Sentai Filmworks Licenses Manaria Friends Anime

Sentai Filmworks announced at Anime NYC on Friday that it has licensed the Manaria Friends anime under the title Mysteria Friends. The company will stream the series of shorts as it airs beginning in January 2019.

The anime was originally planned to premiere on April 1, 2016. However, the official website announced in March 2016 that the series had been delayed "due to various circumstances." The January premiere was announced in October along with a new staff.

Hideki Okamoto (D.C. II: Da Capo II, Battle Girls - Time Paradox) is replacing Takafumi Hoshikawa as director, and Cygames Pictures is replacing Studio Hibari to animate the series. Satoko Sekine (Is This a Zombie? of the Dead, Tayutama - Kiss on My Deity) is replacing Hoshikawa for series composition. Minami Yoshida (chief animation director for Terraformars Revenge, Love Live! School idol project) is replacing Megumi Ishihara to design the characters. Takashi Watanabe (live-action Teiichi no Kuni, Nigakute Amai films) is composing the music.

The anime will tell an original story and center on the characters Anne and Grea from the "Manaria Mahō Gakuin" (Mysteria Academy in the English version) event in Cygames' Rage of Bahamut social game. In the game, Mysteria Academy is a prestigious magic school that teaches magic without discrimination to the three factions (men, gods, demons), who usually are engaged in battle with each other. The anime will be set in Mysteria Academy in the kingdom of Mysteria.

The Rage of Bahamut fantasy social card game already inspired MAPPA studio's 13-episode Rage of Bahamut Genesis TV anime series which premiered in 2014. The second season, titled Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul, premiered in 2017.

Funimation streamed the first Rage of Bahamut Genesis anime season as it aired, and Amazon's now-defunct Anime Strike streaming service streamed Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul as it aired.

Source: Sentai Filmworks' Anime NYC panel (Rai Kelly)

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