Trickster Anime's 2nd Trailer Reveals Antagonist Voiced by Gackt

The official website of the Trickster: Edogawa Rampo 'Shōnen Tantei-dan' Yori (Trickster - From Rampo Edogawa's "The Boy Detectives Club") television anime began streaming a second promotional video on Sunday. The video reveals that Gackt will perform the theme song "Kimi Dake no Boku de Iru Kara" and voice the main antagonist, the Fiend With Twenty Faces (pictured below).


Gackt as the Fiend With Twenty Faces, a criminal and master of disguise whose age, gender, and nationality are unknown. Few have seen the face beneath the mask. The Fiend With Twenty Faces is behind events that provoke Akechi, but does not personally kill people.

The rest of the cast includes:

Daiki Yamashita as Yoshio Kobayashi, a boy retrieved from the Unidentifiable Haze that possesses an immortal body. Because he knows the origins of his immortality involved hurting many people, he harbors a strong desire to commit suicide. He is often rebellious, uncooperative, and rude.

Ryota Ohsaka as Kensuke Hanazaki, a boy who, in his admiration of Akechi, has wanted to join the Boy Detectives Club since he was eight years old. Instead of mulling things over in his head, he is the type to move as his body tells him to naturally before thinking.

Yuichiro Umehara as Ryō Inoue, the former leader of the Boy Detectives Club, before leaving the position altogether and handing it to Hanazaki. He is smart, and even now continues to operate in the team's control tower.

Ibuki Kido as Makoto Noro, the sole female member of the Boy Detectives Club, and a technically-minded computer expert. She never leaves the house, so she communicates by mic, camera, and her owl Pippo-chan.

Azusa Tadokoro as Nao Nakamura, a female detective in the police's public safety general affairs division that comes and goes in Akechi's detective agency. She often makes calls to Akechi for help in solving cases.

The anime will premiere on Tokyo MX, Yomiuri TV, BS11, and other channels in October. The anime's official website notes that, aside from the anime and manga, the project will also include a stage play and a live-action film.

The site describes the story:
It is the 2030s. The Boy Detectives Club gathers under Kogorō Akechi, the mysterious detective. The group solves cases great and small using their unique skills. One day, a member of the club, Kensuke Hanazaki, meets the boy Yoshio Kobayashi. Kobayashi's body cannot die due to the effects of the "Unidentifiable Mist," but he yearns for death, and shirks from contact with other people. Taking an interest in him, Hanazaki invites him to join the Boy Detectives Club. Their meeting is connected to the fate tying together Kogorō Akechi, and the era's greatest villain, the Fiend With Twenty Faces.​

Masahiro Mukai (Hyperdimension Neptunia, episode director in Terror in Resonance, Blood Blockade Battlefront) will direct the anime at TMS Entertainment and Shinei Animation. Erika Yoshida (Tiger & Bunny: The Comic) will supervise and write the series' scripts. Peach-Pit (Di Gi Charat, Rozen Maiden, Shugo Chara!) is drawing the original character designs, and Shinya Yamada (key animation in Attack on Titan, Your Lie in April, Samurai Champloo) is adapting those character designs for animation. Yuuki Hayashi (Death Parade, My Hero Academia, Kiznaiver) is composing the music.

Shōnen Tantei-dan (The Boy Detectives Club) describes both the 1937 novel by renowned Japanese mystery novelist Edogawa Rampo, and the title of a series of Edogawa novels, of which the aforementioned titular novel is the second in the series (the first was The Fiend With Twenty Faces). The character of Yoshio Kobayashi appears in many of the novels as the leader of the club, and apprentice of Japan's greatest detective, Kogorō Akechi. Edogawa's novels have inspired numerous live-action and animated adaptations, and elements and references to his stories appear in even more works. 2015's Rampo Kitan: Game of Laplace television anime adapts many of Edogawa's stories.​