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RWBY: Ice Queendom Anime's English-Subtitled Trailer Previews Saori Hayami's Ending Song

Bandai Namco Arts began streaming an English-subtitled trailer on Saturday for RWBY: Ice Queendom (RWBY: Hyōsetsu Teikoku), the new television anime for Rooster Teeth's RWBY franchise. The video previews the anime's ending theme song "Awake" by Saori Hayami.

Rooster Teeth describes the anime:

RWBY: Ice Queendom' presents RWBY in beautiful 2D anime visuals. RWBY imagines a world filled with horrific monsters bent on death and destruction, and humanity's only hope is dependent upon powerful Huntsmen and Huntresses. Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, and Yang Xiao Long are four such Huntresses in training whose journeys will take them far past the grounds of their school, Beacon Academy. Though each may be powerful on their own, these four girls must overcome dark forces and work as a team if they truly hope to become the next generation of Remnant's protectors.

Toshimasa Suzuki (Lagrange - The Flower of Rin-ne, The Price of Smiles) is directing the anime at SHAFT. Kenjirō Okada (March comes in like a lion) is credited as chief director. Gen Urobuchi (Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Fate/Zero novels, Psycho-Pass) is credited for conceptualizing the anime, with Tow Ubukata (Mardock Scramble, Psycho-Pass 2, Ghost in the Shell: Arise) writing and supervising the scripts. huke (Black Rock Shooter, Steins;Gate) conceptualized the character designs for the anime, while Nobuhiro Sugiyama (ef: a tale of memories, Arakawa Under the Bridge, March comes in like a lion) is designing those characters for animation, while also serving as chief animation director alongside Yoshiaki Ito and Hiroki Yamamura. Nobuyuki Takeuchi (Maria Holic, Bakemonogatari) is credited for visual direction. Nobuko Toda and Kazuma Jinnouchi are composing the music.

Members of the original English cast and the Japanese dub will reprise the roles for the anime (the Japanese announcement revealed more voice actors beyond the four main characters). The cast includes:

Lindsay Jones and Saori Hayami as Ruby Rose

Kara Eberle and Yoko Hikasa as Weiss Schnee

Arryn Zech and Yu Shimamura as Blake Belladonna

Barbara Dunkelman and Ami Koshimizu as Yang Xiao Long

Hiro Shimono as Jaune Arc

Aya Suzaki as Nora Valkyrie

Megumi Toyoguchi as Pyrrha Nikos

Sōma Saitō as Lie Ren

Kazuhiko Inoue as Professor Ozpin

Other staff members include:

• Main Animators: Hiroto Nagata, Kazuki Kawada
• Production Design, Extradimensional Space Design: Rui Tomono
• Art Boards: Hisaharu Iijima
• Art Director: Ken Naito
• Color Key Artist: Jin Hibino
• Director of Photography: Takayuki Aizu
• Editing: Rie Matsubara
• Audio Director: Jin Aketagawa
• Producers: Bandai Namco Arts, Good Smile Company, Rooster Teeth

Void_Chords feat. L will perform the opening theme song "Beyond Selves." Saori Hayami will perform the ending theme song "Awake."

The anime will also have a manga adaptation (visual seen below) by Kumiko Suekane (Versailles of the Dead, Blood+ Adagio, Afterschool Charisma) that will run in Kadokawa's Monthly Comic Dengeki Daioh magazine.

The original RWBY web animated series by the late creator Monty Oum follows four girls with unique weapons and powers who are training to hunt supernatural "Creatures of Grimm."

Bunta Kinami launched RWBY: The Official Manga in Shonen Jump+ in December 2018, and the manga ended in June 2020. Viz Media published the manga as part of its Weekly Shonen Jump lineup.

Shirow Miwa drew an earlier adaptation of the web animated series in Shueisha's Ultra Jump magazine from November 2015 to February 2017. Viz Media published the manga in its English edition of Weekly Shonen Jump magazine beginning in October 2017, and also published the manga in print. Additionally, Viz Media is also publishing the RWBY manga anthology series.

Update: Crunchyroll confirmed on Saturday that it will stream the series with an English dub and in Japanese with English subtitles.

Source: Bandai Namco Arts' YouTube channel