Anime Fantasy

Dororo TV Anime's 2nd Promo Video Reveals More Cast, January 7 Premiere

The official website for the second television anime adaptation of Osamu Tezuka's Dororo manga began streaming the second promotional video for the series on Thursday.
The video reveals that the show will premiere on TV Tokyo on January 7 at 11:00 p.m., before later airing on BS11 and Jidaieki Senmon Channel. The show will stream on Amazon Prime Video only inside and outside of Japan, and the first episode will debut on the service first in Japan on January 7 at 12:00 a.m.

The video also reveals more cast members, a key visual, and opening theme song artist. Four-member rock band Ziyoou-vachi are performing the opening theme song "Kaen" (Flame), which they wrote specifically for the anime.

The new cast includes:

Naoya Uchida as Daigo Kagemitsu

Shōya Chiba as Tahōmaru

Akio Ohtsuka as Jukai

Chie Nakamura as Nuinokata

Previously revealed cast members include:

Hiroki Suzuki as Hyakkimaru

Rio Suzuki as Dororo

Mutsumi Sasaki as Biwamaru

Additionally, Mugihito will narrate the series. Suzuki will also star as Hyakkimaru in a stage play adaptation of the manga that will run in four Japanese cities in March 2019.

Kazuhiro Furuhashi (Mobile Suit Gundam UC, Rurouni Kenshin, Getbackers) is directing the series, and Yasuko Kobayashi (Attack on Titan, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Garo the Animation) is overseeing the series scripts. MAPPA (Yuri!!! on Ice, In This Corner of the World) and Tezuka Productions are animating the project from Twin Engine. Satoshi Iwataki (Ghost Hunt) is adapting manga creator Hiroyuki Asada's (Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee, Cheer Boys!!, The Girl in Twilight) original character designs for animation. Yoshihiro Ike (Tiger & Bunny, The Great Passage, The Empire of Corpses) is composing the music. Amazon will exclusively stream the anime in Japan and overseas.

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The supernatural historical manga previously inspired a 26-episode black-and-white anime series in 1969. The studio then, Tezuka Productions, describes the story:

The setting is the middle of the Muromachi Period, during the 1470s after the Wars of Onin and Bunmei. The story begins in the Noto Peninsula of the Hokuriku District. The main character (Hyakkimaru), who lacks as much as 48 body parts, obtains a fake body and eliminates 48 monsters that were made from his body to retrieve his missing body parts.

The story is based on Tezuka's original 1967 Dororo manga series. Vertical released the manga in a collected volume in 2012. A live-action film adaptation starring Kou Shibasaki and Satoshi Tsumabuki premiered in Japan in 2007.

Anime Sols held crowdfunding campaigns for two DVD sets for the 1969 television anime series, but the service shut down in May 2015. Discotek released the complete series with English subtitles on Blu-ray Disc.

The manga is getting a remake titled Dororo to Hyakkimaru-den (The Legend of Dororo and Hyakkimaru) that launched in the December issue of Akita Shoten's Monthly Champion RED magazine on October 19. Satoshi Shiki is drawing the manga.

Sources: Dororo anime's website, Comic Natalie