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Gurazeni Baseball Anime Reveals Promo Video, Key Visual, More Cast
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
The official website for the television anime of Yūji Moritaka and Keiji Adachi's Gurazeni baseball manga began streaming a promotional video for the series on Monday. The video reveals more cast members for the series as well as its April premiere on SKY PerfecTV!'s SkyPer! channel. The video also features the theme song "Merigo feat. SKY-HI" by Cypress Ueno to Robert Yoshino. (Note: The promotional video on the official website is region-locked to Japan.)
The additional cast members include:
- M.A.O as Yuki
- Issei Futamata as Tanabe
- Kenji Nomura as Sakota
- Ryūzō Ishino as Kozato
- Daisuke Namikawa as Tokunaga
- Takanori Hoshino as Shibuya
- Freelance announcer Hideo Matsutomo as Announcer Matsumoto
Fukushi Ochiai (below right) will play protagonist Natsunosuke Bonda.
Ayumu Watanabe (Space Brothers, Doraemon: Boku no Umareta Hi, If Her Flag Breaks) is directing the anime at Studio DEEN, while Hideo Takayashiki (Kaiji, One Outs, Rideback) is supervising and writing the series scripts. Kenichi Ohnuki (Major, Gundam Build Fighters, Digimon Universe: Appli Monsters) is designing the characters.
The "baseball money survival" story focuses on a baseball team that operates as a highly-stratified society, where the player's performance determines his annual salary. The story follows an eight-year relief pitcher with an odd left-handed side-arm throw as he fights to survive under the team's strict system.
Writer Moritaka and artist Adachi began serializing the series in 2010. The manga won the best general manga award in the 37th Kodansha Manga Awards in 2013. The series also ranked #2 on the Kono Manga ga Sugoi! guidebook's 2012 list, and earned a nomination in the 5th Manga Taisho Awards.
The manga series ended in 2014 with 17 volumes, but the creators launched the Gurazeni: Tokyo Dome-hen sequel manga that same year. The new series is ongoing, and Kodansha published the 13th compiled volume on October 23.
Thanks to Dennis R. for the embedded video.
Source: Comic Natalie
