Maeno debuts as Izuru Minesawa in episode 9 on June 3

The official website for Caligula , the television anime adaptation of FuRyu's The Caligula Effect game, announced on Friday that Tomoaki Maeno will replace Yuichiro Umehara as the voice of Izuru Minesawa. Maeno will begin appearing in the role in the anime's ninth episode, which will premiere on Tokyo MX on Sunday.

Umehara was hospitalized in May after being diagnosed with acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, an autoimmune disease that affects the nervous system. The actor is focusing on treatment and recovery and is taking an indefinite hiatus from work.

The anime premiered in Japan on Tokyo MX on April 8 at 11:30 p.m., and Crunchyroll is streaming the series as it airs in Japan. The show is listed with 12 episodes.

FuRyu's Takuya Yamanaka is credited with the original concept. Jun'ichi Wada (WorldEnd, The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki-chan, Ragnastrike Angels) is directing the anime at Satelight. Touko Machida (The [email protected], A Centaur's LIfe) is in charge of series composition. Kenji Tanabe (Good Luck Girl!) is designing the characters based on Oguchi's original designs. Satoshi Motoyama (Dagashi Kashi, Ms. Koizumi loves ramen noodles) is sound director. Tsukasa Masuko, Yasuharu Takanashi, Funta7, RegaSound, and Kenji Iwata are composing the music, and Pony Canyon is producing the music.

Rie Murakawa, Ari Ozawa, Rie Takahashi, and Minami Tanaka are performing the ending theme song "Hypno" as their characters.

The anime retains the main voice cast from the games, but some roles are different. The anime's cast includes:

Chiharu Sawashiro as Ritsu Shikishima (the male and female protagonists have no default name in the games)

Reina Ueda as μ

Shunsuke Takeuchi as Shōgo Satake

Tomoaki Maeno as Izuru Minesawa

Yoshimasa Hosoya as Kotarō Tomoei

Rie Murakawa as Kotono Kashiwaba

Ari Ozawa as Naruko Morita

Rie Takahashi as Mifue Shinohara

Minami Tanaka as Suzuna Kagura

Mai Fuchigami as Marie Mizuguchi

Asami Shimoda as Aria

Shouta Aoi as KagiP

Emi Nitta as SweetP

Yumiri Hanamori as Shōnen Doll

Eriko Nakamura as Mirei

Sōma Saitō as IkeP

Yuma Uchida as Shadow Knife

Yuka Ōtsubo as Sone

In the original game's story, written by Tadashi Satomi, a virtual idol known as μ performs user-inputted songs and gains self-awareness through exposure to users' bitter feelings and dissatisfaction toward reality. Wanting to save humanity — which she believes is continuously suffering — she lures people to a virtual reality world called Mobius with her songs. She then imprisons them in Mobius, thinking they will be free from the suffering of reality and that all their wishes will come true. The game follows the nine members of the "Going Home Club," a club that was formed because the characters want to escape from Mobius and go home. The game's title refers to the "Caligula Effect," which is a pattern of behavior where one wants to see or do something more if it is denied to them.

The in-game composer characters are represented by real independent music composers, including 40mP (KagiP), OSTER PROJECT (Sweet P), Polyphonic Branch (Shonen Doll), CyoucyoP (Mirei), Asa (IkeP), 164 (Shadow Knife), and [email protected] (Sone).

The game shipped in Japan for the PlayStation Vita in June 2016. The game launched in North America on May 2, and in Europe on May 9. The release was digital only in the West. The original game received a remake for the PlayStation 4 that shipped in Japan on May 17.

Source: Caligula Anime's Website via Hachima Kikō