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Gackt to Play Sket Dance Singer Modeled After Himself (Updated)
posted on by Egan Loo
This year's 28th issue of Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine is announcing on Monday that singer Gackt will guest-star on the Sket Dance television anime series — as a singer modeled after himself. He is also performing his first character song, or a song performed under the persona of a fictional character, in the "Kaimei Rock Festival" storyline.
Gackt will play Dante, the vocalist of a high school visual-kei band named JardiN. Gackt himself was the former vocalist of a visual-kei band named Malice Mizer, and original manga creator Kenta Shinohara openly acknowledged that he modeled the popular character Dante in Gackt's image. Gackt will perform the song "Iki Toshi Ikeru Subete ni Tsugu" as Dante. Ryo (Black Rock Shooter, Guilty Crown) composed the song with lyrics by Seiko Fujibayashi (Fullmetal Alchemist, One Piece).
The anime premiered in April. In the story, Yūsuke "Bossun" Fujisaki (Hiroyuki Yoshino) and several students in his high school form a "Sket Group" to solve any trouble in the student body. The "Kaimei Rock Festival" storyline is set during the school's live event of the same name. Gackt has voiced characters in other anime: New Fist of the North Star, Shiki, Supernatural the Animation, and Tono to Issho.
The Oricon and Presepe websites posted an image of Dante.
Source: Oricon, Presepe News
Update: Jiji Press posted a 205-second promotional video of Gackt recording the song and discussing his role on YouTube. Thanks, LauraOrganaSolo.
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