'Ao Ashi' TV Anime Unveils Staff, Cast, Teaser Promo

by DatRandomDude
Oct 28, 2021 9:23 PM | 24 Comments

Shogakukan opened an official website for the television anime adapting Yuugo Kobayashi's Ao Ashi (Aoashi) manga on Friday, revealing the cast, production staff, a teaser promo, and teaser visual (pictured). The sports anime series is scheduled to air on NHK-E in April 2022.

Cast
Ashito Aoi: Kouki Osuzu
Eisaku Ootomo: Tatsumaru Tachibana (The God of High School)
Soichirou Tachibana: Seiichirou Yamashita (Horimiya)
Keiji Togashi: Taku Yashiro (Ahiru no Sora)
Kanpei Kuroda: Shun Horie (Akudama Drive)
Asari Marchis Jun: Wataru Katou (Id:Invaded)
Yuuma Motoki: Junya Enoki (2.43: Seiin Koukou Danshi Volley-bu)
Ryuuichi Takeshima: Kentarou Kumagai (Hinomaruzumou)
Tatsuya Fukuda: Chikahiro Kobayashi (Beastars)
Hana Ichijou: Maki Kawase (Zombieland Saga)

Staff
Director: Akira Satou (Release the Spyce)
Series Composition: Masahiro Yokotani (Free!)
Soccer Supervision: Kenichi Takeshita (Aria the Natural assistant director), Jun Soga (Pandora to Akubi director), Kenji Iizuka (Ao Ashi soccer supervision)
Character Design: Manabu Nakatake (Sket Dance), Toshie Kawamura (Lord of Vermilion: Guren no Ou), Asuka Yamaguchi (The God of High School sub-character design), Saki Hasegawa (Shin Chuuka Ichiban!)
Sub-character Design: Naho Kiyoike (Kabukichou Sherlock prop design), Yukiko Watabe (Cider no You ni Kotoba ga Wakiagaru animation director), Miho Daidouji (Kuroko no Basket animation director), Eisuke Shirai (Classroom☆Crisis assistant animation director)
Chief Animation Director: Manabu Nakatake, Asuka Yamaguchi
Prop Design: Arisa Itou (Psycho-Pass: Sinners of the System Case.2 - First Guardian key animation), Mio Tsusaka (B: The Beginning)
Color Design: Emiko Ueno (Genshiken Nidaime)
Art Director: Tsukasa Kakizakai (Shirobako), Yuusuke Takeda (Great Pretender)
Art Setting: Kazushige Kanehira (Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song), Osamu Ii (Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Crystal)
2D Works: Akiko Hamanaka (Kaizoku Oujo)
Pre-visualization: Atsunori Maeshima (Rolling☆Girls homepage production)
3D: Shiguma Morimoto (Noblesse CG director)
Director of Photography: Maiko Imazeki (Hashiri Tsuzukete Yokattatte.)
Editing: Yoshinori Murakami (Psycho-Pass)
Sound Director: Shouji Hata (Sonny Boy)
Music: Masaru Yokoyama (Taisou Zamurai)
Studio: Production I.G

Kobayashi began the soccer manga based on Naohiko Ueno's original draft in Big Comic Spirits in January 2015. Shogakukan published the 25th volume on August 30. The manga has a cumulative 9 million copies of its volumes in circulation.

Teaser PV

Official Site: https://aoashi-pr.com/
Official Twitter: @aoashi_pr

Source: Comic Natalie

20 of 24 Comments Recent Comments

I am so hyped for Ao ashi. Best football manga for me. And I'm even more hyped to know that it will be on Production iG. We also have good staffs working on it. Can't wait for anime.

Dec 16, 2021 12:57 AM by AjiX101

Another sports anime to watch. And by famous sports expert anime studio IG. The staff is good but thats a bunch of CharaDesign. The PV looks nice

Dec 4, 2021 5:10 AM by chriskor022

MGrid said:
Best football manga out there. Hope it blows up. The quality of the story deserves it. The only thing, I am concerned about is the number of episodes. Though, since it's studio I.G, there is probably no need to worry about that. In all honesty, if the manga continues in the trajectory of the match quality, this might even surpass Haikyuu for me. Well, I am probably biased since it's about football. But I don't think, it's that crazy to think that.

tbh I’m not too too concerned about the number of episodes if NHK is the producer (I’m assuming it is cuz the anime will be airing on NHK Education). MOST anime that NHK produces usually get more than one season (Iruma kun, log horizon etc.) and the other soccer anime NHK produced, Giant Killing, got 26 episodes. So I do hope we get at least 24 episodes and hopefully a season 2 cuz I think we have enough content for two seasons, maybe even three rn 🙏

Nov 8, 2021 8:51 AM by sakura_koe

read this manga btw

Nov 1, 2021 9:38 PM by elgeorges

Best football manga out there. Hope it blows up. The quality of the story deserves it. The only thing, I am concerned about is the number of episodes. Though, since it's studio I.G, there is probably no need to worry about that. In all honesty, if the manga continues in the trajectory of the match quality, this might even surpass Haikyuu for me. Well, I am probably biased since it's about football. But I don't think, it's that crazy to think that.

