It’s almost time for a genuine blast from the past to make its big return on the grand stage. Battle Athletes Daiundoukai ReSTART! is premiering this April! To get us even more hyped, a second promotional video which builds on the first hit the Internet on Friday, February 19th! The series itself is set to premiere on April 10th. The music used in the background in the video will actually be the opening theme, “Cobalt’s Heartbeat” (Cobalt no Kodou) sung by Nanaka Suwa.
The voice cast as we know it so far reads as follows (character names first):
Kanata Akehoshi: Sumire Morohoshi
Eva Garen Stein: Yui Ishikawa
Shelley Wong: Miyu Tomita
Lydia Gurtland: Akari Kito
Yana Christopher: Saori Hayami
Paglia Respighi: Hikaru Nanjo
As previously announced, the animation will be produced by Studio Seven with Tadayoshi Sasaki serving as director.
First appearing as a video game in Japan towards the end of 1996, the game received a four-volume manga adaptation written by Yuki Nakano from March 1997 to November 1998, before also receiving two anime adaptations a few months later. The first to be released was a six-episode OVA series simply titled Battle Athletes, which was released from May 1997 to June 1998. What makes this franchise extra interesting is the fact that, while the OVA series was being released, a brand new television adaptation which completely revamped the story was broadcast starting in October 1997. Both the OVA and television series were released in North America by Geneon, starting in 1998.
At this point, I’d really like to address the elephant in the room regarding this video. For a series that is supposed to take place 100 years in the future, these character designs look awfully familiar. I was under the impression that this series was going to be its own entity, but perhaps we’ll be seeing some familiar faces appear at some point before the series ends?
Sources: Anime.Eiga, Crunchyroll News
