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New Bem Monster Anime's 2nd Teaser Reveals More Cast, Musicians, Summer Premiere

The official website for the new BEM anime in the Yōkai Ningen Bem (Humanoid Monster Bem) franchise began streaming the second teaser promotional video on Saturday. The website and the video announced additional cast members, additional staff members, and the summer premiere of the anime.

The newly announced cast members are (from left to right in the bottom row of the image below):

• Maaya Uchida as Sonia Summers, a young female detective with a passionate sense of justice. She is so serious and stubborn that she has been demoted from Upper town to 18th branch of Outside. She does not follow the custom of Outside and instead always tries to carry through what she believes to be right.
• Kenji Nomura as Joel Woods, a detective who belongs to 18th branch of Outside. He is unmotivated man and always swayed by Sonia who breaks a rule of Outside.
• Maaya Sakamoto as "Mysterious Lady," an existence who controls "a concealed assembly" which rules “Libra” in the back. She conspires to capture Bem and other YŌKAI-NINGEN.

The jazz band SOIL&"PIMP"SESSIONS and MICHIRU (Izetta: The Last Witch, Kokkoku) are composing the music, and Flying Dog is producing the music.

The new anime will be part of the 50th anniversary project for the franchise. Katsuyuki Konishi will voice Bem, M.A.O will voice Bela, and Kenshō Ono will play Belo (from left to right in the top row of the same character image above).

Yoshinori Odaka (B-Daman CrossFire, B-Daman Fireblast) is directing the anime at LandQ studios, and Atsuhiro Tomioka (Pokémon XY, Trinity Blood) is in charge of the series scripts. Masakazu Sunagawa (Azure Striker Gunvolt, Nōgyō Musume!) is adapting the original character designs by Range Murata (Blue Submarine No. 6, Last Exile) for animation. NAS is planning the project in collaboration with Production I.G.

The original classic supernatural adventure anime aired from 1968 to 1969. In the original 26-episode anime, Bem, Bela, and Belo are ugly humanoid monsters (yōkai) who fight for justice. The monsters live among humans and protect them from evil yōkai. The three find themselves ostracized from both humans and other yōkai, but the three continue to fight in hopes of one day becoming humans themselves.

A 26-episode remake anime series aired in 2006. The franchise inspired a 10-episode live-action television series starring KAT-TUN's Kazuya Kamenashi in 2011, and then a live-action film with the same cast in December 2012. The franchise's gag comedy anime Ore-tacha Yōkai Ningen premiered in October 2017, and the Ore-tacha Yōkai Ningen G anime debuted in April 2018.

Sources: BEM anime's website, Comic Natalie