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Fruits Basket The Final Anime Casts Ai Orikasa, Akira Ishida (Updated)
posted on by Egan Loo
The live-streamed advance screening for the Fruits Basket the Final anime season confirmed on Saturday that Ai Orikasa and Akira Ishida are joining the cast. Orikasa and Ishida play [Warning: The text below contains a spoiler for the story. Highlight text to read the spoiler.] [Akito Sōma's mother Ren Sōma (who was previously teased and heard in the anime but unnamed) and father Akira Sōma, respectively]. Their respective English dub cast members are Katelyn Barr and Chad Cline (the dub actor for Akito Soma in the previous anime adaptation), respectively.
Saturday's event streamed a "special edition" of the final season's first episode.
The anime will premiere on April 5. Japanese-Chinese boyband WARPs UP will perform the opening theme song "Pleasure," and the seven-member dance vocal group GENIC will perform the ending theme song "Haru Urarara" (Beautiful Spring).
Funimation will stream the show with an English dub.
The anime's "1st Season" premiered in Japan in April 2019 and aired for 25 episodes. Funimation and Crunchyroll streamed the first anime season as it aired.
The Fruits Basket 2nd Season anime premiered in Japan in April 2020, and continued on into the summer season for a total of 25 episodes. Funimation streamed an English dub of the show, after halting its English simuldub production in March 2020 due to the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Crunchyroll also streamed the series as it aired.
The two 2019 and 2020 anime series adapt Natsuki Takaya's Fruits Basket manga. The adaptation has an entirely new Japanese cast and staff from the previous version, as per Takaya's request. The anime will cover the entire manga's story.
Yoshihide Ibata (Pikaia!!, FLCL Progressive) returned to direct the new season at TMS Entertainment. Taku Kishimoto (Silver Spoon, Haikyu!!, 91 Days, Hanebad!) was again in charge of series scripts. Masaru Shindō (Macross Delta, My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU) was back to design the characters. Takaya herself served as executive supervisor.
Update: Added English dub cast announcement. Source: Fruits Basket anime's English Twitter account
Sources: Fruits Basket anime's Twitter account, Comic Natalie
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