TOKYO, March 29, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Pony Canyon Inc. announced on stage at AnimeJapan 2021, on Sunday, March 28, that Akari Nibu of the Japanese idol group Hinatazaka46 has been cast as a voice actress for the upcoming theatrical animation “DEEMO THE MOVIE”.
On the same stage, the official Japanese title was also revealed. This will be Akari Nibu’s first attempt at voice acting in an animated movie.
The presentation stage was hosted by Nippon Broadcasting System announcer Naoki Yoshida, and featured Ayana Taketatsu (who will play the role of the lead girl Alice) and the film’s general director Junichi Fujisaku.
The event was filled with a lot of excitement, as the main characters’ model sheets and a special video were shown for the first time.
Akari Nibu was chosen to play the role of the mysterious “Masked Lady” who holds the key to the story.
Surprised fans congratulated Nibu once the casting was announced as she had been mentioning her desire to give voice acting a try. Congratulatory comments quickly filled up social media.
“I was really happy from the bottom of my heart when I first received this offer. The Masked Lady is a mysterious being, but I’m also told by my fellow idol group members to be “mysterious” so it’s something we have in common,” said Nibu, as she explained her joy of participating in the movie and the film’s highlights via video comment.
Fujisaku, who witnessed her performance on the spot, praised her as “Prior to the voice recording, I was thrilled about how everything was going, but Nibu’s vocal delivery was astonishing and her acting abilities were beyond my imagination. I thought I would treat her on an equal footing with a voice actress. On the contrary, I raised further requests, and she delivered on all of them.”
Ayana Taketatsu, on the other hand, also said, “She is so cute and makes people’s hearts melt.” and expressed her joy of working with Akari Nibu, despite not having met her yet as the post-recording process for anime has changed in response to the coronavirus situation.
The special video that followed next depicted the characters moving adorably using advanced 3D modeling and displayed the fantastic world of DEEMO against a beautiful piano melody, raising expectations for the completion of the movie. This video was simultaneously released on Pony Canyon’s official YouTube channel.
This theatrical anime is based on “DEEMO”, a highly popular game series that has amassed over 28 million downloads worldwide (as of Jan 2021). The anime will jointly be produced by Pony Canyon and Production I.G Group, the same group that made “Attack on Titan” a global hit.
In addition, the theme song and image song will be written by Yuki Kajiura, who has handled music for many anime titles such as ‘Fate/Zero’ and ‘Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba’.
