Mercedes and the Waning Moon added four cast members and a second promo video on Friday, and the additions are the kind that show up in a production’s marketing when a show is close to airing.
Kenta Miyake plays Benkei. Ryūnosuke Watanuki is Kuro. Junichi Suwabe joins as Florian, and Ai Kayano is Ryudia. All four were named by Hakuhodo DY Music & Pictures, the production company behind the adaptation.
The full Japanese title is Kaketa Tsuki no Mercedes: Kyūketsuki no Kizoku ni Tensei Shita kedo Suteraresō nanode Dungeon wo Seiha suru, adapted from Firehead’s light novels. Anna Nagase leads as Mercedes Grunewald.
Staff and 2027 release window
The staff was already known and stays the same. Kunihisa Sugishima directs at Teddy. His credits are long and old: Strike Witches, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Beyblade: Metal Fury. Jun Kumagai writes the series scripts, coming off Persona 4 the Golden Animation and Aquarion Logos. Nami Shōyama designs characters after animation-director work on Buddy Daddies and two Yu-Gi-Oh! series. R.O.N and Shūhei Mutsuki compose the music together.
The show debuts in 2027. The staff had already shown a new main visual in September, so Friday’s drop is the second marketing beat in two months, and a second promo usually means the first cour is drawn and cut.
The premise: a vampire heir who has to earn her keep
The premise is a reincarnation story with an unusual starting point. Mercedes is born to a noble vampire father and a shunned concubine, and she works out early that her father will pick an heir who is not her. Her mother has no skills. The maid is old. Mercedes is a small child. Dungeon crawling turns out to be the one job a child can do, so she starts training at kindergarten age to keep the family afloat.
Firehead began the series on Shōsetsuka ni Narō in 2018. TO Books picked it up for print in 2021 with illustrations by KeG, and released the fifth novel volume digitally on July 15. Pochi Edoya’s manga adaptation started on TO Books’ Comic Corona in 2021, and that magazine is now called Corona EX. The sixth manga volume also shipped on July 15. J-Novel Club publishes the novels in English.
Put that timeline next to the announcement: eight years from web novel to anime, five novels, six manga volumes. That is a slow build, and the audience the show is aimed at mostly came through the manga.
Case in point on the casting. Junichi Suwabe is one of the most cast voices in anime, and Ai Kayano has been a fixture of anime casting since Anohana; their presence in a supporting block is a signal of budget rather than of screen time. Kenta Miyake has spent two decades voicing large, physically imposing characters. If Benkei is a big man with a big voice, the casting is not subtle about it.
What is still missing
What is still missing: an exact premiere date, the streaming partner, and the episode count. Teddy is a studio with a limited output, and 2027 is filling up fast across the calendar, so the date will matter more than usual for how the show lands.
We will update this page with a date as soon as it exists.
Other light novel adaptations heading for 2027 include How I Became King by Eating Monsters, which White Fox is handling, and My Sweet Marriage to My Ex-Nemesis. Both are worth a look if this one is on your list.
Source: Hakuhodo DY Music & Pictures, via Anime News Network.
Featured image: Mercedes in a still from the second Mercedes and the Waning Moon promo video, via Hakuhodo DY Music & Pictures.
