Kodansha opened an official website for a television anime adaptation of Marimo Ragawa's Mashiro no Oto (Sound of Snow White) manga on Wednesday, revealing the main staff, lead cast, a teaser promo, and a teaser visual (pictured). The anime series is scheduled for an April 2021 premiere.
Staff
Director: Hiroaki Akagi (Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san)
Series Composition: Kanichi Katou (Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san 2 script)
Character Design: Majima Jirou (Banana Fish sub-character design)
Studio: Shin-Ei Animation (Amaama to Inazuma)
Voice actor Nobunaga Shimazaki (Sword Art Online: Alicization, Fruits Basket 1st Season) is starring as the protagonist Setsu Sawamura. The Yoshida Brothers (Gibiate opening theme performance) will supervise the Tsugaru-shamisen music featured in the anime.
Synopsis
Shamisen is a traditional Japanese musical instrument that looks similar to a guitar. Teenager Sawamura Setsu's grandfather who raised him and his older brother Wakana, recently passed away. His grandfather was one of the greatest Shamisen players and the two siblings grew up listening to him play and learning to play the instrument.
Since their grandfather's death, Setsu dropped out of high school, moved to Tokyo and has been drifting, not knowing what to do besides play his Shamisen. That's when his successful and rich mother, Umeko, storms into his life and tries to shape Setsu up. She enrolls him back into high school, but little does Setsu know that he is about to rediscover his passion for Shamisen. (Source: MU, edited)
Ragawa published a one-shot for the manga in Monthly Shounen Magazine in December 2009, which began regular serialization in April that year. Kodansha published the 25th volume on May 15. The manga has cumulative 4 million copies of its volumes in print, including digital editions.
Mashiro no Oto placed third in the male readers' division in the 2012 Kono Manga ga Sugoi! rankings, won the 36th Kodansha Manga Awards for the best shounen manga, and received an Excellence Award at the 16th Japan Media Arts Festival Awards. The manga was also nominated for the 4th Manga Taisho awards in 2011.
Oh, an anime centering around Shamisen music? That's interesting. And it's been quite a while for me to see a Shamisen performance in an anime - probably since Samurai Champloo and Nitaboh.
I just hope that it doesn't go the same way as Kono Oto Tomare. The whole thing with his grandfather dying, him drifting around and his thuggish looks give me a kinda similar vibe. And I'm honestly more interested in a title focussing on the music and music scene than on some largely unrelated melodrama.
it's so great to see another one of marimo ragawa's works getting more recognition and a whole anime, and after almost 25 years of her last big hit, no less! i already read some of the manga and it's great, as expected of ragawa's work, so i'm really looking forward to see how the anime will turn out.