Nia Liston: The Merciless Maiden has added four more cast members ahead of its October 6 premiere, the anime’s staff announced on Tuesday. All four of the new additions voice members of the Silver family.
The new cast
- Saeko Kamijō as Essera Blanket, personal maid to the Silver family’s youngest daughter, Reliared
- Hitomi Ueda as Raffine Silver, the eldest daughter of the Silver family
- Azusa Tadokoro as Riculvitar Silver, the second-oldest daughter
- Ayaka Ōhashi as Lilimi Silver, the third-oldest daughter
They join the previously announced leads, including Honoka Inoue as Nia Liston, Rina Honnizumi as Hildetora Altoir, and Rina Hidaka as Reliared Silver.
Staff and studio
Motoki Nakanishi is directing the anime at KONAMI animation, with Haruta Segi as assistant director. Gigaemon Ichikawa is handling series scripts, Yūki Itō and Kana Tosaoka are designing the characters, Naoki Endō is composing the music, and Hiromi Kikuta is directing the sound.
KONAMI animation is the notable name there. The studio is Konami’s in-house animation arm, and a two-cour television series is a bigger production than the short-form work the division has been associated with so far.
Theme songs
VTuber Tsunomaki Watame performs the opening theme, “Respawn!!.” The ending theme, “Tokimeki Un・Deux・Trois♪” (Heart Fluttering 1, 2, 3♪), is performed by Magic Vision Girls Party — the in-universe unit formed by the characters Nia Liston (Honoka Inoue), Hildetora Altoir (Rina Honnizumi), and Reliared Silver (Rina Hidaka).
Premiere date and streaming
The anime premieres on October 6 on Tokyo MX at 9:25 p.m. JST, followed by BS NTV and MBS. It will run for two consecutive cours, meaning roughly half a year of episodes. In Japan it will also stream on ABEMA, d Anime Store, and U-NEXT after broadcast, and HIDIVE will stream the series as it airs. We keep a running list of the season’s premieres in our Fall 2026 anime season guide.
What the show is about
The anime adapts Umikaze Minamino’s light novel series, published in English by J-Novel Club. It follows a legendary warrior who dies undefeated, frustrated that she never found an opponent who could beat her, and wakes up in the body of a frail young girl named Nia Liston. Given a second life, she sets out to get back into fighting shape — and to live and die for battle this time.
Minamino launched the story on the Shōsetsuka ni Narō website in 2019 and ended its run there in 2021. Hobby Japan began publishing the novels with illustrations by Jishaku in September 2022, with Katana Canata taking over illustration duties from the third volume in 2023; the anime credits both as original character designers. Hobby Japan will publish the 12th volume on October 1.
A manga adaptation by Kabuto Kodai launched on Square Enix’s Manga UP! service in 2022. Square Enix published the first collected volume in May 2023 and will release the ninth on October 7, with Manga UP! Global handling the English release.
Why it matters
Fall 2026 is thick with fantasy and isekai adaptations, so a show lives or dies on its hook. Nia Liston‘s is the mismatch between an unstoppable warrior’s instincts and a child’s body — a premise built for training arcs and frustrated comedy rather than straight power fantasy, which is a slightly different lane from most of the season’s lineup.
The two-cour commitment is also worth noting. Plenty of Fall 2026 titles only have a single cour confirmed, and a two-cour run signals that the production committee expects the source material to carry a longer audience. October 6 is the date to mark, and HIDIVE is the place to watch outside Japan. For another just-announced cast update from this season, see our report on The Iceblade Sorcerer’s Season 2 additions.
Sources: Anime News Network, citing the anime’s official website and Comic Natalie
Featured image: Key visual for Nia Liston: The Merciless Maiden, via Anime News Network.
