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Magical Circle Anime Reveals Staff, More Cast, July 11 Premiere

The July issue of Square Enix's Monthly Shonen Gangan magazine, which ships on Monday, is revealing staff, more cast, and the July 11 premiere for Magical Circle, the new television anime adaptation of Hiroyuki Etō's original Mahōjin Guru Guru (Magical Circle Guru Guru) manga.

Saori Ōnishi will play Runrun (rightmost in visual right), while Akira Ishida will play Sōsai (animal adjacent to Runrun in visual right).

The announcement also notes that Hiroshi Ikehata (Seiyu's Life!, Robot Girls Z, Akiba's Trip: The Animation) is the show's "series director." Hisaaki Okui (Hacka Doll the Animation director under the name Ikuo Geso) is handling the series composition, and Naoyuki Asano (Mr. Osomatsu, Saint Young Men) is the character designer.

The anime will premiere on TV Tokyo, TV Aichi, and TV Setouchi late at night on July 11 (effectively in the early morning of July 12). The anime will then air later on TV Osaka, TV Hokkaido, TVQ Kyushu Broadcasting, and AT-X. Each episode will be 30 minutes long. The anime will have an advance screening event for the first two episodes at Tokyo's Marunouchi Piccadilly Theater 1 on June 17. The main cast members will appear at the event.

The anime stars:

Shizuka Ishigami as Nike

Konomi Kohara as Kukuri

Katsuyuki Konishi as Kita Kita Oyaji

Yō Taichi as Juju

Yukiyo Fujii as Toma

Takahiro Sakurai as Gipple

ORESAMA (Wolf Girl & Black Prince, Alice & Zoroku theme songs) will perform the opening theme song, and TECHNOBOYS PULCRAFT GREEN-FUND (This Art Club Has a Problem!, Akikan! theme songs) will perform the ending theme song with Bonjour Suzuki (Kuma Miko: Girl Meets Bear, Yuri Kuma Arashi theme songs).

The new anime adaptation will not be a sequel of previous anime or an adaptation of the Mahōjin Guru Guru 2 manga (pictured left), but will start with the story of the manga's first chapter when Nike and Kukuri meet in Jimina Village.

Eto's Mahōjin Guru Guru fantasy comedy manga ran in Square Enix's Monthly Shonen Gangan magazine from 1992 to 2003. Eto then launched the Mahōjin Guru Guru 2 sequel manga on Square Enix's Gangan Online website in 2012.

Eto used his affection for early role-playing games to create the original gag parody manga. The adventures of Nike and Kukuri inspired a popular 1994-1995 television anime series, which in turn spawned a 1996 film and the 2000 television sequel Doki Doki Densetsu Mahōjin Guru Guru.

Eto debuted Buyūden Kita Kita, a spinoff about a comical dancing old man from the original manga, when Gangan Online launched in 2008. The series concluded in 2012.

[Via Sakuga Blog, Otakomu]