Production I.G's New Legend of the Galactic Heroes Anime Recasts Main Characters

The official website for Production I.G's new anime of Yoshiki Tanaka's epic science fiction novels The Legend of the Galactic Heroes confirmed on Wednesday that the new anime is recasting the main characters Reinhard, Kircheis, and Yang Wen-li. An event will introduce the new voice cast, staff, and special promotional video at Tokyo's Shinjuku Bunka Center on September 20.

The site also revealed a new "opening visual" showing a young Reinhard.

Ryo Horikawa, Masashi Hironaka, and Nozomu Sasaki, the voice actors for Reinhard, Kircheis, and Julian in the earlier original video anime series of The Legend of the Galactic Heroes, will also be in attendance at the event. Kei Tomiyama, the original voice actor for Yang Wen-li, passed away in 1995.

Tanaka's space opera novel series follows the epic conflict between the Galactic Empire and Free Planets Alliance, as well as the personal stories of Imperial Admiral Reinhard von Lohengramm and the Alliance's Yang Wen-Li. The 10 main novel volumes and four side-story volumes in The Legend of the Galactic Heroes saga have sold 15 million copies and earned Tanaka a Seiun Award. Besides Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Tanaka also wrote the original novel inspirations for The Heroic Legend of Arslan, Ryoko's Case File, Sohryuden - Legend of the Dragon Kings, and Tytania anime projects.

Viz Media's Haikasoru imprint has licensed the original novel series and released the third novel in November. It will release the fourth volume on June 20.

The late director Noboru Ishiguro (Macross, Orguss, Megazone 23) and his Artland anime studio spent more than a decade adapting the novels into a theatrical and video anime franchise, with over 100 installments, from 1988 to 2000. Sentai Filmworks has licensed the video anime series for home video.​