It’s been a couple of years since we last talked about Akatsuki no Yona, aka Yona of the Dawn. That was in talking about how in 2022 that the English dub had finally made it from the Funimation service to Crunchyroll. With the manga ongoing, the property is getting some new attention with a really great paired up cover through Hana to Yume that’s due out on November 5th, 2024 that you can see below.
Check our reviews of the first and second North American Blu-ray sets.
The anime adaptation was produced by Studio Pierrot with scripts by Shinichi Inotsume.
The cast includes Chiwa Saito as Yona, Tomoaki Maeno as Hak Son, Junko Minagawa as Yoon, Masakazu Morita as Ki-Ja, Nobuhiko Okamoto as Shin-Ah, Junichi Suwabe as Jae-Ha, Hiro Shimono as Zeno and Yuusuke Kobayashi as Soo-won.
The series ran for two cour over the course of half a year. The manga began in 2009 in Hana to Yume and is still ongoing with thirty-eight volumes so far.
Plot concept: From the studio behind Tokyo Ghoul and Fushigi Yugi comes the story of Yona, a typical teen—easily excitable, spoiled by her adoring father…and the sitting princess of the Kohka Kingdom. On her sixteenth birthday she plans to tell her father, the kind King Il, about her hidden love for her childhood friend, Su-won. But before she can confess her feelings, she stumbles upon her father being brutally murdered by none other than Su-won himself for the purpose of ruling the kingdom with a firmer hand. After the tragic discovery, Yona and her bodyguard Son Hak must flee the kingdom and escape the wrath of Su-won’s henchman. Now, in order to reunite the fallen kingdom, Yona and Son Hak are on the hunt for the four legendary dragons of Kohka. Along the way, Yona must shed her royal air and learn to live by the sword and bow.
