The official website for anime based on Kōji Yanagi's spy mystery novel Joker Game updated on Friday with a new key visual (pictured right) and additional staff members. The website also announced that the series will premiere in April 2016.

Kazuya Nomura ( Ghost in the Shell: New Movie , Robotics;Notes ) will helm the project at Production I.G. Toshiyuki Yahagi (Guilty Crown) is serving as chief animation director and is adapting Shirow Miwa's (Dogs: Bullets & Carnage) original character designs. Taku Kishimoto (Haikyu!!, ERASED) is helming series composition and writing the scripts. Kenji Kawai (Ghost in the Shell, Barakamon) is scoring the music. Other staff members include:

Chief Researcher: Seiichi Shirato

Art Director: Yoshio Tanioka

Art Setting: Iho Narita

3D CGI: Sublimation

Color Key: Sayoko Noda

Special Effects: Masahiro Murakami

Director of Photography: Hiroshi Tanaka

Editing: Junichi Uematsu

Sound Director: Yoshikazu Iwanami

The original novel is set in 1937, before World War II begins in earnest. Lieutenant Colonel Yūki of the Imperial Japanese Army forms the "D Agency," an army intelligence outfit under his command and tutelage. Army General Staff attaches Lieutenant Sakuma to observe the unit's performance. D Agency casts a wide net to find agents beyond Japanese military personnel, and Yūki establishes D Agency's tenets, which go against IJA doctrine: "Don't kill, don't get killed, don't get captured." With this, Yūki trains a team of operatives who conduct missions against domestic and foreign powers.

Yanagi published the original Joker Game novel (pictured above) in 2008. The novel won the Nihon Suiri Sakka Kyōkai-shō (Mystery Writers of Japan) award in 2009. Yū Irie directed a live-action adaptation of the novel, which premiered in Japan on January 31. Yanagi followed up the original novel with three sequel novels — titled Double Joker , Paradise Lost , and Last Waltz — in 2009, 2012, and 2015, respectively. The series has more than 1 million copies in print.

Source: Moca News

Images © Kōji Yanagi / Joker Game Animation Project