Tsuki to Laika to Nosferatu Novels About Vampire Cosmonaut Gets TV Anime

Shogakukan announced on Wednesday that Keisuke Makino and Karei's Tsuki to Laika to Nosferatu (The Moon, Laika, and Nosferatu) light novel series is inspiring a television anime that will premiere this year.

The original novels' story is set in a fictional world, 10 years after a long war divided the world into two superpowers: the Union of Zirnitra Republics in the east, and the United Kingdom of Arnak in the west. Both of these superpowers now test their ambitions against each other in a space race. In 1960, the Union's Premier Gergiev announces Project Mechtat (Dream), a prestigious plan to launch manned missions into the final frontier. To this end, the Union establishes the isolated city of Laika 44, where cosmonaut candidates compete for planned manned missions to space, and scientists develop the technology to make it happen, all in an environment of secrecy.

The story centers on Lev Leps, a backup astronaut candidate, and his new companion, the vampire Irina Ruminescu. As part of a daring new Operation Nosferatu, Project Mechtat will use Irina as a test subject for various conditions expected in space, and ultimately as part of a manned mission, with Lev overseeing Irina's training as a cosmonaut. For reasons of their own, both dream of going into space.

The cast includes:

• Megumi Hayashibara as Irina Ruminescu
• Kouki Uchiyama as Lev Leps
• Satoshi Hino as Mikhail Yashin
• Mikako Komatsu as Roza Plevitskaya
• Hina Kino as Anya Simonyan

Akitoshi Yokoyama (Cutie Honey Universe, Photo Kano) is directing the anime at Arvo Animation. Original novel creator Keisuke Makino is in charge of the anime's series scripts. Hiromi Kato (I'm Gonna Be An Angel, Kobato., Hakkenden: Eight Dogs of the East) is designing the characters. Yūji Kaneko is the art director.

Shogakukan's Gagaga Bunko light novel imprint launched the novel series in December 2016, and The novel series' sixth volume will ship on Thursday. Sojihogu launched a manga adaptation of the novels in Kodansha's Comic Days website in March 2018, but went on indefinite hiatus beginning in January 2019 due to Sojihogu's poor health. It has not yet resumed. Kodansha published the manga's first compiled book volume in November 2018.