It has been announced that the TV anime "Akai Kawa no Hotori," based on the popular manga by Chie Shinohara, will begin airing on Nippon TV and BS Nippon TV in July. The main cast has also been announced, with Miku Tachibana playing the protagonist Yuri (Yuri Suzuki), who is summoned from modern Japan to the world of the ancient Orient, and Wataru Kato playing Kyle Mursili, a talented and handsome prince who will greatly change Yuri's fate.
Hiroki Nanami, a former Takarazuka Revue male star who is also active as an actor and voice actor, will be narrating the film and appearing as Yuri's boyfriend, Himuro. Nanami will also be performing the opening theme song, "Akatsuki no Sora," for which he wrote the lyrics.
A teaser trailer has been released on YouTube. It depicts Yuri, on a date with her boyfriend, being pulled into a puddle by a hand and summoned to Hattusa, the capital of the Hittite Empire in the 14th century BC. The trailer shows Yuri struggling to survive despite his cruel fate, Empress Nakia cornering Yuri for her own ambitions, and Prince Kyle reaching out to help him. Characters who will later play a major role in the story, such as Zananza, Mattiwaza, and Ramses, also make an appearance.
Tachibana, who plays Yuri, said, "When I was chosen for the role of Yuri, it really felt like a dream. I was in a daze for about two weeks, and I still remember being stunned and wondering if it was real. Yuri is really straightforward, and once she makes a decision, she pushes forward no matter how rough the path is or how muddy it gets! She is a girl with such a brave appearance that you can't take your eyes off her. I also became captivated by Yuri while playing the role. I'm sure there are people who have been waiting a long time for 'The Sky is Red on the Banks of the River' to be made into an anime. I will do my best to help create the ideal voice for Yuri that will be accepted by those people as well! Of course, I hope that it reaches many people who I'm meeting for the first time as well."
Kato, who plays Kyle Mursili, said, "The most important thing to Kyle is the peace of his nation. He has a sense of mission that he is not afraid to go to war to achieve a peace that does not invade any country and where no country is violated. Frankly, I personally feel that the scale of the story is too large. However, Kyle, the prince of a great nation, always lives with this sense of scale, and his emotions fluctuate on an equally large scale. The cause of these emotions is Yuri, a girl who suddenly appears from a foreign country. As the story progresses, Yuri's importance to Kyle increases to the point where she is second only to his "country." I think the dilemma that arises between Kyle and Yuri is a major attraction of "Tenkawa." I hope that fans of the original work will be pleased with this anime adaptation, and I also hope that people who learned about "Tenkawa" through the anime will enjoy it along with the original work."
Nanami commented, "I love 'Red River', so I was very happy when I heard that it was going to be made into a TV anime. Set against the backdrop of the magnificent history of the Hittite Empire, the story has given me a sense of the romance of history, making me think that perhaps there really were people who had experiences like Yuri's. I am so honored to be able to be so deeply involved in such a wonderful work, it still feels like a dream. I hope you will look forward to the moment when this long-loved story comes to life in a new form as an anime."
"The Sky is Red on the Banks of the River" is a historical fantasy by Shinohara, who is celebrating her 45th anniversary as an artist this year, having produced numerous masterpieces such as "Purple Eye of Darkness" and "Darkness of the Sea, Shadow of the Moon." It was serialized in "Shojo Comic" (Shogakukan, now Sho-Comi) from 1995 to 2002, and has sold over 20 million copies. The story follows Suzuki Yuri, a young girl living in modern-day Japan, who one day suddenly travels back in time to the Hittite Empire of the 14th century BC, where she meets Prince Kyle, the leading candidate to inherit the throne. Yuri must carve out her own destiny. It won the 46th Shogakukan Manga Award in the Shojo category and was also a topic of discussion when it was adapted for the stage by the Takarazuka Revue in 2018.
This will be the first time the series will be adapted into a TV anime, and it will be directed by Kobayashi Kosuke, who has also worked on "Watchapuri Magi!", and produced by Tatsunoko Productions.
