posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
Sequel series features mostly new staff
The official Twitter account for Yostar‘s free-to-play mahjong game Mahjong Soul (Jong-Tama or Jan-Tama/majsoul) revealed a teaser promotional video on Saturday for Mahjong Soul Kan!!, a new net anime for the franchise.
The new anime will premiere in April 2024 with a mostly new staff.
Kazuomi Koga (Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible) is the new director for the anime at studio Alke (Scooter Films produced the previous anime and Alke assisted) with Yostar in charge of production. Ayumi Kurokawa (The God of High School sub-character design) is designing the characters. Noriko Tsutsui is returning as the the art director and is also in charge of background art, Yūsuke Watanabe is the color designer, Tetsuya Nishimura is the director of photography, Jun’ichi Masunaga is the editor, Chikako Yokota is the sound director, and Hinako Tsubakiyama is composing the music.
Returning cast includes Maaya Uchida as Ichi-hime, Yūki Ono as Wanjirō, Mariya Ise as Kaguya-hime, Ami Koshimizu as Yui Yagi, and Hiroki Yasumoto as Osamu Saitō. Other cast members include Chiwa Saito, Tetsuya Kakihara, Kana Ueda, Akari Kitō, Mai Nakahara, Yui Horie, Shin Furukawa, and Maria Naganawa.
The anime is a sequel to Mahjong Soul Pon☆. Mahjong Soul Pon☆ (Jong-Tama Pong☆), the first “comical” television anime shorts adaptation of the game, premiered in April 2022. Crunchyroll streamed the series as it aired.
The Chinese game company Cat Food Studio developed the online mahjong game and launched it in China in 2018. Yostar debuted it in Japan as a web browser game in April 2019. The game is also now available as an app on iOS and Android devices. The game is free-to-play, but players can update their avatar characters and accessories with random micro-transactions.
Sources: Mahjong Soul game’s Twitter account, Famitsu.com
