William, Heinlein, Bertrand revealed for January series

Cygames revealed three more character designs for its Manaria Friends television anime on Thursday.

Yūma Uchida as William



Chiharu Sawashiro as Heinlein



Hiroshi Naka as Bertrand





The cast members are reprising their roles from the original game.

The anime will be a series of shorts and premiere in January 2019.

The cast also 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



Hideki Okamoto (D.C. II: Da Capo II, Battle Girls - Time Paradox) is replacing Takafumi Hoshikawa as director, and CygamesPictures 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.

Source: Famitsu.com