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Blood Blockade Battlefront TV Anime Gets 2nd Season in 2017

The January 2017 issue of Shueisha's Jump SQ. magazine is announcing on Friday that the Blood Blockade Battlefront television anime will get a second season titled Kekkai Sensen & Beyond (Blood Blockade Battlefront & Beyond) in 2017.

BONES will once again animate the series. Shigehito Takayanagi (Galaxy Angel A, The World God Only Knows, Dagashi Kashi) is taking over as director of the anime from the previous season's Rie Matsumoto, and Yasuko Kamo (Dagashi Kashi) is also taking over series composition duties from Kazunao Furuya. Toshihiro Kawamoto returns as character designer and chief animation director, and Taisei Iwasaki returns to compose the music.

The returning main cast includes:

• Daisuke Sakaguchi as Leonardo Watch
• Rikiya Koyama as Klaus Von Reinhertz
• Kazuya Nakai as Zapp Renfro
• Yū Kobayashi as Chain Sumeragi
• Hikaru Midorikawa as Zed O'Brien
• Ai Orikasa as K.K.
• Banjō Ginga as Gilbert F. Altstein
• Mitsuru Miyamoto as Steven A. Starphase
• Yūma Uchida as Sonic Speed Monkey

Dark Horse Comics, North American publisher of the original manga by Yasuhiro Nightow (Trigun), describes the manga's story:

A breach between Earth and the netherworlds has opened up over the city of New York, trapping New Yorkers and creatures from other dimensions in an impenetrable bubble. They've lived together for years, in a world of crazy crime sci-fi sensibilities. Now someone is threatening to sever the bubble, and a group of stylish superhumans is working to keep it from happening.

After he finished Trigun Maximum in 2007, Nightow launched Bloodline Battlefront as a one-shot manga story in Shueisha's Jump Square magazine in May 2008. He then turned it into a three-part mini-series called Kekkai Sensen -Mafūgai Kessha- in the same magazine in 2009. He has since continued the story as a regular series in Jump SQ. 19 starting in 2010. Jump SQ. 19 ended publication in February 2015, and the manga moved to the new Jump SQ. Crown magazine under the title Blood Blockade Battlefront Back 2 Back when the magazine launched in July 2015. Shueisha has so far published 10 volumes of Blood Blockade Battlefront and two volumes of Blood Blockade Battlefront Back 2 Back (second volume pictured at left).

The first television anime series adaptation premiered in April 2015 and ran for 12 episodes. The 12th and final episode aired in October 2015 after a delay.

Funimation streamed the anime with English subtitles as it aired in Japan. The company also streamed an English broadcast dub of the series.

Blood Blockade Battlefront also inspired an original anime DVD (OAD) that shipped with the Blood Blockade Battlefront Binge Bible guidebook on June 3. Matsumoto also directed the OAD.

Thanks to Sei for the news tip.

[Via Yaraon!]