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Onihei Crime Reports in Edo Historical Novels Get TV Anime
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
A television anime adaptation of Shōtarō Ikenami's Onihei Crime Reports in Edo (Onihei Hankachō or Onihei, the Devilish Bureau Chief) novel series has been green-lit. The anime will be titled Onihei, and will premiere in 2017.
The historical novel series depicts Heizō Hasegawa, who metes justice on wrongdoers and supervises the crackdown on arsonists and robbers in Japan's Edo period (1603-1868).
Shigeyuki Miya (Buzzer Beater, Lupin the 3rd: Green vs Red, Blood Lad) is directing the anime and also designing the characters. Studio M2, the new studio of Madhouse and MAPPA founder Masao Maruyama, is animating the project. Maruyama is producing, and TMS Entertainment is credited with production. Onihei will be the first Ikenami work adapted into anime. Maruyama commented that the anime will not just follow the original novel's story, but will show the unique appeal of anime.
Ikenami serialized the story in Bungeishunju's Ōru Yomimono novel magazine from 1967 to 1989, and Bungeishunju published 19 volumes for the main story. Later paperback reprints divide the story into 24 volumes. The serialized novels inspired the first live-action television adaptation in 1969, as well as three subsequent series and a 1995 live-action film.
Sentarō Kubota and Takao Saitō launched a manga adaptation in LEED Publishing Co., Ltd.'s Comic Ran magazine in 1993. Bungeishunju published the manga's 98th compiled book volume on June 21. JManga once partially published the manga in North America.
Source: Comic Natalie
