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Bless TV Anime Casts Tarusuke Shingaki; Crunchyroll to Stream Series

The staff for the television anime of Yukino Sonoyama's Bless manga revealed in a character promotional video on Thursday that Tarusuke Shingaki will voice Hikaru Oya in the series. In addition, Crunchyroll announced on Thursday that it will stream the series worldwide excluding Japan and China when it debuts in January. 

The anime will star:

• Tomohiro Ōno as Aia Udagawa
• Chiyuki Miura as Jun Sumisaki
• Nobuhiko Okamoto as Ginga Yoyogi
• Yoshino Aoyama as Oroka Sumeragi
• Momoka Terasawa as Shitataka Sumeragi
• Kentarō Kumagai as MM
• Yoshiki Nakajima as Joe Osaki
• Kōki Uchiyama as Akiharu Nakano

Shōtarō Kitamura (Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines!) is directing the anime at A-1 Pictures, and Takayuki Kikuchi (episode director for Solo Leveling, Kaguya-sama: Love is War) is the assistant director. Fukurou Kamiza (Non Non Biyori Nonstop) is writing and overseeing the series scripts. Honoka Yokoyama (Oshi no Ko TV 2, Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence) is both the character designer and chief animation director, and Tetsuya Kawakami (A Certain Magical Index, Sword Art Online) and Reina Iwasaki (VTuber Legend: How I Went Viral after Forgetting to Turn Off My Stream) are also chief animation directors. Ryō Yoshimata (Somali and the Forest Spirit, After the Rain) is composing the music.

Other staff members include:

• Costume Design: Akane Takeda (A-1 Pictures)
• Prop Design: Takayuki Kidou
• Main Animators: Yūichirō Iida, Marina Kobayashi, Mirai Harashima (A-1 Pictures)
• Hair and Makeup Supervisor: Katsuyoshi Kojima (tron)
• Graphic Illustration: Kashimaki
• Color Design: Mana Hokuto (A-1 Pictures)
• Art Director: Risa Wakabayashi (A-1 Pictures)
• Background Art: Kiya Hirayoshi (A-1 Pictures)
• CG Director: Yuki Kuribayashi
• Director of Photography: Hideki Eto (EXPLOSION)
• Editing: Kiyoshi Hirose
• Sound Director: Kōhei Yoshida
• Sound Effects: Takuya Hasegawa

Kodansha USA Publishing is releasing the manga in English and it describes the story:

They said Aia was destined to be a model, and Jun was bullied for her freckles. Together, they will take back the power to define themselves in an inspirational fashion manga that asks cutting questions about what it really means to be beautiful—and what it takes to overcome an arbitrary system that seems to respect talent over hard work. 

Sonoyama debuted the manga in Kodansha's Shonen Magazine Edge magazine in 2022, and the series now runs in Monthly Shonen Sirius. Kodansha published the ninth volume on October 8. The manga has more than 1.25 million copies in circulation.

Kodansha USA Publishing released the manga's seventh volume on February 10. Kodansha is also releasing the manga digitally on its K MANGA service.

The manga is also inspiring a live-action series that Amazon Prime Video will stream worldwide exclusively in spring 2027.

Sources: Bless anime's website, Crunchyroll (Kyle Cardine)