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Akatsuki no Yona Shōjo Fantasy Manga Gets TV Anime
posted on by Egan Loo
This year's 15th issue of Hakusensha's Hana to Yume magazine is announcing on Saturday that a television anime adaptation of Mizuho Kusanagi's shōjo manga Akatsuki no Yona (Yona of the Dawn or Yona, the girl standing in the blush of dawn) has been green-lit.
The manga is an "epic fantasy romance set in a country in ruins." Since Yona is the only princess of a grand kingdom, she has been raised with great care by her doting father and protected by her childhood friend/guard Hak and others. However, her fate changes on her 16th birthday, when her beloved cousin Soo-won murders her father to claim the throne. She flees the castle to Hak's hometown and begins her new life.
The anime will reunite the cast from the earlier drama CD adaptation, with new cast members:
- Chiwa Saito as Yona
- Tomoaki Maeno as Soon Hak
- Yūsuke Kobayashi as Soo-won
- Masakazu Morita as Kija
- Nobuhiko Okamoto as Shin-a
- Junichi Suwabe as Jeha
- Hiro Shimono as Zeno
- Junko Minagawa as Yun
Kazuhiro Yoneda (technical director on Gekijō-ban Tiger & Bunny -The Rising-, Aquarion Evol) is directing the anime at Studio Pierrot (The World Is Still Beautiful). Shinichi Inotsume (Hayate the Combat Butler, Zettai Karen Children) is in charge of the series scripts, and Maho Yoshikawa (Amnesia) is designing the characters. Kunihiko Ryo (The Twelve Kingdoms, Emma) is composing the music with sound director Yukio Nagasaki (Ao Haru Ride, Love Live!).
Mizuho Kusanagi, the creator of Mugen Spiral, Game X Rush, and NG Life, launched the Akatsuki no Yona manga in 2009, and Hakusensha published the 14th volume in April. The ninth manga volume bundled the drama CD adaptation.
Tokyopop published the two volumes of Mugen Spiral in North America in 2007, and also published Game X Rush and NG Life.
