Katsugeki: Touken Ranbu Anime Film Project Unveils 2nd Teaser Visual

The official website for Aniplex and ufotable's Katsugeki: Touken Ranbu television anime began streaming a new video for the anime's planned theatrical anime film on Thursday. The video previews the visual below.

Exactly one year ago, Aniplex and ufotable confirmed that the film project was still alive, and similarly unveiled a new video that previewed a new visual.

ufotable had announced the film project in September 2017, coinciding with the finale of the television anime. The anime premiered in July 2017 and aired for 13 episodes. Aniplex of America streamed the anime series on Amazon's now-defunct Anime Strike streaming service and on Crunchyroll.

Aniplex of America describes the anime's story:

The year is 1863 as the tumultuous samurai era is coming to an end, Japan is split between the pro-shogunate and anti-shogunate factions. The fate of the world is threatened as an army of historical revisionists are sent from the future to alter the course of history. In order to bring these forces down and protect the real history, two sword warriors, spirits who are swords brought to life by Saniwa (sage), rush to Edo. The polite and thoughtful Horikawa Kunihiro and the short tempered yet skillful Izuminokami Kanesada, who served the same master, confront the invading army along with a lively gang of other warriors including Mutsunokami Yoshiyuki, Yagen Toushirou, Tombokiri, and Tsurumaru Kuninaga.

As the fate of history lies in these hero's hands, what meets the blade is yet to be uncovered...

Toshiyuki Shirai (Fate/Zero, Tales of Zestiria the X animation director) directed the television series at ufotable. Mitsuru Obunai, Masaru Kimura, and Masayuki Kunihiro were the sword fight animators. Tatsuya Yamamura was in charge of historical research, and Kōgyoku Watanabe was the sword fight supervisor. The show had eight character designers, each handling the animation design for a different character.

The Touken Ranbu "sword personification training game" takes famous swords from Japanese history and interprets them as bishōnen. Nitroplus designed the characters and scenario. The game launched in Japan in January 2015.

The franchise has also inspired the Touken Ranbu: Hanamaru spinoff's two anime series, an anime film trilogy, and a compilation anime film. The franchise has also inspired two live-action films, a series of stage musicals and a series of stage plays, as well as various manga.

Johren released the original Touken Ranbu browser game in English in April 2021, and released the smartphone version of the game in August 2021.

Source: Katsugeki: Touken Ranbu anime's website, Comic Natalie