The Hikari no Ou anime adaptation has revealed its cast members, including Misaki Kuno and Shouya Ishige as main characters Toko and Koshi respectively.

The other cast members are Maaya Sakamoto as Akira, Yoshimasa Hosoya as Roroku, Saori Hayami as Kira, and Megumi Yamaguchi as Hinako.

Hikari no Ou is set to begin in January 2023 in Japan. The show will be broadcast via the WOWOW channel.

Hikari no Ou is based on the fantasy novels by Rieko Hinata, which began in 2018 and ended in 2020 with four volumes. Akihiro Yamada was the illustrator. 

The story takes place after mankind’s final war, with the land covered by a black forest where fiery creatures roam. The setting also includes a pathogen that causes human bodies to ignite. With the creatures being the source of the only fire that humans can safely handle, sickle-armed fire hunters (Hikari) venture into the forests to seek these beings. Among the hunters, there is a talk of a thousand-year comet, and of how the one to hunt it will be called the King of the Fire Hunters (Hikari no Ou). The main characters are 11-year old Touko and 15-year old Koushi, whose intersecting fates set the story in motion.

Junji Nishimura (True Tears, Ranma 1/2 Nettou Hen Ep 70 onwards) is directing with Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell director, Urusei Yatsura Ep 1-Ep 129 chief director) as series composer and scriptwriter. Nishimura and Oshii previously worked together on the 2021 vampire comedy Vlad Love, with the former as director and the latter as chief director, series composer, and scriptwriter. For the 1984 Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer movie, Oshii served as director with Nishimura as unit director.

The other staff include Takuya Saitou (Outlaw Star, Macross 0) as character designer and one of the three chief animation directors and Kenji Kawai (Ghost in the Shell)as music composer. The other two chief animation directors are Kazuchika Kise (xxxHOLIC and Blood-C character designer) and Toshihisa Kaiya (Ascendance of a Bookworm co-character designer, World Trigger Season 2 and 3 character designer). Signal.MD is the animation production company.

Source: @HikarinoOuAnime