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Staff, Fall Premiere, Cast Announced for Luger Code 1951 Story's Anime

The final chapter of Haruto Haneki and Akira Akatsuki's Luger Code 1951 manga announced the staff and premiere date for the planned anime adaptation of Haneki's original story on Monday.

Shinya Takahashi (Urusei Yatsura: Only You character designer, Patlabor 2: The Movie key animation) will make his directorial debut with the anime at Studio DEEN. Katsuhiko Takayama (Ga-Rei: Zero, Aldnoah.Zero, Mirai Nikki) is in charge of the anime's script. Hirofumi Morimoto (Getbackers, Is This a Zombie? animation director) is adapting the character designs for animation. Ryō Kawasaki (Reikenzan: Hoshikuzu-tachi no Utage) is composing the music.

In addition, the announcement reveals that the project has cast Takuya Eguchi as Sergeant Alex Rossa.

The anime will premiere in fall this year. Animax will air the anime, and the Shonen Jump+ website will stream it.

Haneki's original "Luger Code 1951" scenario won the Shonen Jump+ x Animax Anime Scenario Award last September. Akatsuki (Medaka Box) launched a manga adaptation of the scenario last December.

The original contest accepted unpublished entries that could be made into an anime 30 to 40 minutes in estimated length. Haneki won 2 million yen (about US$17,000) from the contest.

The story centers around the young linguistic genius and university professor Testa. He is introduced by his senior, Sergeant Rossa, to the Allied Cryptanalysis Department. There, he is tasked to break the enemy werewolves' code, which the werewolves are using to encrypt their radio transmissions. Testa is astounded, as the only sound the encrypted code produces is the howling of a wolf. His research yields no results, and he resolves to capture a live werewolf for better cryptanalysis. After exhausting all possible means, he finally finds a female werewolf, Yonaga.

The characters are (No official romanization for the character names exists yet):

Testa Lielbelle (17 years old)
A genius boy and master of all the languages of the countries that fought as part of the Allied Forces in World War II. He wrote and published a thesis on cryptanalysis, and became a university professor. He suffered from bullying during his time in boarding school. He is a civilian.

Alex Rossa (21 years old)
A young sergeant in the Allied Forces, and Testa's upperclassman during their time at a boarding school. He constantly wears his country's khaki uniform and beret. He grew up as the son of a hunter, and is thus an expert marksman. He always carries two compact pistols, which he wields in either hand.

Yonaga (16 years old)
A werewolf girl. She has a human body, but has the ears and tail of a grey wolf. The beasts who grow fangs like a werewolf's can no longer transform, but they hold a mysterious power.