Dies Irae TV Anime's Promo Video Reveals Cast, Staff

Visual novel publisher Light revealed on Friday that it has opened the official website for the television anime adaptation of its Dies irae adult visual novel. The site is streaming a promotional video for the anime, which lists the anime's cast and staff.

While neither the website nor the video list a debut date for the anime, its original announcement listed a debut of summer 2017 or later with 14 episodes or more.

The anime will feature the following mostly returning cast:
Kousuke Toriumi as Ren Fujii
Yui Sakakibara as Marie
Ayaka Fukuhara as Kasumi Ayase
Hitomi Nabatame as Rea Himuro
Takeshi Maeda as Shirou Yusa
Yoshina Makino as Erii Honjou
Junichi Suwabe as Reinhard Heydrich
Ken Narita as Valeria Trifa
Kishō Taniyama as Wilhelm Ehrenburg
Kei Mizusawa as Kai Sakurai
Kei Mizusawa as Beatrice Waltrud von Kircheisen
Hitomi Nabatame as Isaak
Hiroki Yasumoto as Göetz Von Berlichingen
Yuka Inokuchi as Rusalka Schwägerin
Asami Yaguchi as Eleonore Von Wittenburg
Kouki Harasawa as Spinne
Risato Habuki as Riza Brenner
Yūki Tamaki as Wolfgang Schreiber
Kousuke Toriumi as Mercurius

Fukuhara is replacing Michiru Yuimoto for the role of Kasumi Ayase. Like the rest of the anime cast, Yuimoto played the character in the PlayStation Portable port of the game. Fūri Samoto played the character in the original PC version.

Susumu Kudo (Mardock Scramble films, Coppelion) is directing the anime at ACGT. The game's original scenario writer Takashi Masada is returning to the anime to oversee the scripts. Takaaki Fukuyo (Robotics;Notes, Senki Zesshō Symphogear GX episode animation director) will adapt G-Yuusuke's original character designs for animation. Satoshi Enomoto is the sound director at BraveHearts. Keiji Yonao, the game's original composer, is composing the music for the anime. GENCO is producing the series.

Light also opened a website for a related smartphone game titled Dies irae Pantheon, which will debut this winter.

The game and anime's story features an alternate history of World War II. On May 1, 1945 in Berlin, as the Red Army raises the Soviet flag over the Reichskanzlei, a group of Nazi officers conduct a ritual. For them, the slaughter in the city is nothing but the perfect ritual sacrifice in order to bring back the Order of the 13 Lances, a group of supermen whose coming would bring the world's destruction. Years later, no one knows if this group of officers succeeded, or whether they lived or died. Few know of their existence, and even those who knew began to pass away as the decades passed.

Now in December in the present day in Suwahara City, Ren Fujii spends his days at the hospital. It has been 2 months since the incident that brought him to the hospital: a fight with his friend Shirou Yusa where they almost tried to kill each other. He tries to value what he has left to him, but every night he sees the same dream: A guillotine. Murderers who hunt people, and the black clothed knights who pursue the murderers. He is desperate to return to his normal, everyday life, but even now he hears Shirou's words: "Everyone who remains in this city eventually loses their minds."

Light previously ran a successful crowdfunding campaign on the UNEEDZONE.jp website from May-July 2015 for the anime project, raising 96,560,858 yen (about US$792,000) from 5,188 backers. The original goal of the campaign was 30 million yen (about US$246,000).

Light launched a successful Kickstarter campaign in December to localize the visual novel in English. The campaign earned $224,180, with an original goal of US$160,000. The localization will be based on the Dies irae ~Amantes amentes~ PlayStation Portable and PC version of the game, and will feature expanded resolution options, widescreen support, and enhanced effects. Violent scenes will also be uncensored from the Japanese version, and the game will have a separate patch for adult content. Light will release the localized game on Steam in two parts, with the first covering Kasumi and Marie's routes, and the second part covering Kei and Rea's routes. Both parts have an estimated release date of May 2017, with the separate patch for adult content coming three months later.

Kazuomi Minatogawa (M3 - Sono Kuroki Hagane/M3 the dark metal manga) is drawing a long-term manga adaptation that debuted in Kadokawa's Dengeki Maoh magazine in January 2016. Light plans to have the manga continue on even after the anime has finished airing. Additionally, Nitroplus Blasterz scenario writer and School-Live! scriptwriter Ryō Morise wrote a novel adaptation that shipped last spring.

The original Dies irae -Also sprach Zarathustra- adult visual novel shipped for PCs in 2007. The Dies irae Also sprach Zarathustra -die Wiederkunft- game with additional scenarios also shipped for PCs in 2007. The Dies irae ~Acta est Fabula~ and Dies irae ~Acta est Fabula~ -Scharlachrot Grun- games then shipped for PCs in 2009. Additionally, Light shipped the Dies irae ~Amantes amentes~ game on the PlayStation Portable in June 2012 and on PCs in August 2012, and then released a smartphone port for Android and iOS devices.

Light released the Dies irae ~Interview with Kaziklu Bey~ side-story spinoff game in March 2016.​