Returning cast members, updated staff list revealed

The official website for the Yowamushi Pedal anime opened a character page on Tuesday, revealing the updated character designs for team Sohoku as they appear in Yowamushi Pedal: New Generation, the third anime season based on Wataru Watanabe's original manga.

The cast for team Sohoku is returning from the first two seasons:

Daiki Yamashita as Sakamichi Onoda

Kousuke Toriumi as Shunsuke Imaizumi

Jun Fukushima as Shōkichi Naruko

Daisuke Kishio as Junta Teshima

Yoshitsugu Matsuoka as Hajime Aoyagi

Kouki Miyata as Terufumi Sugimoto

Junichi Suwabe as Toji Kanzaki

Megumi Han as Aya Tachibana

Ayaka Suwa as Miki Kanzaki

Hiroki Yasumoto as Shingo Kinjō

Showtaro Morikubo as Yūsuke Makishima

Kentarou Itou as Jin Tadokoro

Osamu Nabeshima is returning to direct the series and Kurasumi Sunayama (Bakuon!!), who worked on scripts for the first two seasons, is taking over series composition. Yukiko Ban ( Yowamushi Pedal movie) is designing the characters and Hiroyuki Horiuchi is designing the bikes. Kan Sawada is returning to compose the music. TMS Entertainment is again producing the animation.

Most of the other main staff members are returning from other Yowamushi Pedal anime:

Art design: Tomoyuki Aoki

Art Director: Shunichiro Yoshihara

Color design: Fusako Nakao

Cgi Director: Toshihiro Sasaki (Yowamushi Pedal: Spare Bike)

Director of Photography: Takeshi Katsurayama

Sound Director: Takeshi Takadera

Editing: Kumiko Sakamoto

The story of the original Yowamushi Pedal manga centers around Sakamichi Onoda, an otaku at Sōhoku High School. He loves anime and games so much, that he would ride his commuter bicycle to and from Tokyo's Akihabara shopping district in a 90-kilometer (about 60-mile) round trip over steep slopes after school. Onoda's life changes when he encounters his school's cycling team, and he ends up joining the competitive sport of bicycle racing.

The story of the third season is set after the previous two seasons and the August 2015 film, and after the previous third-year students have graduated.

Wataru Watanabe launched the original manga in Akita Shoten's Weekly Shōnen Champion magazine in 2008, and the story already inspired stage plays and two television anime adaptations so far. The first season of the anime premiered in 2013, and Crunchyroll streamed the anime outside of Japan as it aired. The second season premiered in Japan in 2014, and ended in March 2015. Crunchyroll also streamed the second season outside of Japan as it aired.

The first anime seasons inspired two compilation films that opened in Japan starting in September 2014. A feature film sequel opened last August, and the announcement of the third season followed last October. An anime film of the spinoff manga Yowamushi Pedal: Spare Bike opened in Japan in August.

Source: Comic Natalie