Oct 30, 2021 3:21 PM by MGrid

Well well, Production I.G knows how to do sports shows (as evident by Haikyuu!), and since this is on NHK it means that production values will be slightly bumped with better audience reach.

Oct 30, 2021 12:56 PM by KANLen09

Does this manga treats soccer as all the "talk 2 minutes to yourself while standing and watching the MC/other genius player running away/for the ball" shows?

Oct 29, 2021 6:00 PM by knktzvra

Tokoya said:
Production IG is who I wanted to get Blue Lock, but I don't mind that they chose this one since I've been told that the writing is similar to what you'd find in Haikyuu, so I'm hyped for this

Footy fans are really eating good next year lol

Looks like a different team for this one from the Production I.G. staff so don't expect a Haikyuu production.

But this is still very encouraging for Ao Ashi fans.

Oct 29, 2021 10:00 AM by Smudy

Very nice, always good to have more footy animes.

Oct 29, 2021 6:23 AM by Ramkec

Dragevard said:
So... is this football or soccer?

Football is soccer, but I'm assuming you're from the west like I am, so I understand why you're confused

To the rest of the world/those who know better, the correct term for soccer is Football....Hand Egg/American Football would be the one you're thinking of

Oct 29, 2021 6:16 AM by Tokoya

Production IG is who I wanted to get Blue Lock, but I don't mind that they chose this one since I've been told that the writing is similar to what you'd find in Haikyuu, so I'm hyped for this

Footy fans are really eating good next year lol

Oct 29, 2021 5:11 AM by Tokoya

Production IG with another sports anime. Hell Yeah!

Oct 29, 2021 5:07 AM by MegamiRem

Now this one is a real sports anime. I will definitely watch it

Oct 29, 2021 4:35 AM by Adampk

Spring 2022, eh....
Hope it doesn't get underwhelmed with the presence of some of the popular shows coming that season.

Oct 29, 2021 1:47 AM by Softhenic03

Football + Production I.G - always wanted this combination! The trailer looks good as well. The style kinda reminds me more of Ace of Diamond than their other sports shows. Looking forward to this, especially because I've never watched a football anime so far.

CQLLIST said:

Logical_ said:

for football yes, next year is World Cup on Qatar there must have 2 World Cup. U-21 World cup and Senior Team World Cup but The U-21 WC seems will be postponed again. event this year has EURO 2020 for football

Ooo looking forward to this, wondering where I can watch the world cup in any media platform once it's going on live/premiering lol

Some TV channel in your country will certainly broadcast it live since it's the biggest sport event in the world. If you are not watching it on TV then there will be bunch of links online that lead to streams of games.

XCF_Konzarn said:
No one better than Prod IG for a sports anime at least. Really love the character designs and colour composition. It looks like the production values won't be as high as Haikyu, KnB or RwtW but I don't want to judge too much from just a PV. Anyway looks like it's gonna be a great year for football fans!

PS: I got kinda worried when I saw Prod IG's name because I want them to use most of their resources on Haikyu S5 but from the staff list it looks like a separate team.

Yeah, it doesn't look like it will be on level of Haikyuu production-wise but will likely still be high quality. Haikyuu!! is just too strong of a production to be easily emulated. Production I.G is split in some ~10 substudios and yeah this certainly isn't Haikyuu!!'s team which I hope is working on season 5 right now.

Oct 29, 2021 12:59 AM by Tsarko

Damn, that trailer was much better than I expected. Never though IG would take up a low-key sports manga so I’m very surprised and excited for this. Judging by the comparison of studios, this could very well beat blue lock anime-wise unless 8bit up their game.

Oct 29, 2021 12:39 AM by FurySlasher

So, the studio will make it the new Haikyuu?

Oct 29, 2021 12:36 AM by RobertBobert

No one better than Prod IG for a sports anime at least. Really love the character designs and colour composition. It looks like the production values won't be as high as Haikyu, KnB or RwtW but I don't want to judge too much from just a PV. Anyway looks like it's gonna be a great year for football fans!

PS: I got kinda worried when I saw Prod IG's name because I want them to use most of their resources on Haikyu S5 but from the staff list it looks like a separate team.

Oct 29, 2021 12:20 AM by XCF_Konzarn

Based on the first design teasers I was hoping it would be Production IG, and it actually is them! I'm very excited for the anime now. Since NHK is involved I'd say we can expect at least 2 seasons, which is amazing.

Ao Ashi and Blue Lock are going to be two of the biggest highlights from next year in anime, I hope they both receive massive manga sales boosts.

Oct 29, 2021 12:05 AM by alpha_shadow

Logical_ said:

CQLLIST said:
Yo can't believe this got an adaptation, a pretty underrated manga for me that deserves some attention and the animation looks really cool holy I'm hyped for this one <3 And again, please tell me this one question that's out of the context of this adaptation but overall from the genre I've been seeing on upcoming adaptations in 2022, why are there so many sport animes getting adapted? Like is there some kind of world cup or a 'special' sport event happening next year? I really am wondering at this point xD

Ooo looking forward to this, wondering where I can watch the world cup in any media platform once it's going on live/premiering lol

Oct 28, 2021 11:21 PM by CQLLIST

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