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SHAFT's Zaregoto OVA Reveals Cast, Staff, Theme Songs

The official website for the Kubikiri Cycle: Aoiro Savant to Zaregoto Tsukai (Decapitation Cycle: The Blue Savant and the Prankster) OVA project, based on the first novel in NisiOisin's Zaregoto novel series, announced the staff, cast, and theme songs on Saturday. The cast includes:

Yuuki Kaji as Boku

Aoi Yuki as Tomo

Yu Shimamura as Akane

Ayako Kawasumi as Kanami

Kenji Hamada as Sakaki

Aya Endo as Maki

Haruna Ikezawa as Yayoi

Mariya Ise as Iria

Houko Kuwashima as Rei

Natsuko Kuwatani as Akari

Ryoko Shintani as Hikari

Yuko Goto as Teruko

Yuko Kaida as Aikawa

Akiyuki Simbo (Bakemonogatari, Puella Magi Madoka Magica) is serving as chief director and working with Fuyashi Tou (Bakemonogatari, Nisekoi) on series composition. Yuki Yase (Nisemonogatari episode director) is directing. Akio Watanabe (Bakemonogatari, Kizumonogatari) is adapting Take's character designs for animation and serving as chief animation director with Hirofumi Suzuki (The Last: Naruto The Movie). Yuki Kajiura (Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Sword Art Online) is composing the music. SHAFT is animating the project.

Other staff members include:

• Script: Yukito Kizawa
• Art director: Ken Naito
• Image board: okama
• Sound director: Yota Tsuruoka
• Director of photography: Rei Egami
• Background art design: Morihito Ohara
• Color design: Jin Hibino, Yasuko Watanabe
• Editing: Rie Matsubara

Sangatsu no Phantasia (Kiznaiver) is performing the opening theme song "Cobalt World" and Kalafina is performing the ending theme song "Marchen."

The first DVD and Blu-ray Disc volume is slated for October 26. Subsequent volumes are on the following schedule:

• Volume 2: November 30
• Volume 3: December 28
• Volume 4: January 25, 2017
• Volume 5: February 22, 2017
• Volume 6: March 29, 2017
• Volume 7: April 26, 2017
• Volume 8: May 24, 2017

Both the DVD and Blu-ray Disc volumes will retail for 3,600 yen (about US$36).

Nisioisin wrote nine volumes for the novel series from 2002 to 2005, and also published seven novels in the Ningen spinoff novel series from 2004 to 2010. Take illustrated both novel series. Del Rey manga released the first and second volume of Zaregoto in North America in 2008 and 2010, respectively, and it describes the story:

It's the vacation of a lifetime, a trip to a remote island filled with geniuses–and murder.

On Wet Crow's Feather Island, a tiny speck in the Sea of Japan, lives Akagami Iria, the exiled daughter of a powerful family. Born into great wealth, she was a princess of the highest pedigree–until she was cut off by the leader of the Akagami Foundation. For the last five years, she's lived on Feather Island with her maids. But she hasn't been alone. She has invited the best minds Japan has to offer to come and stay with her.

Several of NisiOisin's other projects, such as the Monogatari series, Katanagatari, and Medaka Box, also inspired anime. His Okitegami Kyōko no Bibōroku novel inspired a live-action television series last year.

Kizumonogatari II: Nekketsu-hen, which opened in Japan on Friday, is the second of a planned trilogy of films adapting NisiOisin's Kizumonogatari novel. The third film will open in Japan on January 6.

[Via Yuki Kajiura]