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Ayumu Murase, Kaito Ishikawa Lead Haikyu!! Anime's Cast
posted on by Sarah Nelkin
This year's 47th issue of Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine is announcing the two main cast members for the April 2014 anime adaptation of Haruichi Furudate's Haikyu!! volleyball manga on Monday. Ayumu Murase (Gatchaman Crowds' Rui, Majestic Prince's Patrick) will play main protagonist Shōyō Hinata, while Kaito Ishikawa (Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet's Ledo, Nagi no Asukara's Tsugumu) will play rival Tobio Kageyama.
The story of the original manga follows Shōyō Hinata, who began playing volleyball after seeing the "small giants" who played the sport when he was in elementary school. He suffers a crushing defeat in his first and last tournament in middle school at the hands of his rival Tobio Kageyama. So, Hinata joins Kurasuno High School's volleyball team, vowing revenge against Kageyama.
However, Kageyama is also on Kurasuno's team. The former rivals form a legendary combo with Hinata's mobility and Kageyama's precision ball-handling. Together, they take on the local tournaments and vow to meet Kurasuno's fated rival school in the nationals.
Furudate first published a one-shot version of the manga in the Winter 2011 issue of Shueisha's Shonen Jump Next! magazine, and then ran another one-shot in the main Weekly Shonen Jump magazine later that year. In the following year, he launched the series version of the manga in Weekly Shonen Jump. Haikyu!! received a crossover story with Naoshi Komi's Nisekoi, another Weekly Shonen Jump manga that is inspiring a television anime.
Image via kazu
