The television anime of Sho Kasugai’s Millennium Family has added Taihi Kimura to its cast. Kimura voices Noel, the third son of the Benfield family, the production announced on October 10.
The announcement is a single casting update, and it arrives alongside the staff details that have been attached to the project. The anime is being assembled at the studio PartsCraft.
Who is making it
Masato Jinbo directs and supervises the scripts. His resume includes the Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya sequels 2wei!, 2wei Herz! and 3rei!!, along with Chaos;Child and the second season of The Rising of The Shield Hero. Hiroshi Yoneda, who handled character design on Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya: Vow in the Snow, is both character designer and chief animation director here.
PartsCraft is a newer studio by the standards of the shows Jinbo has worked on, so this is a production where the staff carries more name recognition than the house.
What the story is
The premise runs on a single hook: seven immortal siblings born in England have what most people would call humanity’s ultimate dream, eternal life. It also makes them targets. Criminal organizations, corrupt hospitals and international military groups all want a piece of them.
After centuries apart, the family comes back together, which is where the series picks up. That reunion is the engine for both the mystery and the action, and it gives the story a reason to keep moving between eras and locations.
Kasugai’s original manga, titled Odoru Sennen Kazoku in Japanese, launched in Shōnengahōsha’s Young King Ours magazine in March 2021. The ninth compiled volume shipped on July 30. There are now more than five years of chapters behind the story, which is usually the threshold a studio wants before committing to an adaptation.
No broadcast window has been announced yet. The show has a confirmed director, a character designer and, as of this week, one named cast member.
An unusual licensing detail
The manga is licensed in English by emaqi, the e-bookstore service run by the AI localization company Orange Inc. That is worth flagging because Orange Inc. markets its work around machine-assisted translation, a corner of publishing that has drawn plenty of argument from translators and readers over the past couple of years.
For anyone following the series in English, the practical consequence is simply that release plans run through emaqi rather than one of the older manga publishers.
Why it matters
Cast reveals are the slow drip that tells you a production is actually moving. A single role announcement is not much on its own, but paired with a locked staff list it usually means the show is heading toward a broadcast window that the studio will confirm closer to the date.
It also puts another shojo-adjacent action premise into the pipeline. Immortal families and hunted bloodlines are a durable genre in both manga and anime, and this one has enough volumes behind it to supply a first season without inventing material.
For another manga heading to television, see our story on The Record of a Fallen Vampire.
Source: Anime News Network
Featured image: Millennium Family anime character visual, via Anime News Network.
