Blood Blockade Battlefront Casts Yūma Uchida, Sets April Debut

4 voice roles, more staff announced for TV anime of Yasuhiro Nightow's manga

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The January 2015 issue of Shueisha's Jump Square magazine is announcing on Thursday that Yūma Uchida (Gundam Build Fighters Try, Terraformars) is joining the Blood Blockade Battlefront television anime's cast as Sonic. The magazine also listed roles for three previously revealed cast members andannounced that the series is slated to premiere in April 2015.

The announced roles are:

• Rikiya Koyama as Klaus Von Reinhertz
• Daisuke Sakaguchi as Leonard Watch
• Kazuya Nakai as Zap Renfro
• Yūma Uchida as Sonic

The magazine plans to announce more cast information every month. Jump Square's booth at the Jump Festa 2015 event will feature the anime on December 20-21 at Chiba's Makuhari Messe center.

The magazine is also announcing additional staff members. Koji Sugiura (Hajime no Ippo, Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: The Last Blitz of Zeon, Gunsmith Cats) will handle creature design, whileNoriyuki Jinguji (Trigun, Hellsing Ultimate, Accel World) will be in charge of prop design. Takashi Hashimoto (Magi - The Labyrinth of Magic, Assassination Classroom, One Piece Film Z) will serve as the effects animation director. Taisei Iwasaki ("Kyoshinhei Tokyo ni Arawaru" short, Kanojo wa Uso o Ai Shisugiteru live-action film) is composing the music.

Rie Matsumoto (Kyousogiga, Heartcatch Precure! Hana no Miyako de Fashion Show…Desu ka!?) is directing the anime at the studio BONES. Kazunao Furuya (live-action Liar Game, Galileo, S -Saigo no Keikan-) is the scriptwriter, and Toshihiro Kawamoto (Cowboy Bebop, Wolf's Rain, Golden Boy,Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory) is designing the characters. Shinji Kimura (Project A-Ko, Steamboy, Tekkonkinkreet) is the art director.

The cast will also include Akira Ishida, Unshou Ishizuka, Akio Ohtsuka, Shinji Ogawa, Ai Orikasa,Rie Kugimiya, Yu Kobayashi, Keiji Fujiwara, Hikaru Midorikawa, Mamoru Miyano, and Mitsuru Miyamoto.

Dark Horse Comics publishes the manga in North America, and describes the story:

A breach between Earth and the netherworlds has opened up over the city of New York, trapping New Yorkers and creatures from other dimensions in an impenetrable bubble. They've lived together for years, in a world of crazy crime sci-fi sensibilities. Now someone is threatening to sever the bubble, and a group of stylish superhumans is working to keep it from happening.

After he finished Trigun Maximum in 2007, Yasuhiro Nightow launched Bloodline Battlefront as a one-shot manga story in Shueisha's Jump Square magazine in May of 2008. He then turned it into a three-part mini-series called Kekkai Sensen -Mafūgai Kessha- in the same magazine in 2009. He has since continued the story as a regular series in Jump SQ.19 in 2010. Shueisha published the ninth compiled book volume in June.

Nightow's Trigun and Trigun Maximum manga series inspired a television anime and an anime film, and he also co-created the Gungrave game and television anime.