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Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin Anime's Staff, Key Visual Unveiled

The official website for the anime of Yoshikazu Yasuhiko's Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin manga revealed the staff and visuals for the series this Friday. The story will be told in four parts that will premiere in theaters. The first part, Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin I: Aoi Hitomi no Casval (Blue-eyed Casval), is slated to premiere in spring of 2015.

A 90-second promotional video will run after the theatrical debut of the seventh and final episode of Mobile Suit Gundam UC on Saturday.

Takashi Imanishi (Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: The Last Blitz of Zeon, Violinist of Hamelin) will direct the anime off scripts by Katsuyuki Sumisawa (Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, Dragonball 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

The first part 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 website features several character designs:

Casval Rem Deikun (Young Char Aznable)

Artesia Som Deikun (Young Sayla Mass)

Zeon Zum Deikun

Astraia Tor Deikun

Jimba Ral

Ramba Ral

Degwin Sodo Zabi, Gihren Zabi, Sasuro Zabi

Dozle Zabi, Kycilia Zabi

Char Aznable

Yasuhiko's manga series is itself a re-imagining of Yoshiyuki 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 Media published part of the manga in North America before stopping. Vertical picked up the license and is currently releasing the series.

[Via: Otakumu]