We’re just about a week away from the Japanese release of the new Drifters episodes for 13 and 14 coming with the home video release for it. After getting a couple of brief previews previously, we have one more quick hit look at it and some of the characters. The first season ran back in the fall of 2016 and has seen release in streaming form through Crunchyroll and Funimation with Funimation releasing the season recently.
Check out the home video release schedule here.
The show was directed by Kenichi Suzuki based on the script and composition by Hideyuki Kurata and Yousuke Kuroda. Ryouji Nakamori served as the character designer and chief animation director. Music is handled by Yasushi Ishii and Hayato Matsuo.
The Japanese cast includes Yuichi Nakamura as Shimazu Toyohisa, Naoya Uchida as Oda Nobunaga, Mitsuki Saiga as Nasu no Yoichi, Takahiro Sakurai as Abe no Haruakira, Shiho Kokido as Olmine, Masakazu Nishida as Kafeto, Junko Minagawa as Jeanne d’Arc, Kenji Nomura as Gilles de Rais, Junko Kitanishi as Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova, Masahiko Tanaka as Grigori Rasputin, Hiroki Yasumoto as Toshizou Hijikata, Mitsuru Miyamoto as Murasaki, Taiten Kusunoki as The Black King, Yutaka Aoyama as Hannibal Barca, Hiroshi Yanaka as Scipio Africanus, Kanae Itou as Easy, Junji Majima as Shara, Tomoko Tsuzuki as Mark and Sayori Ishizuka as Marsha.
Fans of Hellsing creator Kouta Hirano are used to the slow pace of his works in terms of getting released, and that means there’s not a lot of material to be made into anime form. Drifters began in 2011 and has five volumes out so far, three of which have seen release in North America through Dark Horse Comics.
Plot concept: Shimazu Toyohisa, whilst involved at the Battle of Sekigahara, manages to mortally wound Ii Naomasa, but is critically wounded in the process. As he walks from the field broken and bleeding, Toyohisa finds himself transported to a corridor of doors, where a bespectacled man at a desk waits for him. This man, Murasaki, sends Toyohisa into the nearest door where he wakes up in another world. There, Toyohisa meets other great warriors like him who have been transported as well, to be part of a group known as “Drifters.”