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Anime Mirai Short Death Billiards Gets TV Anime (Update)

A TV anime series of the Anime Mirai short Death Billiards has been green-lit for a 2015 premiere under the title Death Parade.

A promotional video announcing the anime is also streaming. Tomoaki Maeno returns as his character the bartender to narrate the video:

Text: 2013 Anime Mirai
Text: The talked-about work that illustrates the depths of humans
Text: Is reborn
Text: Life & Death
Bartender: Usually at death, humans are either sent to Heaven or Hell. Of course, there are many exceptions. There is a rule that those who have fallen into the deepest of Hell come here. I am the game master.
Text: Heaven & Hell
Text: Death Billiards - TV anime series adaptation
Bartender: To live in the first place is unfair. I'm sure you both know this fully well. Now then, let's begin the game. Welcome to Queen de Kim.

The original Death Billiards short premiered in February 2013. It revolves around a man and an elderly man who are thrown into a game of billiards that has their life on the line. Yuzuru Tachikawa will return to direct the series at Madhouse, and as with the short, he will also provide the scripts, original concept, and storyboards,

Additionally, broadcaster NTV has opened an official website for the series.

Shinichii Kurita designed the characters and served as animation director. The cast included Tomoaki Maeno (Akatsuki no Yona, Pretty Rhythm Rainbow Live) as the bartender, Asami Seto (Tari Tari, Valvrave the Liberator) as a woman, Yūichi Nakamura (Clannad, World Trigger) as a man, and Jun Hazumi (The Flying House, Kemonozume) as the elderly man.

Under the Anime Mirai program with which the original short was created, the Japan Animation Creators Association (JAniCA) receives money from the Japanese government's Agency for Cultural Affairs, and it distributes most of those funds to studios who will train young animators on-the-job.

Update: Promotional video added.

Source: Mantan Web via 0takomu