Well, you don’t see this often. Marvelous Entertainment has announced that they’re going to be doing a “voice remake” of the 2002 anime series Whistle! as part of the 15th anniversary of it. The project will be using the animation as seen before for the run but with a new dub cast. Though the reason isn’t specified for this, it’s likely related to contract issues with the original cast that prevents Marvelous from doing anything with the show, such as new home video releases or streaming releases – or even overseas contracts. We’ve seen odd issues before, such as with Kodocha, but those tend to revolve more around music rights than anything else.
The new primary cast members announced include:
- Shun Horie as Shō Kazamatsuri
- Shinnosuke Tachibana as Tatsuya Mizuno
- Ryōsuke Kanemoto as Shigeki Satō
- Takuya Eguchi as Daichi Fuwa
The 2002 cast includes:
- Minako Komukai as Shō Kazamatsuri
- Takeshi Maeda as Tatsuya Mizuno
- Hidenobu Kiuchi as as Shigeki Sato
- Kohei Kiyasu as Daichi Fuwa
The manga series ran in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1998 to 2002 and had a thirty-nine episode anime adaptation arrive in 2002, which was never licensed or streamed. Two games were produced as well, with one for the original PlayStation and another with the Game Boy Advance. Viz Media released the manga between 2004 and 2010 and brought it all online digitally in 2014.
Plot concept: Banned from his school’s soccer team for being too short, Shô Kazamatsuri decides there’s only one thing left to do: switch schools!But even a change in scenery doesn’t help the David Beckham wannabe. On campus, he is mistakenly introduced to everyone as a hotshot soccer player. When the truth is revealed, Shô drops out of school to practice on his own.Alone, the spunky teenager must work twice as hard to make his dreams come true. He wants to play soccer so bad he’s willing to hustle day and night to make it happen. Packed with action, humor and teenage kicks, Whistle! is a must-read for dreamers (and soccer fans) of all ages!
Region Locked Promo:
[Source: ANN]
