Fairy Tail: Dragon Cry Anime Film Reveals Cast, Staff, New Characters, May 6 Premiere, Visual

This year's 12th issue of Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine announced more details about the Fairy Tail: Dragon Cry anime film on Wednesday. The film will open in Japan on May 6, and the tagline on the new poster visual (pictured below) by manga creator Hiro Mashima reads, "That power … is it hope or destruction…?"

Mashima is drawing 193 pages of storyboard for the film (pictured below), and is also serving as executive producer. Mashima also drew the first key visual for the film, which features Natsu half transformed into a dragon.

The issue is also revealing the returning cast and character designs for the following characters:
Tetsuya Kakihara as Natsu Dragneel
Aya Hirano as Lucy Heartfilia
Rie Kugimiya as Happy
Yūichi Nakamura as Gray Fullbuster
Sayaka Ohara as Erza Scarlet
Satomi Satou as Wendy
Yui Horie as Carla/Charle

The characters will be wearing new outfits in the film.

The issue is also revealing three film-original characters:
Sonia, a beautiful young woman.
Zash, a man who looks both evil and strong.
Animus, a man who looks like a king based on his garments, and whose expression suggests he has an ulterior motive.

Mashima drew the rough sketches for all of the above characters.

Tatsuma Minamikawa (episode director for Aldnoah.Zero, Attack on Titan, Haganai NEXT) is directing the film at A-1 Pictures. Shoji Yonemura is returning from the previous two television anime series to write the script, Yuuko Yamada (chief animation director for Hakkenden: Eight Dogs of the East, Persona 3 the Movie #3 Falling Down) is the character designer and chief animation director, and Yasuharu Takanashi is returning from the previous anime series and Fairy Tail Zero to compose the music. GAGA is distributing the film.

Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine had announced in May 2015 that Fairy Tail was getting a second anime film.

The manga follows the adventures of world's most notorious mage guild, Fairy Tail. The manga already inspired two television anime, several previous original video anime projects, and spinoff manga. The franchise's first anime film, Fairy Tail the Movie: Phoenix Priestess, opened in Japan on August 18, 2012.

The television anime series also revealed in March that a new project is in the works.

Del Rey published the first 12 volumes of the original manga in North America, and Kodansha Comics resumed publishing the manga in English with the 13th volume in 2011. Crunchyroll streamed the second television anime into several countries as it aired in Japan, and Funimation has been releasing DVD/Blu-ray Disc sets.​