×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

News
Shinkalion Anime's 1st 3 Minutes of 1st Episode Streamed

posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
Hatsune Miku to appear in new series; Boys and Men, Keisuke Murakami perform theme songs

The official YouTube channel for Shinkansen Henkei Robo Shinkalion the Animation, the television anime adaptation of Takara Tomy's Shinkalion toy line, began streaming the first three minutes of the show's first episode on Thursday.

The show's official website also revealed on Wednesday that Hatsune Miku will appear in the anime as an 11-year-old Shinkalion driver. The character's name in the anime will also be Hatsune Miku, but the kanji character for "Hatsu" in "Hatsune" is replaced with the kanji for "departure" (the normal "Hatsu" kanji in her name is the kanji for "first.").

The show's site also revealed on December 20 that Boys and Men will perform the show's opening theme song "Shinkalion" (the title uses the kanji for the words "Evolution Theory"). The site then revealed on Monday that Keisuke Murakami will perform the show's ending theme song "Go One Step Ahead."

The show stars:

Ayane Sakura as Hayato Hayasugi, the protagonist and driver of the Shinkalion E5

Manami Numakura as Akita Oga, the driver of the Shinkalion E6 who fights alongside Hayato

Rie Murakawa as Tsuranuki Daimonyama, the pilot of the Shinkalion E7

Yūji Ueda as Shashot, a conductor robot who supports Hayato and calls him "partner." He talks like a train conductor.

Ayana Taketatsu as Azusa Ueda, Hayato's classmate and a popular YouTuber.

Tomokazu Sugita as Hokuto Hayasugi, Hayato's father and a staff member at The Railway Museum

Sora Amamiya as Futaba Mihara, a newbie operator who supports Shinkalion pilots

Hikaru Midorikawa as Shinpei Izumi, Futaba's boss at the "Shinkansen Ultra Evolution Institute"

The show will premiere on January 6 at 7:00 a.m. on TBS and its affiliates.

Takahiro Ikezoe (Show By Rock!!, PriPri Chii-chan!!) is directing the anime at OLM. Ajia-do is credited for animation cooperation. Kento Shimoyama (Bleach, Armed Girl's Machiavellism) is in charge of series composition. Yuka Aono (Brave Beats) is designing the characters, and Keita Hattori is in charge of mechanical design. Toshiyuki Watanabe (Giovanni's Island, Space Brothers) is composing the music, and Masafumi Mima (Attack on Titan, Valvrave the Liberator) is the sound director. SMDE is credited for CG animation.

The Shinkalion robots are various models of real-life Japanese bullet trains (shinkansen) that transform into robots to fight an unknown evil to protect the safety and peace of Japan.

In the franchise's story, Hayato Hayasugi (his last name is a pun on the words for "too fast"), the train-loving son of a train museum curator, accidentally stumbles into his dad's secret research lab one day. Inside he finds the E5 bullet train. As soon as he enters, he hears an announcement that a mysterious enemy, the Bachigami ("bee god"), is attacking the city of New Saitama. Luckily, with the touch of his father's Shinca ("evolve") card, the bullet train he's in transforms into a mighty robot — the Shinkalion E5 Hayabusa.

In the anime's story, Hayato and other children will serve as conductors to pilot the Shinkalion. The children must work together with the adults of the "Shinkansen Ultra Evolution Institute" (SUEI) to defeat a monster that looks like a jet black bullet train.

The franchise has also held events and has had magazine features.

[Via Ota-Suke]


discuss this in the forum (7 posts) |
bookmark/share with: short url

this article has been modified since it was originally posted; see change history

News homepage / archives