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Queen's Blade Unlimited Anime's Promo Video Highlights Characters, Story Reboot

The official website for the Queen's Blade Unlimited anime began streaming a promotional video for the anime on Friday. The video highlights the anime's main characters and notes that the story is rebooting back to the origin.

The first episode, "Elina no Tabidachi" (Beginning of Elina's Journey), will ship on Blu-ray Disc and DVD on July 13 in Japan. First printings will come with an 80-page original novel version of the story written by Eiji Okita, as well as package art by Shinya Ōsaki.

In the story, beautiful warrior Elina (Kaori Mizuhashi) fights with Airi (Kanae Itō) over an amnesiac boy named Michel. The tagline for the new project is, "More strongly, more violently, reboot!" According to Miyagomono-ya Hans, Queen's Blade Unlimited returns to the origin nine years ago, while simultaneously depicting a never-before-seen Queen's Blade world.

The returning cast members and characters include:

• Kaori Mizuhashi as Elina
• Kanae Itō as Airi
• Yuki Kaida as Echidna
• Mikako Takahashi as Nowa
• Sayaka Ōhara as Melpha
• Aya Hirano as Nanael
• Atsuko Tanaka as Claudette

Hobby Japan is credited with the original work, and Miyagomono-ya Hans is credited with the original concept and supervision. Gabi Kisaragi is directing the anime at Fortes, while Ryunosuke Kingetsu (Samurai Girls, Vanquished Queens) is penning the script in collaboration with Eiji Okita, the writer of the Queen's Blade novels. Shinya Ōsaki (Tokyo Necro) of Unknown Games is credited with the original rebooted character designs, and Takayuki Noguchi (Queen's Blade 2: The Evil Eye, Queen's Blade: Grimoire) and Yukiko Ishibashi (Queen's Blade: Rebellion, Vanquished Queens) are credited as character designers as well as chief animation directors.

Other staff members include:

• Art, Backgrounds: Studio Arkansas
• Color Setting: Sadahime Matsubara
• Sound Director: Jin Aketagawa
• Music: Miracle Bus Studio
• Music Supervision: Masaru Yokoyama
• Line Producer: Kinji Yoshimoto

Aside from the new anime, the franchise will also get a new figure line tied to a new story. The anime's website teases "new battles" for "18 beautiful warriors."

The first Queen's Blade anime adapting Hobby Japan's combat picture book series based on the Lost Worlds game premiered in 2009. The franchise has since inspired two additional television anime and multiple original video anime, manga, and novels. Media Blasters released the first two anime series in North America, and Sentai Filmworks released the third series and the Queen's Blade: Beautiful Warriors OVA.

Source: Queen's Blade Unlimited's official website via Otasuke