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Long Riders! Cycling Anime's Main Staff, Fall 2016 Premiere Revealed

The official Twitter account of Taishi Miyake's Long Riders! manga revealed the staff of the manga's upcoming anime adaptation on Friday. The anime will air as a half-hour show in fall 2016.

Tatsuya Yoshihara (Monster Musume, Yatterman Night, Muromi-san) will direct the anime, while Natsuko Takahashi (My Love Story!!, Yuyushiki, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0) will be in charge of series composition. Jiemon Futsuzawa (Psycho-Pass 2 episode animation director) will design the characters.

The manga follows Ami Kurata, a first year college student with no special qualities. One day she happens to notice someone riding a folding bike, immediately falls in love with it, and uses all her savings to buy one. She eventually gets introduced to the world of long-distance bicycling and road racer bikes, and she forms a cycling team called Fortuna with four other female college students from the same school. Their goal is to ride in a "brevet" or long-distance event called "Fresh."

The anime's main cast includes:

Nao Tōyama as Ami Kurata

Hiromi Igarashi as Aoi Niigaki

Rumi Ookubo as Hinako Saijyo

Yurika Kurosawa as Yayoi Ichinose

Yōko Hikasa as Saki Takamiya

Miyake launched the manga in September 2012, and Ichijinsha shipped the fifth compiled volume on May 27. The special edition of the fifth volume included a CD with a 60-minute sound drama and a DVD with "accessory data" that can be used on a smartphone, tablet, or PC. Ichijinsha will ship the sixth compiled volume in a standard and "special bundled" edition on December 26. The special bundled edition will include a "Video Riders" DVD featuring the voice actresses from the anime.

The manga has already inspired two "Touring Guide" books, a radio show, a TV Riders! television program on Tokyo MX TV, and an image song (seen below) by ChouCho titled "Starting up." Special editions of previous volumes of the manga also bundled sound dramas.

Source: Comic Natalie