Sentai Filmworks Licenses Saiyuki Reload -ZEROIN- Anime

Sentai Filmworks announced on Tuesday that it has licensed Saiyuki Reload -ZEROIN-, the television anime of the "Even a Worm" arc from Kazuya Minekura's Saiyuki Reload manga. HIDIVE will begin streaming the anime on January 6 at 10:00 a.m. EST in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Latin America, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Scandinavian countries, and the Netherlands for the winter 2022 season. Sentai Filmworks will also release the anime on home video.

The show will premiere on January 6 on AT-X, Tokyo MX, and BS11.

The four main cast members of the previous Saiyuki, Saiyuki Reload, Saiyuki Gunlock, and Saiyuki Reload Blast television anime are reprising their roles:

• Toshihiko Seki as Genjo Sanzo
• Sōichiro Hoshi as Son Goku
• Hiroaki Hirata as Sha Gojyo
• Akira Ishida as Cho Hakkai

The new cast members in this anime are:

• Kouichi Toochika as Hazel Grouse, a bishop who arrived from the west, and who is critical to the story arc
• Rikiya Koyama as Gatti "Gat" Nenehawk, who works with Hazel
• Houchu Ohtsuka as Ni Jianyi, a Sanzo practitioner with Muten Sutra and a scientist on Gyumaoh's side

Misato Takada (unit director for Phantom in the Twilight, Love and Lies) is directing the anime at LIDEN FILMS. Michiko Yokote (Shirobako, Prison School, Cowboy Bebop, Rurouni Kenshin) and Aya Matsui (Dragon Ball Z, Pokémon Journeys: The Series) are overseeing the series scripts, and Noriko Ogura is the character designer, prop designer, and chief animation director. Yūsuke Shirato (Lost Song, Rumble Garanndoll) is composing the music at Lantis. GRANRODEO is performing the opening theme song "Kamino Hotokemo" and Shugo Nakamura is performing the ending theme song "Ruten."

Saiyuki, the original 1997 "fantasy road movie" manga series loosely inspired by the Chinese novel Journey to the West (Saiyuki in Japanese), has spawned the Saiyuki Gaiden and Saiyuki Ibun manga spinoffs. The Saiyuki Reload Blast sequel manga launched in Ichijinsha's Comic Zero Sum in 2009, but Minekura slowed down her publication of the manga in 2013 due to her health. The manga franchise as a whole has 25 million copies in circulation worldwide. Tokyopop published the original manga, and Kodansha Comics re-released the manga.

The various manga series also inspired four television anime series, an anime film, three original video anime (OVA) series, and several stage musical productions.

The Saiyuki Reload Blast anime premiered in July 2017. Crunchyroll streamed the series as it aired, and Funimation offered a simuldub.

Sources: Sentai Filmworks, HIDIVE