In a joint celebration of Tatsunoko Production‘s 60th anniversary and the 50 anniversary of Yoshida Tatsuo’s Neo-Human Casshern, a manga adaptation titled Casshern R illustrated by Shiki Satoshi began serialization on September 19 in Akita Shoten‘s Champion RED, with a cover feature and a color front page.
Originally created in 1973 by Tatsunoko founder Yoshida and running for 35 episodes, Casshern tells the story of Azuma Tetsuya, son of genius scientist Azuma Koutarou. Dr. Azuma built a series of androids designed to solve an ongoing environmental crisis, but during a freak accident, they gain self-awareness and rebel against their creator. Arriving at the conclusion that humanity itself is responsible for the crisis, they build and amass an army of robots to take control of Earth. In order to stop them, Tetsuya willingly undergoes an operation to become an artificial human, fighting to protect humanity with the new name of Casshern.
Shiki Satoshi is also known for Kamikaze and Daphne in the Brilliant Blue, as well as Persona × Detective Naoto and The Legend of Dororo and Hyakkimaru (also serialized on Champion RED), as well as the illustrations for the light novel Attack on Titan: Before the Fall. Anime script writer, Chabo Higurashi, is working with Shiki as the writer for this series.
The magazine issue also includes an interview with Sasagawa Hiroshi, director of the original Casshern series, as well as the “Casshern Special Art Book”, a full-color booklet containing various designs and illustrations related to the anime.
