Too Kyo Games made massive waves when the newly formed production studio was announced back in September of 2018. Part of that was because it’s a video game studio led by two iconic Japanese talents; the creator of Danganronpa, Kazutaka Kodaka, and the creator of Zero Escape, Kotaro Uchikoshi. Too Kyo Games also surprised many because, of the four projects they had announced during their inception, one was actually an anime. Now, production on that anime is ramping up as Too Kyo Games has announced that, in partnership with anime company Studio Pierrot, they are developing an original series titled Akudama Drive for a July premiere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2N3QpM4bOA
When it was first revealed alongside three other video game projects in 2018, the only thing known about Akudama Drive — besides the codename “Project #2” — was the tagline “Everyone is a Villain.” It also had concept art attached to it that seemed to depict the characters involved in the story, illustrated by Danganronpa series character designer Rui Komatsuzaki.
Now that the original anime series has been revealed in full, we have a clearer picture of who will be working behind the scenes to bring the world of Akudama Drive to life.
While Too Kyo Games and Studio Pierrot are both credited with the original work, Danganronpa game franchise creator and Too Kyo Games founder Kazutaka Kodaka is credited with the original story draft. Tomohiro Taguchi, meanwhile, will be directing the series at Studio Pierrot. Taguchi previously worked on Kino’s Journey – The Beautiful World and Twin Star Exorcists. He’ll be joined by assistant director Yoshifumi Sasahara, who previously worked on Scum’s Wish and Kino’s Journey – The Beautiful World. Norimitsu Kaiho, who previously contributed writing to Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope’s Peak High School: Future Arc and School-Live!, will be overseeing the series’ scripts. Cindy H. Yamauchi is going to be adapting the original character designs for animation, while Aida Shigekazu is in charge of music composition.
In the world of Akudama Drive, the countries of “Kanto” and “Kansei” had a massive war a long time ago that divided the world. Kansei became a lesser power to Kanto at the end of the world, but as time went on, Kansei’s government and police force dwindled in power, leading to a rampant rise in activity from criminals nicknamed “Akudama.” The revealed cast of voice actors and characters is as follows:
- Tomoyo Kurosawa as Ordinary Person (Ippanjin)
- Yuichiro Umehara as Courier (Hakobiya)
- Shunsuke Takeuchi as Brawler (Kenkaya)
- Shun Horie as Hacker
- Megumi Ogata as Doctor (Isha)
- Subaru Kimura as Hoodlum (Chinpira)
- Takahiro Sakurai as Cutthroat (Satsujinki)
Other assorted staff members on the series also include:
- Mechanical Design: Sho Yamamoto, Haruo Miyagawa, Shinobu Tsuneki
- Art Director: Yoshio Tanioka
- Art Design: Kaoru Aoki
- Color Design: Saori Goda
- Editing: Akinori Mishima
- Director of Photography: Kazuhiro Yamada
- CG Director: Hidenori Fujitani
- Sound Director: Yukio Nagasaki
- Sound Production: Delfi Sound
