Gatchaman Crowds Update - Premiere Date! Voice Cast! Theme Songs!

Hi all!

The Gatchaman Crowds website has had another update, giving us all sorts of data regarding the voice cast, the theme songs, and the premiere date!

The premiere date first. The series will begin airing on Nippon Television on Friday, July 12th, at 25:58. Yeah, I know, there's only 24 hours in a day. But the Japanese use a broadcast day that starts in the morning at 4:00am and goes until 3:59:59am, and consider it a single, continuous stream of hours -- essentially 4:00:00 to 27:59:59. As far as normal people look at this, the series premieres Saturday, July 13th, at 1:58am, but the official records will say July 12th at 25:58.

Maaya Uchida is no longer that only announced voice in the series. Joining her in the series we have as follows:

Hajime Ichinose - Maaya Uchida
Sugane Tachibana - Ryota Osaka
Joe Hibiki - Daisuke Namikawa
O.D - Daisuke Hosomi
Utsu-tsu - Kotori Koiwai
Paiman - Aya Hirano
Rui Ninomiya - Ayumu Murase
Berg Katse - Mamoru Miyano
Governor X - Sakura Tange
J.J. Robinson - Katsuji Mori

The big news off of this list is the voice of J.J. Robinson, who is being played by none other than Katsuji Mori! In case it slipped your mind, Mr. Mori was the voice of Ken, the Eagle in Gatchaman (And Gatchaman II, and Gatchaman Fighter, and the Gatchaman radio drama, and the Gatchaman movie, and numerous other appearances of the character). While this might not be his familiar Gatchaman role, it will still be great to hear Mr. Mori's voice again!

The announcement of the voice cast has also brought about a need for me to correct the genders on a pair of characters. Darn that lack of gender-specific wording in their character descriptions! Anyway, O.D is a guy, not a girl. Hey, the character appears to be wearing high heels, so what would you think? Likewise, Rui might also a boy. The character is voiced by a young man, but he's one who, according to his profile on his talent agency's website, has the ability to voice either male or female characters. Rui is a girls name, so we'll have to chalk that one up as a maybe for now. Paiman is also being voiced by a girl, but as this character is a cute, mascot-like character, it's kinda hard to tell what gender it's supposed to be.

I do have to wonder if Governor X is the identity of the mystery girl, whose description is simply, "A celebrity on the SNS “GALAX,” she has a charismatic personality." Or is this X, who we have been told was developed by Rui, something else entirely? We'll have to wait and see.

And, lastly, the theme songs for the series have been announced. No, not a remake of the original series themes. The opening theme is called "Crowds," and is performed by the group indie rock band White Ash. The CD single of the theme will be released on August 21st. The ending theme is titled "Innocent Note," and is performed by the character of Hajime Ichonose (Meaning, of course, that Maaya Uchida is singing the song as Hajime). Both the TV size and full size versions of this song will be released on the Gatchaman Crowds soundtrack album, which is being released on August 28th. While they haven't made an official announcement regarding it, the description for the soundtrack album mentions that the music is being composed by Taku Iwasaki. Mr. Iwasaki is generally known for his jazz-like scores, and he composed the scores for such anime productions as "C," "009-1," "Witch Hunter Robin," "The Soul Taker," and "Rurouni Kenshin," among others.

Anyway, all of this has come from the Gatchaman Crowds website. If you wish to see it from the original, Japanese language source, it can be found here:

http://www.ntv.co.jp/GATCHAMAN_Crowds/index.html

With less than a month before the premiere (No matter what day of the week you look at it as premiering on!), I'm sure there will be plenty more to come very soon!

James

So the show is on at (essentially) 2 am? That doesn't seem like the best timeslot for viewers.

Thanks for providing translations of all of the new information, James!

__________________

Many thanks again for the continuous updates, James! At least, there's going to be something from the original, then, even though I would have wished that it would have been Ken himself, apart from the voice! But, hearing so is most heartwarming in itself!

__________________
To be or not to be a gatchamaniac - that's the dilemma!