Netflix Japan has released a trailer to announce the anime adaptation of Yumemakura Baku’s (Psycho Diver: Mashou Bosatsu, Kurozuka, Onmyouji) Garouden light novel series. The anime adaptation, Garouden: The Way of the Lone Wolf, will premiere on Netflix worldwide on May 23rd, 2024.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hsqYK_9pGs]
Ikariya Atsushi (Sabikui Bisco, Special Kid Factory) directs the anime at studio NAZ. The show will star Takeuchi Ryouta as Judo Fujimaki, Inada Tetsu as Bunshichi Tanba, and Takeuchi Shunsuke as Tsutomu Himekawa.
Netflix describes the anime as a gritty tale about Juzo Fujimaki, who is on the run from a past crime when he is blackmailed into joining an illicit tournament and has to face top martial artists in deadly match-ups.
The first Garouden novel was published in 1985, and the 13th was released in 2003. In 2006, a new book was published under the series’ new title, Shin Garouden, and the fifth and latest novel under the new title was published in 2020.
Yumemakura and Itagaki Keisuke adapted the novel series into a manga in 1996 in Gentosha’s Comic Birz magazine. The manga was then serialized in several other magazines until it ended in April 2011 in Akita Shoten’s Weekly Shounen Champion magazine.
Yumemakura and Itagaki also released Garouden Boy, a prequel to the first manga. Garouden Boy was serialized in 2004 in Kodansha’s Weekly Shounen magazine. From 2013 to 2014, Yumemakura and Nobe Masami launched another prequel manga, Shin Garouden, in Akita Publishing’s Weekly Shounen Champion magazine.
