ni, was pretty nice too.

    Yume Miru Kikai or "Dream Machine" is the next flick from Satoshi Kon (Paranoia Agent, Perfect Blue, Tokyo Godfathers and Millennium Actress)

    Shikabane Hime is the next thing from Gainax (Evangelion, Gurren-Lagann, etc.)

    Natsume Yuujin-chou looks rather Mushishi-esque (closer inspection).  It's about a boy who tracks down spirits who are listed in a magical book of names.

    Mai Mai Shinko to Sennen no Mahou is the next Madhouse flick from Sunao Katabuchi, director of Black Lagoon and Arete-hime.  Both BL and Arete had pretty rich characterization so I'm looking forward to see if Mai Mai is any good.

    Ponyo on a Cliff is a new Miyazaki/Ghibli flick.  Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo and One Piece Movie 6 director Mamoru Hosoda is doing a new flick at Madhouse. Hiroyuki Okiura, director of Jin Roh, is working on a new flick at I.G.  More upcoming Evangelion and Kara no Kyoukai films.  Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens sounds like my kind of show.  Both Magician's Academy and To Aru Majutsu no Index feature designs from highly characteristic (and highly perverted) artists... very low expectations for those though.  And finally, this thing cracks me up.