Katsuyuki Konishi, the seiyuu behind the voice of Fairy Tail’s Laxus Dreyar, has been cast as Urusei Yatsura’s Rei for the upcoming anime series reboot.
A key visual of the Lum, the Invader Girl character has been revealed alongside the announcement, and promptly made public via the TV Anime’s official Twitter:
Urusei Yatsura will premiere in October 22 with at least four cours, from what we know so far. The series will be broadcast via the Noitamina programming block on Fuji TV.
The first season of the reboot will consist of two cours streaming consecutively. The Urusei Yatsura Season 2 release date hasn’t been announced yet.
The reboot coincides with the 100th anniversary of Shogakukan, the publisher serializing the original manga from 1978 to 1987.
The Urusei Yatsura 2022 anime series: What we know so far
The reboot of the Urusei Yatsura anime series was announced back in May 2022, whereby the first PV trailer was released via the Noitamina Youtube channel:
Urusei Yatsura is being produced by David Production and directed by Hideya Takahashi and Yasuhiro Kimura (JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind). Naoyuki Asano (Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!) is in charge of character design and Yuuko Kakihara (The Aquatope on White Sand) — of series composition.
Additional staff includes:
- Kazuhiro Takamura, mikitail — sub-character designers
- JNTHED, Yoshihiro Sono — mechanical designers
- Masanobu Nomura — art director
- Ayaka Nakamura — color designer
- Yuuichirou Osada — photography director
- Masaru Yokoyama —music composer
The cast includes:
- Sumire Uesaka — Lum
- Hiroshi Kamiya — Ataru Moroboshi
- Maaya Uchida— Shinobu Miyake
- Wataru Takagi — Cherry
- Miyuki Sawashiro — Sakura
- Mamoru Miyano — Shuutarou Mendou
The original Urusei Yatsura anime series ran from 1981 to 1986 and was followed up by four theatrical films and an OVA series.
This is common occurrence when it comes to adaptations of pretty much all of Rumiko Takahashi’s vastly popular manga series, which also include Inuyasha and Ranma ½. Takahashi is one of the most famous mangaka, both in Japan and worldwide.
About the Urusei Yatsura manga series
Urusei Yatsura (うる星やつら) is the first manga series by Rumiko Takahashi. It was serialized in Shogakukan’s Weekly Shōnen Sunday from 1978 to 1987, amounting to 366 chapters. The individual chapters have been collected into 34 tankōbon volumes.
The plotline follows Ataru Moroboshi and the alien Lum, who believes she is his wife due to a misunderstanding.
Like all Takahashi’s works, the manga is a unique read, being both educational and fun. Similarly to Inuyasha, Urusei Yatsura draws on Japansese mythology (albeit in a rather different way) and is abundant in cultural references and puns.
The manga series was originally licensed as Lum and The Return of Lum by Viz Media in the 1990s. In 2019, the publisher re-licensed the series and began releasing 2-in-1 omnibus editions under its original title with new translations.