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New Rurouni Kenshin Anime Reveals 1st Promo Video, New & Returning Staff for 2nd Season
posted on by Joanna Cayanan
The "Rurouni Kenshin Meiji Kenkaku Romantan: Kyoto Dōran Kaimaku-sen" (Rurouni Kenshin Meiji Kenkaku Romantan: Kyoto Upheaval Opening Match) special event on Sunday revealed the first promotional video for Rurouni Kenshin Meiji Kenkaku Romantan: Kyoto Dōran (Kyoto Upheaval), the continuation of the new television anime project based on Nobuhiro Watsuki's Rurouni Kenshin manga.
The event also revealed the character visual for Misao Makimachi, voiced by Aya Yamane:
Yuki Komada (BUILD-DIVIDE -#000000- CODE BLACK and BUILD-DIVIDE -#FFFFFF- CODE WHITE series) is directing the new season at LIDEN FILMS. Hideyuki Kurata returns for series scripts, Terumi Nishii also returns to design the character, and is joined by Kazuo Watanabe (first season's sub-character designer, chief animation director). Yū Takami is again composing the music.
The first season of the new anime premiered on Fuji TV's Noitamina programming block and other venues in July 2023. The anime ran for two consecutive cours (quarter of a year). The second cours began in October 2023. Crunchyroll streamed the series as it aired, and it is also streaming an English dub.
The anime re-adapts the main manga series.
Sōma Saitō stars in the series as Kenshin Himura, and Rie Takahashi costars as Kaoru Kamiya. Taku Yashiro plays Sanosuke Sagara, and Makoto Koichi voices Yahiko Myojin. Yūma Uchida voices Shinomori Aoshi, and Saori Ōnishi voices Megumi Takani. Satoshi Hino plays Hajime Saitō.
The anime also stars:
- Makoto Furukawa as Makoto Shishio
- Daiki Yamashita as Sojiro Seta
- Aya Yamane as Misao Makimachi
- Yūichi Nakamura as Seijuro Hiko
Watsuki and his novelist wife/story collaborator Kaoru Kurosaki launched the Rurouni Kenshin: Hokkaido Arc (Rurouni Kenshin, Meiji Kenkaku Romantan: Hokkaidō-hen) manga in Shueisha's Jump SQ. magazine in September 2017. The manga went on hiatus in December 2017 following Watsuki being charged for possession of child pornography. The series later resumed publication in June 2018.
Viz Media had been simultaneously publishing the manga in English, but stopped after the manga went on hiatus in 2017.
Watsuki first launched his 28-volume Rurouni Kenshin manga in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine in 1994. The manga has more than 72 million copies in circulation worldwide. The manga centers around Kenshin Himura, once a deadly assassin during the Meiji Restoration, who is trying to find a new life beyond violence.
The manga has since been adapted into a 95-episode TV anime series, an anime film, three original video anime projects, five live-action films, and a stage musical by the all-female musical theater troupe Takarazuka Revue.
Sources: Rurouni Kenshin anime's X/Twitter account, Comic Natalie
