Gundam: The Origin Casts Mayumi Tanaka as Casval/Young Char

Megumi Han, Shuuichi Ikeda, Jin Urayama also star in February 28 screenings

---

The official website for the Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin anime announced the main cast on Friday:

Mayumi Tanaka as Casval Rem Deikun  (Young Char Aznable)

Megumi Han as Artesia Som Deikun (Young Sayla Mass)

Jin Urayama as Degwin Sodo Zabi , Banjou Ginga as Gihren Zabi, Shinshū Fuji as Sasuro Zabi

Kenta Miyake as Dozle Zabi, Akeno Watanabe as Kycillia Zabi

Eizou Tsuda as Zeon Zum Deikun 

Ayumi Tsunematsu as Astraia Tor Deikun

Shigeo Kiyama as Ramba Ral

Miyuki Sawashiro as Crowley Hamon

Chafurin as Jimba Ral

Shuuichi Ikeda as Char Aznable 

 

The website also announced that the first installment, Aoi Hitomi no Casval (Blue-eyed Casval), will play for two weeks in 13 Japanese theaters, starting on February 28. Those theaters will offer advance sales of the installment on Blu-ray Disc.

Advance tickets will go on sale on November 29 with a bundled Zeon and Munzo Defense Unit Pin Set at participating theaters. LAWSON's Loppi service will offer its own advance ticket bundle with a Making-of Blu-ray Disc (including an interview with character designer/manga artist Yoshikazu Yasuhiko) on pre-order from December 1 to February 3.

The second 90-second trailer will debut on Saturday on the free Gundam Channel app for iOS/Android devices. A new visual also debuted:

 

The story will be told in four parts. The first part, Aoi Hitomi no Casval, will tell the story of Casval Rem Deikun and Artesia Som Deikun (Char and Sayla, before Char became known as the Red Comet) before the One-Year War in UC.0068. The first promotional video debuted in May:

Takashi Imanishi (Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: The Last Blitz of Zeon, Violinist of Hamelin) will direct the anime off scripts byKatsuyuki Sumisawa (Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, Dragon Ball Z) at Sunrise. Manga artist Yasuhiko is credited as a general manager and as a character designer along with Tsukasa Kotobuki (Saber Marionette J). Kunio Okawara (Gundam Build Fighters) is heading original mechanical design and Takayuki Hattori (Code:Breaker) is composing the music. The rest of the staff is as follows:

• Original Work: Hajime Yatate, Yoshiyuki Tomino
• Mechanical Design: Hajime Katoki, Kimitoshi Yamane,Mika Akitaka, Junichi Akutsu
• Production: Kiyoshi Egami, Ichiro Itano
• Chief Animation Director: Hiroyuki Nishimura
• Mechanical Chief Animation Director: Takuya Suzuki
• Art Director: Shigemi Ikeda, Yukiko Maruyama
• Color Design: Nagisa Abe
• Director of Photography: Takeshi Katsurayama
• Editing: Masato Yoshitake
• Sound Director: Sadayoshi Fujino

Yoshikazu Yasuhiko's Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin manga series is itself a re-imagining ofYoshiyuki Tomino and Sunrise's first Gundam anime. Yasuhiko launched the manga in Kadokawa Shoten's Monthly Gundam Ace inaugural issue in 2001 and ended the series in 2011. Viz Mediapublished part of the manga in North America before stopping. Vertical picked up the license and is currently releasing the series.

Images © Sotsu, Sunrise