The recent issue of Weekly Young Jump has revealed that the TV anime adaptation of Yu Sasuga and Kenichi Tachibana’s manga Terra Formars will be airing this Fall/Autumn in early October.
In addition to the TV anime, two OVAs will also be coming out later this year. The OVAs will cover the first arc of the series, the Bugs 2 Arc, and will be bundled with the 10th and 11th volumes of the manga. They will be out in August and November respectively and will cost ¥1,980 (~ $19.80 USD). The televised anime itself will cover the Annex 1 Arc, which is set 20 years after the OVA.
The production crew of the anime is the same as the OVA and consists of:
- Director: Hiroshi Hamasaki (Steins;Gate, Blade & Soul)
- Assistant Director: Takaharu Ozaki (Texhnolyze)
- Series Composition: Shougo Yasukawa (Choujigen Game Neptune: The Animation, Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!?)
- Main Character Designer: Masanori Shino (Black Lagoon)
- Character Designer: Satoshi Kimura (Buddy Complex)
- Animation Studio: Liden Films (Miss Monochrome, Senyuu)
The cast of the OVA has also been announced, though whether they will reprise their roles in the anime has not been announced. The cast of the OVA is as follows:
- Hidenobu Kiuchi (Hei in Darker Than Black) will voice the lead character Shokichi Komachi
- Tomokazu Sugita (Gintoki Sakata from Gintama) voices Ichiro Hiruma
- Ayako Kawasumi (Saber from Fate/Zero, Fate/stay night) as Nanao Akita
- Tomohisa Hashizume (Bertolt Hoover in Attack on Titan) plays as Thien
- Rikiya Koyama (Kiritsugu Emiya in Fate/Zero, Fate/stay night) voices Donatello K. Davis
- Ayahi Takagaki (Henrietta in Log Horizon) voicing Zhang Ming-Ming
- Kenjiro Tsuda (Mikoto Suoh in K) will voice God Lee
- Nana Mizuki (Hinata Hyuuga from Naruto Shippuuden) as Maria Viren
- Ami Koshimizu (Ryuuko Matoi from Kill la Kill) voices Victoria Wood
- Hiroshi Yanaka (Nobuhiko Tokiwa in Tamako Market) as Akira Honda
A teaser video for the anime released back in March.
Terra Formars is an original manga written by Yu Sasuga and illustrated by Kenichi Tachibana. The series was first published in 2011 in Shueisha’s Weekly Young Jump magazine. To date the series has 8 volumes published with the 9th volume releasing on May 19th. The manga ranked 1st in Kono Manga ga Sugoi! Top 20 Manga for Male Readers guidebook, with over 6 million copies in print. A TV anime and OVA were announced in February this year. The OVA will handle the first arc in the series, the Bugs 2 Arc, and the anime series will continue with the Annex 1 arc.
Here is a synopsis of the series from Haruhichan:
With the space program attempting to travel to Mars, 21st century scientists were tasked with warming up the planet so that humans could survive on its surface. They came up with an efficient and cost-effective plan of sending cockroaches and mold to the surface so that the mold would absorb the sunlight and the insect corpses would serve as a food source for the mold.
It is now the year 2577 and the first manned ship to Mars has landed on the planet and the six crew members are ready for their mission. But what they find are giant mutated humanoid cockroaches with incredible physical strength. The crew members are easily wiped out, but not before sending a transmission back to Earth. Now, humanity will send elite warriors to exterminate the mutated bugs and claim back Mars.
The Terra Formars anime series will be airing this October in the Fall/Autumn 2014 anime season. The two prequel OVAs will be bundled in the 10th and 11th manga volumes, which will be out in August and November respectively. More information about both anime adaptations is expected to release in the upcoming weeks.
You can also visit the official website for the anime: http://terraformars.tv/
