News

Crunchyroll Adds Terraformars Sci-Fi TV Anime

Media distribution service Crunchyroll announced on Wednesday that it will stream the television anime adaptation of Yū Sasuga and Kenichi Tachibana's sci-fi Terraformars manga. The first episode will debut for premium members on Friday at 12:30 p.m. ET, and they will be available for free members one week later.

Crunchyroll will stream the series worldwide except in Japan. The streaming site describes the story:

With Earth becoming increasingly overpopulated, an ambitious plan has been put into place to terraform Mars using mold and cockroaches. Nearly 500 years after the plan, a mission to Mars, Annex 1, is under way to accomplish crucial research into the Virus currently plaguing mankind with the crew members who've been injected with various DNA of life on Earth in order to combat the Terraformars, giant humanoid cockroaches.

The anime will star:

• Yoshimasa Hosoya as Akari Hizamaru
• Hidenobu Kiuchi as Shōkichi Komachi
• Shizuka Itou as Michelle
• Kaito Ishikawa as Marcos
• KENN as Alex
• Ai Kayano as Sheila
• Daisuke Ono as Keiji Onizuka
• Chiaki Takahashi as Kanako Sanjō
• Aki Toyosaki as Yaeko Yanasegawa
• Tomokazu Sugita as Ichirō Hiruma
• Unshou Ishizuka as Sylvester
• Tetsuo Komura as Liu Yiwu
• Ayane Sakura as Eva Frost
• Kenji Akabane as Ivan Perepelkina
• Romi Park as Elena Perepelkina
• Toshiyuki Morikawa as Shichisei Hiruma
• Kōji Yusa as Adolf Reinhard
• Akira Ishida as Joseph
• Hiroshi Yanaka as Ko Honda

The television anime will adapt the Annex 1 arc of the manga starting on September 26 at 24:30 (effectively, September 27 at 12:30 a.m.) The companion original video anime (OVA) project adapts the earlier Bugs 2 arc on discs bundled with the 10th and 11th manga volumes. The Annex 1 arc takes place 20 years after the Bugs 2 arc.

Hiroshi Hamasaki (Shigurui: Death Frenzy, Texhnolyze, Steins;Gate) is directing the TV anime at LIDEN FILMS. Shogo Yasukawa (Hyperdimension Neptunia, Invaders of the Rokujyōma!?) is handling the series composition, Masanori Shino (Shigurui: Death Frenzy, Black Lagoon) is handling the main character design, Satoshi Kimura (key animator for Mobile Suit Gundam 00, Valvrave the Liberator) is handling the character design, Takahari Ozaki (composite director for Texhnolyze) is serving as assistant director, and Shusei Murai (Silver Spoon, Tibetan Dog) is composing the music. Terrspex is performing the opening song "Amazing Break" and the ending theme song "Lightning."

Sasuga and Tachibana launched Terra Formars in 2011. The manga ranked at #3 on the Da Vinci magazine's list of the best male-oriented comics in the first half of 2013. The manga also topped the male readers category of the 2013 edition of the Kono Manga ga Sugoi! guidebook. The manga was nominated for last year's Manga Taisho award.

Viz Media licensed the manga for North America, and the company published the second compiled volume on September 16.