The tale of four anti-heroes “Saiyuki” created by Kazuya Minekura makes a come back to the screen with an anime adaptation as announced on Thursday at the “Saiyuki FESTA” event held at the Makuhari Messe event hall in Chiba. With a release of a promotional video, list of cast and staff and July premier, the anime adaptation is to be based on Kazuya’s “Saiyuki Reload Blast” manga.
First serialized in 1977 the “Saiyuki” manga comprised a total of five separate series telling different stories on the four characters. This in turn resulted in the creation of multiple manga sequels, anime adaptations, video games and other media.
For “Saiyuki Reload Blast”, the manga was a sequel to the “Saiyuki” and “Saiyuki Reload” series and was launched in 2009 in the “Comic Zero Sum” magazine. From it was the creation of two manga spin offs known as “Saiyuki Gaiden” and “Saiyuki Ibun” along with a second compiled book volume published in 2014 by Ichijinsha of “Comic Zero Sum”.
According to the summary given for “Saiyuki Reload Blast” the manga tells the tale of one of the four anti-heroes, the monk Sanzo Ikkuo. After long travels he arrives in India where the anomaly’s influence runs rampant and the violence in battles only heighten while 500-year-old tragic fate comes to rise.
Set to direct the anime adaptation is Hideaki Nakano with Kenji Konuta as the script supervisor having worked together in the same positions on the Aoharu x Machinegun and Servamp anime respectively. Working on the character design is the man behind animating multiple anime including Gintama and Fullmetal Alchemist Youko Satou.
For the animation of the series this adaptation shall be a first in having not been animated by “Pierrot”. Instead the company “Platinum Vision” shall be taking over the animation of the project. As for the cast fans will find that the main voice actors from the main series shall be taking the roles of the four anti-heroes for the sequel adaptation.
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