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Shoji Kawamori's Labyrinth Anime Film Reveals 18 More Cast Members

The official website for Shōji Kawamori's original animation film Labyrinth (Meikyū no Shiori) revealed 18 more cast members without accompanying character credits on Friday. All of the new cast members have close ties to Kawamori and have appeared in his previous works.

The new cast includes:

• Yūichi Nakamura
• Yūma Uchida
• Inori Minase
• Kana Hanazawa
• Yōko Hikasa
• Aya Endō
• May'n
• Megumi Nakajima
• Ami Koshimizu
• Kiyono Yasuno
• Minori Suzuki
• Nao Tōyama
• Nozomi Nishida
• Kenjirō Tsuda
• Yūki Kaji
• Soyogi Soyogi (the voice synthesis software that is part of Yūki Kaji's voice AI project)
• Takuma Terashima
• Hiroki Nanami

The film will open in Japan on January 1.

The previously announced cast members include (Note: character name romanizations are not official):

• Atarashii Gakkō! pop group member Suzuka as protagonist Shiori Maezawa and Shiori@Revolution
• Taizō Harada as Komori
• Aoi Itō as Kirara Kurashina
• Jun Saitō as Kento Yamada
• Takuto Teranishi as Suguru Kagami
• Shō Hayami as Keizō Maezawa
• Maaya Sakamoto as Yoriko Maezawa
• Tomokazu Sugita as Tōsaka

The film centers on Shiori Maezawa, a completely ordinary high school girl who finds herself in a deserted parallel world of Yokohama after her smartphone suddenly breaks. When she checks her phone, she finds photos of herself on her social media accounts that she does not remember posting. In order to stop her other self from going out of control, Shiori tries to escape from her smartphone's strange Labyrinth.

Kawamori (Macross, Aquarion, AKB0048, Arjuna) is directing the anime, his first feature-length animated film not based on an existing franchise, at SANZIGEN. The original story concept is credited to the companies Slow Curve, Vector Vision, GAGA, and Fuji Television, and Slow Curve is also credited with planning and producing the project. Risa Ebata (Macross Frontier, AKB0048) is designing the characters, and Taichi Hashimoto (Listeners, Gate Keepers 21) wrote the script.  

Other staff members include:

• CG Supervisor: Naoya Okugawa
• Chief Animation Director: Takuya Chanohara
• Color Key Artist: Mana Watanabe
• Production Design: Barnstorm Design Labo
• Background Director: Tatsuki Ooishi, Hirofumi Morikawa
• Compositing Director of Photography: Shouko Hayashi
• Editing: Hatsumi Hidaka
• Sound Director: Fumiyuki Go
• Sound Effects: Ryūta Nakahara
• Sound Production: Bit Grooove Promotion
• Music Producer: Yoshio Tamamura
• Animation Producer: Hiroaki Matsuura
• Development Producer: Shōta Hozumi
• Production: Tatsumi Yoda, Yōka Matsuzaki
• Producers: Ken Teraizumi, Kazuki Ōshima, Masako Iwamoto
• Creative Producer: Taichi Hashimoto
• Planning Producer: Toshiaki Obata

Pop group Atarashii Gakkō! performs the film's theme song "Sailor, Sail On."

Kawamori stated in a comment that the film is born from the idea that smartphones that people use are "another self," that accumulates data such as personal information. Kawamori added that he aims to create an emotional, pop entertainment piece that combines song and horror.

Sources: Labyrinth film's website, Comic Natalie