The fall 2016 anime series Tiger Mask W is underway as part of the winter 2017 season as well as the series kicked off back in October. Toei Animation is getting some promotion out there for the nineteenth episode that’s set to debut on February 18th, 2017. And it certainly sets a tone and gets you in the right mindset for more wrestling fun. Crunchyroll is streaming this series for viewers in the U.S.A, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Central and South America including the Caribbean.
The series will be directed by Toshiaki Komura based on the scripts supervised by Katsuhiko Chiba. Hisashi Kagawa is on board to handle the character designs for it with animation coming from Toei Animation where they’re working 2D and 3DCG animation work.
The Japanese cast includes Taku Yashiro as Naoto Azuma/New Tiger Mask, Yuichiro Umehara as Takuma Fujii/Tiger The Dark, Kenichi Suzumura as Hiroshi Tanahashi, Suzuko Mimori as Haruna Takaoka, Masakazu Morita as Kazuchika Okada, Ryouichi Tanaka as Kentarou Takaoka, Takeshi Kusao as Daisuke Fujii and Chiemi Chiba as Ruriko Yamashina.
The property is based on the original manga from Ikki Kajiwara that began back in 1968 and had a couple of TV series adaptations over the years.
Plot concept: The protagonists are two young pro wrestlers, Naoto Azuma and Takuma Fujii. Both were trainees of “Jipang Pro Wrestling,” a small pro wrestling team, until it was crushed by the evil “Global Wrestling Monopoly (GWM)” team. To plan their revenge, Azuma trained at the foot of Mount Fuji, becoming the “New Tiger Mask,” while Takuma entered “The Tiger’s Hole,” the organization that manipulates GWM, becoming “Tiger the Dark.”
