Science Saru Reveals The Heike Story TV Anime by Naoko Yamada – News

Anime studio Science SARU announced on Friday that it is producing The Heike Story (Heike Monogatari) television anime based on Hideo Furukawa‘s novel of the same name. The anime will premiere on Fuji TV‘s +Ultra programming block in January 2022. Funimation also announced on the same day that it will begin streaming the anime this fall — one season ahead of its Japanese broadcast. It will also begin streaming on Fuji TV‘s FOD service in Japan on September 15 and abroad through bilibili.

Naoko Yamada, a veteran director on several Kyoto Animation works, is directing the anime, with frequent collaborators Reiko Yoshida as scriptwriter and kensuke ushio as music composer.

Furukawa’s novel renders the classic Japanese epic The Tale of the Heike in modern language, and the anime will be the first television anime adaptation of the novel. The original epic tells the story of the rise and fall of the Taira clan during the Genpei War. The anime centers on the perspective of Biwa, a blind traveling minstrel. Biwa meets Taira no Shigemori, heir to his clan, and bearing a supernatural sight that can perceive ghosts. She then proclaims to him a prophecy of his clan’s downfall.

Yūki Aoi plays protagonist Biwa in the film, while Takahiro Sakurai plays Taira no Shigemori. Saori Hayami plays empress consort Taira no Tokuko, while Tesshō Genda plays Taira patriarch Taira no Kiyomori. Other cast members include Kikuko Inoue, Miyu Irino, Yumiko Kobayashi, Nobuhiko Okamoto, Natsuki Hanae, Ayumu Murase, Kōtarō Nishiyama, Nobuyuki Hiyama, Subaru Kimura, Yū Miyazaki, Inori Minase, Tomokazu Sugita, and Yuuki Kaji.

Naoko Yamada, Reiko Yoshida, and kensuke ushio have worked together before in the A Silent Voice and Liz and the Blue Bird anime films at Kyoto Animation, and Yamada and Yoshida in particular have been long-time collaborators in their work at Kyoto Animation, working on other suchanime as K-ON!, Tamako Market, and Tamako Love Story.

Fumiko Takano is drawing the original character concepts, while Takashi Kojima (Flip Flappers, Ride Your Wave) is drawing those character designs for animation. Tomotaka Kubo (Deho Gallery) is in charge of art direction, while Ken Hashimoto is in charge of the color design. Shotaro Imai is the in-between animation director. Kazuto Izumita is the director of photography, while Kiyoshi Hirose is credited for editing. Eriko Kimura is the audio director, while Hiromune Kurahashi is in charge of sound effects at Otonarium. Yoshihiko Sata is credited for historical supervision, while biwa player Yukihiro Gotō is credited for overseeing the portrayal of the biwa playing.

Masaaki Yuasa, the co-founder of Science SARU, is also working on a musical anime feature film titled INU-OH based on the same Heike Monogatari Hideo Furukawa novel, but Science SARU has not indicated if or how this new project is related to Yuasa’s film. Science SARU CEO Eunyong Choi had stated last year that the studio is also working on “another TV show with another director” besides Yuasa.

Sources: The Mainichi Shimbun’s Mantan Web, Funimation