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Manaria Friends TV Anime Shorts Reveal Video, Visuals, January 2019 Premiere
posted on by Jennifer Sherman
The official website for the delayed Manaria Friends television anime, which was formerly known as Rage of Bahamut: Manaria Friends, announced on Tuesday that the series will premiere in January 2019. The website also announced the series as anime shorts and revealed a promotional video, key visual, character visuals, cast, and staff.
The cast includes:
Yōko Hikasa as Anne
Ayaka Fukuhara as Grea
Nana Mizuki as Hanna
Wataru Hatano as Owen
Kimiko Koyama as Roux
Kikuko Inoue as Miranda
In addition, Yūma Uchida will play William and Chiharu Sawashiro will play Heinlein. The cast members are reprising their roles from the game.
Hideki Okamoto (D.C. II: Da Capo II, Battle Girls - Time Paradox) is replacing Takafumi Hoshikawa as director, and Cygames Pictures is replacing Studio Hibari to animate the series. Satoko Sekine (Is This a Zombie? of the Dead, Tayutama - Kiss on My Deity) is replacing Hoshikawa for series composition. Minami Yoshida (chief animation director for Terraformars Revenge, Love Live! School idol project) is replacing Megumi Ishihara to design the characters. Takashi Watanabe (live-action Teiichi no Kuni, Nigakute Amai films) is composing the music.
The anime will tell an original story and center on the characters Anne and Grea from the "Manaria Mahō Gakuin" (Mysteria Academy in the English version) event in Cygames' Rage of Bahamut social game. In the game, Mysteria Academy is a prestigious magic school that teaches magic without discrimination to the three factions (men, gods, demons), who usually are engaged in battle with each other. The anime will be set in Mysteria Academy in the kingdom of Mysteria.
The anime was originally planned to premiere on April 1, 2016. However, the official website announced in March 2016 that the series had been delayed "due to various circumstances." The website added that the finalized premiere date had not been decided, and the scheduled special advance screening on March 20 was cancelled. The website also removed its entire staff listing except for Cygames, the creator of the original fantasy social card game that inspired the anime.
The Rage of Bahamut fantasy social card game already inspired MAPPA studio's 13-episode Rage of Bahamut Genesis TV anime series which premiered in 2014. The second season, titled Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul, premiered in 2017.
Funimation streamed the first Rage of Bahamut Genesis anime season as it aired, and Amazon's now-defunct Anime Strike streaming service streamed Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul as it aired.
Sources: Manaria Friends' website, Cygames' YouTube channel, Comic Natalie
