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Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories Anime Gets Ninja Collection Spinoff in July

The Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories television anime is inspiring a Ninja Collection spinoff anime which will premiere on TV Tokyo in July. TV Tokyo's animeteleto subscription service will stream the anime one week before it premieres on broadcast television.

The original Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories series of anime shorts featured six-minute horror stories based on urban legends in a modern day setting. The shorts draw inspiration from Shōwa-era illustrated paper theater productions.

The new Ninja Collection anime will retain the urban legend and horror elements, but will center on the Tōkeshū ninja group in Tokyo, the city where dreams and desires swirl like eddies in a river. With ancient techniques passed down through generations, the ninja are intent on wiping out the "darkness" enveloping people in the current Reiwa era.

The anime stars actors from "2.5D stage plays" such as Yūki Kimisawa, Taiga Fukazawa, Kazuki Soejima, and Ryōshirō Tsuji. The cast also features returning VTuber Taku Nanase, up-and-coming actors Kō Ikeda and Shion Suzuki, Niji no Conquistador idol group member Akari Nakamura, idol Monika Mita, singer/voice actress Ayaka Ōta, singer/voice actress Moemi, veteran voice actress Sachiko Nakagome, Ponzu, Masaki Sawai, and others.

Akira Funada is directing the new project at ILCA, TIA, and DRAWIZ (in collaboration with Aqua), and Hiromu Kumamoto and Mitsuhiro Sasaki return as scriptwriters with franchise newcomer Rei Tsuruga. Akayoroshi drafted the original character designs, and Tsubo Asano is animating. TV Tokyo's Norio Yamakawa and Takuya Iwasaki planned the project, and TV Tokyo's Satoshi Umetsu is producing with Funada.

The rock band Backdrop Cinderella performs the ending theme song "Shinobi Ashi de Unzaunza o Odoru" (Dance 'Unzaunza' on Your Tippy-toes Like a Ninja, a reference to the band's signature "unzaunza" sound).

The Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories anime's first season premiered in July 2013, and the seventh and most recent season premiered last July. The project inspired a previous spinoff, The World Yamizukan, in spring 2017. Crunchyroll streamed all seven seasons and The World Yamizukan as they aired.

Sentai Filmworks licensed the first two seasons of the Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories series and released them on home video with English subtitles in 2016. Sentai Filmworks announced an English dub for the series last yer.

Source: Comic Natalie