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Hisako Kanemoto Stars in I.G's Maria the Virgin Witch Anime

The official website for the anime of Masayuki Ishikawa's Maria the Virgin Witch (Junketsu no Maria - Sorcière de gré, pucelle de force) manga opened on Monday and revealed the cast, staff, and January 2015 broadcast premiere date.

• Hisako Kanemoto as Maria
• Yōko Hikasa as Artemis
• Mikako Komatsu as Priapos
• Kana Hanazawa as Ezekiel
• Kenshō Ono as Joseph
• Kikuko Inoue as Michael

Gorō Taniguchi (Code Geass, Fantasista Doll, s-CRY-ed) is directing the anime at Production I.G, off scripts written and supervised by Hideyuki Kurata (Read or Die, Oreimo, The World God Only Knows). Yuriko Chiba (Planetes, Sacred Seven, To Heart) is designing the characters with concept visual designs by Eiji Nakada (Code Geass, Eureka Seven, Sacred Seven).

Seiichi Shirato (Jormungand, Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, Mobile Suit Gundam AGE) is serving as chief researcher. Narumi Sakai is serving as the color key artist with Hiroshi Tanaka as the director of photography. Yasuhiro Mikami is directing the 3D, and Seiji Morita is editing. Masato Kōda (Arpeggio of Blue Steel, Magical Warfare) is scoring the music at Lantis. Jin Aketagawa is the sound producer.

The story follows Maria, the most powerful witch who lives during the Hundred Years' War in France. She despises war, so she obstructs battles with her strong magical powers. Her meddling with her succubus Artemis and incubus Priapos has caught the attention of the heavens, and so the Archangel Michael issues an edict. When Maria loses her virginity, she will also lose her magical powers. A beautiful angel named Ezekiel is supposed to watch Maria and make sure the witch does not use magic in front of people, but Maria continues to use magic anyways.

Ishikawa launched the manga in the inaugural issue of Kodansha's Good! Afternoon magazine in 2008, and the manga ended its run in this magazine last year. Kodansha Comics announced at Anime Expo in July that it will publish the manga in North America.

Ishikawa also drew the Moyashimon: Tales of Agriculture manga in Kodansha's Evening and Morning 2 magazines until this past January, and Del Rey published part of the manga in North America. Moyashimon inspired two television anime series and a live-action television series.

[Via 0takomu]

Image © Masayuki Ishikawa, Kodansha/Maria the Virgin Witch Production Committee