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Dark Machine the Animation Series Unveils Cast, Staff, 2026 Debut
posted on by Joanna Cayanan
The "Dark Machine Project Presentation" livestream on Sunday unveiled the teaser promotional video, key visual, main cast, full staff, and 2026 premiere of Dark Machine the Animation, the original anime for the Dark Machine game and anime project.
The anime will star:
Kenshō Ono as Kairi
Miyuki Sawashiro as Rudora
Kōki Uchiyama as Shinn
Riho Sugiyama as Bran
Saya Aizawa as Isana
Yūichi Nakamura as Ajima
The staff for the anime's pilot trailer that premiered at Comic-Con International in July 2024, has been confirmed to work on the television anime. Kazumi Terada is directing the anime at Production +h. The overall project credits Code Geass director Gorō Taniguchi as the creative producer, and Macross artist Hidetaka Tenjin as the chief mechanical designer. Keiichi Yano is the project's creator. "Team Carbuncle" featuring Takaaki Suzuki, Tatsuhiko Urahata, and Atsuo Ishino, that was listed for writing credits in the pilot trailer, is in charge of the anime's series scripts with the addition of Satohito Sata.
Additional newly announced staff are:
- Main Character Designer: Kō Yoshinari
- Sub-Character Designer: Akira Mitani
- Costume Design: Mebachi
- Chief Animation Directors: Yumi Kuroiwa, Hideki Itō
- Storyboard: Masatsugu Arakawa
- Color Key Artist: niko＊miko
- Art Setting: Hiromi Tateiwa, Engawa,Nariyuki Ogi
- Art Directors: Hiromi Tateiwa, Yusuke Ikeda
- CG Director: Akira Inami
- CG Action Director: Ryou Kimura
- Compositing Director of Photography: Naoko Tanaka
- Photography Supervision: Kentarō Waki
- Editing: Yuki Honda
- Sound Director: Takeshi Takadera
- Sound Effects: Tomoko Ohtsuka
- Music: SUGIZO
- Music Production: Flying Dog
The anime will be available for TV and streaming via Fuji TV.
The anime will have its own unique world setting, which will include Dark Machine being a popular gaming metaverse, and will take place "in the not too distant future." The anime is planned for global distribution.
The Dark Machine "asynchronous big team arena shooter" game was announced in 2023. It is slated for release this year, with Early Access starting in 2024.
The game's staff describe the story:
The year is 2079.Humankind is living in an energy bubble after Dr. Robert Palmer discovered the Palmer crystal to give humankind all of the energy it would ever need and more. Unfortunately, not all of humankind has benefited from this hyper energy source and underground battles for this energy have developed at a global scale. The factory robots that have been helping to cultivate this energy of the future have been transformed to fighting mechs by these undergrounds and they are fighting for huge stakes.
However, dark energy is said to reside in small quantities in the Palmer crystal. The use of hyper AI technologies was used in an attempt to harness this dark energy and use it for battle advantages. It is currently unclear whether this dark energy can be controlled by mechs…
Taniguchi is the creative producer on the game, and Tenjin is the chief mechanical designer. Yuya Saito is the game director and Koji Hakuta is the producer. The game is a 7-versus-7 mech third-person shooting game.
The staff have raised more than US$8.7 million from more than 6,000 investors including Tencent, web3 game platform Immutable, and blockchain company Sui. The staff are developing the game with Unreal Engine 5. The game will feature the blockchain-based in-game currency MACHINA ($MXNA), and will also feature NFT asset ownership and an NFT marketplace for direct sales and peer-to-peer exchanges. Players will still be able to install and play the game without having to purchase any NFTs, and will also get free NFTs to start playing the game. Decentralized tournaments will be integral to the gameplay.
Tenjin is an illustrator and mechanical artist whose works include Macross Zero, Aquarion, Noein - to your other self, Hellsing Ultimate, and Macross Frontier. He also drafted mechanical art for the Gundam and Space Battleship Yamato franchises.
Taniguchi has also directed such anime as Planetes, Maria the Virgin Witch, Active Raid, One Piece Film Red, s-CRY-ed, revisions, ID-0, Infinite Ryvius, and Estab-Life: Revengers' Road, among others.
Sources: Dark Machine Project Presentation livestream, Comic Natalie
