Basquash!'s Hidekazu Sato to Direct Nobunaga the Fool Anime at Satelight

The official website for the Nobunaga the Fool television anime series opened on Friday to reveal the show's staff, cast, and air date. The official website is also hosting artwork images for the series featuring mech designs (pictured at right and in image gallery below).

Shoji Kawamori (Macross, Escaflowne, Aquarion) is credited as the original creator for the show, and he is also handling the series composition and the main mecha design. Hidekazu Sato (Basquash!, Slayers Next, Fortune Quest L) will direct the series at studio Satelight. Artist Yone Kazuki (Hakuōki, Hiiro no Kakera - The Tamayori Princess Saga) is handling the original character design, and Hirotaka Marufuji (Aquarion Evol, Legends of the Dark King: A Fist of the North Star Story) is adapting Kazuki's character designs for animation.

The series will premiere in Japan in January 2014, and the staff will host a pre-screening of the first episode on December 8 in Tokyo.

The television voice cast is the same as the voice cast for the upcoming December 8 stage play.

Mamoru Miyano will voice Oda Nobunaga, a character loosely inspired by the real-life Japanese warlord of the same name. Oda is the legitimate heir of the country of Owari on the Eastern Planet.


Yōko Hikasa will voice Jeanne Kaguya d'Arc, a girl raised in the country of Donremi on the Western Planet.


Takahiro Sakurai will play Akechi Mitsuhide, a captain who handles strategy for the Oda clan.


Yuuki Kaji will play Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Oda Nobunaga's vassal. He is always cheerful and friendly with unmatched prowess in both womanizing and in battles.


Minori Chihara will play Ichihime, a princess in Oda's clan who is known as the Beauty of the Eastern Planet. She possesses a beautiful singing voice that can bring peace to people's hearts.


Tomokazu Sugita will play Leonardo da Vinci, the brilliant scientist of the Western Planet. He is a leading figure in the Renaissance that revived the legacy of the prehistoric civilizations such as the Ikusa Yoroi (Battle Armor).

The anime will be a part of Kawamori's Nobunaga the Fool part of his The Fool "multi-dimensional" project. The Fool project will host three stage productions between this December and next summer, starting with the Nobunaga the Fool play on December 8. The play will combine original animation produced Satelight with live stage performances produced by Avex Live Creative. The project will have both onstage actors and a voice cast to embody characters. The project also includes an online novel

Kazuki is also designing the characters for the play, and Thomas Romain (AKB0048, Basquash!, Senki Zesshō Symphogear) is contributing image art. Ryō Yoshimata is scoring the music after working on the live-action television period dramas Gō: Himetachi no Sengoku and Atsuhime.

The staff of the stage play describes the story:

The Western Planet and the Eastern Planet.
Once upon a time, the two sides were bound by the "Dragon Pulse" spanning the heavens.

The civilization that once had prospered has now turned to a tale of dreams, as the inextinguishable flames of war tear the realm asunder. The two planets remain engulfed in endless battles.

The return of the super technology known as "sacred treasures" could revolutionize the world order, but no one knows of them but one person — a "heretical girl."

A girl from the Western Planet, Jeanne Kaguya d'Arc, saw heavenly visions of the birth of a "Star Messiah" who will save the world. She embarks on a journey to the Eastern Planet with Leonardo da Vinci, "the one who observes the world." They come across the heretic of the Eastern Planet and "the greatest fool of the day," Oda Nobunaga.