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2nd Baby Steps Season Casts Takuya Eguchi, Natsuki Hanae

NHK 's Anime World website revealed the second round of cast announcements for the second season of the Baby Steps sports television anime on Tuesday.

Takuya Eguchi as Atsushi Taira, a 19-year old Japanese student studying in an American school while still aiming to be a pro. He is Eiichiro's roommate, but his mind seems to be occupied by something.

Natsuki Hanae as Krishna Ramesh, an exchange student from India, and at 16 years old, is a year younger than Eiichiro. He and Eiichiro are roommates. A rising star, he is one of the top class junior athletes.

NHK previously announced Hiroshi Kamiya and Megumi Han were playing the characters Alex O'Brien and Marcia O'Brien, respectively.

The cast also includes:

• Taishi Murata as Eiichiro Maruo
• Minako Kotobuki as Natsu Takasaki
• Daisuke Namikawa as Takuma Egawa
• Takuma Terashima as Kojirō Kageyama
• Hiro Shimono as Yukichi Fukasawa
• Tetsuya Kakihara as Takuya Miyagawa
• Tomoaki Maeno as Ryo Ōbayashi
• Wataru Hatano as Hiroshi Araya
• Yuuki as Yūki Tajima
• Taiten Kusunoki as Coach Miura
• Asami Seto as Himeko Sasaki
• Yoshiyuki Shimozuma as Nariyuki Koshimizu
• Shintarō Asanuma as Hiromi Iwasa
• Yoshimasa Hosoya as Sōji Ike
• Takahiro Sakurai as Yū Nabae
• Kentarou Itou as Takayuki Okada
• KENN as Yoshiaki Ide
• Kōsuke Toriumi as Coach Aoi

The Baby Steps television anime adapts Hikaru Katsuki's manga of the same name, which revolves around Eiichirō "Ei-chan" Maruo, a punctual and earnest boy who has strived for straight As since elementary school. The 15-year-old high school boy stops by a tennis school to deal with his lack of exercise. There, he meets Natsu Takasaki, a beautiful, earnest girl who only has passion for tennis. The second season's story picks up at a Florida academy where the rival players of the world vie for #1.

The second season will premiere on April 5 and will run for 25 episodes.

The first anime series premiered last April. Pierrot (Naruto, Kingdom) animated the first television series with a total of 25 episodes. Katsuki himself collaborated on the creation of episodes with original stories not told in the manga. Kenji Saitō (Dennō Coil, Bakuman., Bottom Biting Bug) produced the anime for NHK. Crunchyroll streamed the first series as it aired in Japan.

[Via Ota-Suke]