News

Love All Play Anime Casts Masaya Matsukaze, Shimba Tsuchiya

The official website for the television anime of Asami Koseki's Love All Play badminton novel revealed two more cast members on Saturday. The new cast includes Masaya Matsukaze as Shizuo Nakano (name romanization not confirmed, pictured left below) and Shimba Tsuchiya as Hirohito Monda (name romanization not confirmed, pictured right). Both characters were Ryō's teammates in middle school.

The anime will premiere on April 2. The anime will air on YTV, NTV, and their affiliates on Saturdays at 5:30 p.m.

The main cast includes:

• Natsuki Hanae as Ryō Mizushima
• Yōhei Azakami as Shōhei Sakaki
• Makoto Furukawa as Kо̄ki Matsuda
• Kenshō Ono as Taichi Higashiyama
• Tetsuya Kakihara as Yо̄ji Higashiyama
• Yūki Kaji as Akira Uchida
• Minako Kotobuki as Rika Mizushima
• Kazuya Nakai as Hitoshi Ebihara

Additionally, real-life badminton players Yūta Watanabe and Arisa Higashino will appear in the anime playing themselves.

The story follows Ryō Mizushima, who joined his middle school's badminton team full of motivation — but without a proper coach, ended up in obscurity. Nevertheless, he did eventually reach the prefectural tournament on his physical strength. Now he joins the prestigious Yokohama-Minato High School's badminton team under the legendary coach Ebihara and is surrounded by talented teammates. He strives to become a top athlete and take his high school team to the inter-high tournament.

Hiroshi Takeuchi (Peacemaker Kurogane: Belief storyboarder, Blade & Soul, Zunda Horizon) is directing the anime at Nippon Animation and OLM. Tomoko Konparu (Uta no Prince-sama - Maji Love 1000%, Nodame Cantabile) is supervising the series scripts and writing them with Miharu Hirami (Kodocha, The New Adventures of Kimba The White Lion), Shingo Irie (All Out!!, Kuroko's Basketball), and Michiko Yokote (Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE!, Genshiken, Shirobako). Riko Kaneda is designing the characters, and Yuki Hayashi (My Hero Academia, Welcome to the Ballroom, Shaman King) is composing the music.

Sporting goods maker YONEX is supervising and collaborating on the designs for the anime. YONEX assisted on a previous badminton anime, Hanebad! from 2018.

Poplar's Pureful imprint published the first Love All Play novel in May 2011, and Koseki has since written three more follow-up novels. The anime is also getting a manga adaptation by Dam Miyata on Shueisha's Tonari no Young Jump website.

Sources: Love All Play anime's website, Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web