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TMS, Peach-Pit Make Trickster Detective TV Anime Inspired by Edogawa Rampo

TMS Entertainment unveiled a new television anime production titled Trickster: Edogawa Rampo 'Shōnen Tantei-dan' Yori (Trickster - From Rampo Edogawa's "The Boy Detectives Club") on Wednesday with a promotional video revealing the anime's cast and staff.

Text: Seeking death, he chose the path of a detective.
Text: Character design: Peach-Pit
Text: The year 203X, Tokyo
Text: The Boy Detectives Club, Private Detective, The Fiend With Twenty Faces
Text: The legend returns anew.
Yoshio: I only want to die.
Text: The boy fated to carry the burden of immortality: Yoshio Kobayashi (Daiki Yamashita)
Kensuke: Do you want to join the Boy Detectives Club?
Text: Acting leader of the Boy Detectives Club: Kensuke Hanazaki (Ryota Ohsaka)
Kensuke and Logo: Trickster: Edogawa Rampo 'Shōnen Tantei-dan' Yori
Yoshio: I want to die.

The anime's visual contains the text, "He searches for a case where he can die." Daiki Yamashita plays the character of Yoshio Kobayashi (left), and Ryota Ohsaka plays Kensuke Hanazaki (right).

The anime's official website notes that the project will also include a stage play , a manga, and a live-action film.

The site describes the story:

It is the 2030s. The Boy Detectives Club gathers under Kogorō Akechi, the mysterious detective. The group solves cases great and small using their unique skills. One day, a member of the club, Kensuke Hanazaki, meets the boy Yoshio Kobayashi. Kobayashi's body cannot die due to the effects of the "Unidentifiable Mist," but he yearns for death, and shirks from contact with other people. Taking an interest in him, Hanazaki invites him to join the Boy Detectives Club. Their meeting is connected to the fate tying together Kogorō Akechi, and the era's greatest villain, the Fiend With Twenty Faces.

The anime will premiere on Tokyo MX, Yomiuri TV, BS11, and other channels in October.

Masahiro Mukai (Hyperdimension Neptunia, episode director in Terror in Resonance, Blood Blockade Battlefront) will direct the anime at TMS Entertainment and Shinei Animation. Erika Yoshida (Tiger & Bunny: The Comic) will supervise and write the series' scripts. Peach-Pit (Di Gi Charat, Rozen Maiden, Shugo Chara!) is drawing the original character designs, and Shinya Yamada (key animation in Attack on Titan, Your Lie in April, Samurai Champloo) is adapting those character designs for animation. Yuuki Hayashi (Death Parade, My Hero Academia, Kiznaiver) is composing the music.

Shōnen Tantei-dan (The Boy Detectives Club) describes both the 1937 novel by renowned Japanese mystery novelist Edogawa Rampo, and the title of a series of Edogawa novels, of which the aforementioned titular novel is the second in the series (the first was The Fiend With Twenty Faces). The character of Yoshio Kobayashi appears in many of the novels as the leader of the club, and apprentice of Japan's greatest detective, Kogorō Akechi. Edogawa's novels have inspired numerous live-action and animated adaptations, and elements and references to his stories appear in even more works. 2015's Rampo Kitan: Game of Laplace television anime adapts many of Edogawa's stories.

Update: Mantohihi Binta will launch the manga adaptation in the July issue of Kodansha's Magazine Special on June 20. Source: Comic Natalie