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Live-Action Moribito Series' Final Season Reveals Additional Cast

posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
Takeshi Kaga replaces late actor Mikijirō Hira, appears alongside 12 new roles in last season in November

NHK announced the new cast members for the third and final season of its live-action television adaptation of Nahoko Uehashi's Moribito novel series on Sunday. The new cast includes:

From left to right (alongside returning cast member Haruka Ayase, Mizuki Itagaki, and Masahiro Higashide):

Other new cast members include:

They will join regular cast members Haruka Ayase, Mizuki Itagaki, and Masahiro Higashide, who play Balsa, Chagum, and Tanda, respectively. Kai Kobayashi previously played Chagum as a child in the first season.

The three seasons of the show will have 22 total episodes that NHK has been broadcasting since the first season last year. The show is adapting all 10 of Uehashi's novels, and the whole drama is shot in 4K. The first four-episode season premiered last March. The second nine-episode season will premiere on January 21, and the third and final nine-episode season will premiere in November.

Hiroshi Kataoka (Soko wo Nantoka, Last Dinner) is directing the series, and Sumio Ōmori (Akumu-chan) is writing the show's script.

Production I.G and Kenji Kamiyama (Eden of the East, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex) adapted the first book in Uehashi's series into a 26-episode television anime series that originally aired in 2007.

Uehashi's novel series centers on a traveling spear-wielding bodyguard named Balsa who has sworn to save the lives of eight people to atone for a past sin. In the first novel, Balsa meets Chagum, the second prince of the New Yogo Empire, whose life is in danger because he is possessed by a sacred spirit that poses a danger to his country. Balsa swears to protect Chagum, and the two undertake a journey to find out how to rid Chagum of the spirit possessing him.

Media Blasters previously licensed the anime series and released it on DVD and Blu-ray Disc in North America between 2009-2011. Viz Media licensed the series again in 2014, and released the series on Blu-ray Disc and DVD in August 2014.

Asahi Shimbun Publications' Nemuki+ magazine is serializing a manga adaptation of the novel series' second book titled Yami no Moribito (Moribito II: Guardian of the Darkness) by manga creator Yu. Yu launched the series in Nemuki+ in April 2014, and Asahi Shimbun Publications published the manga's second compiled volume (pictured at right) last March.

Scholastic has released the first two books in Uehashi's novel series in English. Uehashi, who also wrote the Kemono no Sou-ja Erin novel series, won the 2014 Hans Christian Andersen Author Award in 2014.

Sources: Cinema Today, Oricon News


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