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Tatami Time Machine Blues Anime Reveals Returning Cast, 2022 Disney+ Streaming in Japan

The staff for the television anime of Tomihiko Morimi's Tatami Time Machine Blues (Yojō-Han Time Machine Blues) novel revealed the anime's main cast and release details on Thursday.

Most of the cast members are returning for the sequel anime, including Shintarō Asanuma as the protagonist "I" (Watashi), Maaya Sakamoto as Akashi, Hiroyuki Yoshino as Ozu, Junichi Suwabe as Jōgasaki, and Yūko Kaida as Hanuki. Kazuya Nakai will voice Higuchi, replacing the character's original voice actor, the late Keiji Fujiwara.

The staff also announced that the anime will exclusively stream on the Disney+ service in Japan in 2022, and that the anime will then have a theatrical compilation film version after streaming. The Disney+ version will also have an original episode that will not be shown in theaters.

Shingo Natsume (One-Punch Man, Space Dandy, Sonny Boy) is directing the anime at Science SARU, and Makoto Ueda returns as scriptwriter from The Tatami Galaxy. Yūsuke Nakamura also returns as character designer.

Tatami Time Machine Blues is a sequel to Morimi's earlier The Tatami Galaxy (Yojō-Han Shinwa Taikei) novel. It shipped in July 2020, 16 years after the original novel. The novel is inspired by Makoto Ueda's Summer Time Machine Blues stage play. Morimi wrote the novel, and Ueda, Morimi's friend, is credited with the original concept. The sequel novel combines elements of the stage play's story with the characters from Morimi's novel. Nakamura returned to illustrate the cover.

In the sequel novel's story, The Tatami Galaxy protagonist's trouble-making friend Ozu gets the student apartments' only air conditioner remote control wet, breaking it on a certain midsummer day. The students wonder what to do about the situation for the remainder of the summer and make a plan with Akashi. An unstylish male student from 25 years in the future arrives in a time machine. The protagonist travels back in time to try to retrieve the remote control before it is broken.

Ohta Publishing released Morimi's original novel in 2005, with Nakamura illustrating the cover. The novel inspired an 11-episode anime by Masaaki Yuasa in April 2010.

HarperCollins' HarperVia imprint will publish The Tatami Galaxy novel in English in fall of 2022. The release will be followed with the sequel novel Tatami Time Machine Blues in summer of 2023. Emily Balistrieri is translating both novels. Balistrieri previously translated Morimi's The Night is Young, Walk on Girl novel, which inspired a 2017 anime film also directed by Masaaki Yuasa off a screenplay by Ueda.

Source: Comic Natalie