The official website of Chō Shōnen Tantei-dan NEO (The Ultra Boy Detectives Club NEO) — the television anime gag series of shorts that remakes Edogawa Rampo's Shōnen Tantei-dan (The Boy Detectives Club) novels — began streaming a video for the anime on Wednesday. In the video, voice actors Ryohei Kimura and Takuya Eguchi reveal Yoshitaka Amano's design for the show's villain the Fiend With Twenty Faces, and reveal the anime's January 2 premiere on Tokyo MX. The show's site also posted a new visual and additional cast for the show.

The below visual gives a glimpse of the character design of the Fiend With Twenty Faces (pictured below as the masked character) as adapted for animation.

The new cast includes:



Kana Hanzawa as Neko Fujin, the wife of the Fiend With Twenty Faces. She is a beguiling queen whose age remains unknown. She stands 175cm (about 5 foot 8 inches) tall, and has good style. Misaki Kuno as Noro-chan, a boy who looks like an otaku, but is surprisingly popular. He lives by a creed of not denying anything.

Chad Horii as Inoue-kun, a big-brotherly figure with a bold but dry personality. His bravery is on another level, and he understands most people. He loves adventure.



Poplar began republishing the novel volumes in 1964, and the series has sold 16.6 million copies. Poplar and DLE announced the Chō Shōnen Tantei-dan NEO Project in February. The project's main story moves the setting to the present day with plans for a live-action series, events, books, and more in 2017.

The first part of the Chō Shōnen Tantei-dan NEO Project is DLE's anime, which is actually set a century in the future in 2117 in Tokyo. The battles between the detective Kogorō Akechi and The Fiend With Twenty Faces from the original novels have now lasted through seven generations. Kazuhito Ōmiya (O-Niku Daisuki! Zeushi-kun comedy shorts) is directing the anime and supervising the series scripts.

The previously revealed cast includes:



Ryohei Kimura as the seventh-generation boy detective Kobayashi Yoshimasa Hosoya as the seventh-generation Kogorō Akechi

Takuya Eguchi as the seventh-generation Fiend With Twenty Faces

Sumire Uesaka as Mayumi Hanazaki, the only girl in "The Boy Detectives Club"



Shōnen Tantei-dan ( The Boy Detectives Club ) is the title of both the 1937 novel by renowned Japanese mystery novelist Edogawa Rampo (Rampo Edogawa), and the title of a series of Edogawa novels. (The aforementioned titular novel is actually the second in the series; the first was 1936's The Fiend With Twenty Faces .) The character of Yoshio Kobayashi appears in many of the novels as the young leader of the club. Kobayashi is the top apprentice of Kogorō Akechi — Japan's greatest detective and another character created by Edogawa.

Edogawa's novels have inspired numerous live-action and animated adaptations, and elements and references to his stories appear in even more works. 2015's Rampo Kitan: Game of Laplace television anime adapts many of Edogawa's stories, and this fall's Trickster: Edogawa Rampo 'Shōnen Tantei-dan' Yori anime series also draws inspiration from The Boy Detectives Club novel series.

Source: Anime! Anime! (Kōsuke Obana)