Seki plays protagonist Chihiro’s father in anime premiering next April
The official website for the television anime adaptation of Takeru Hokazono’s Kagurabachi manga revealed on Friday that Tomokazu Seki is joining the anime’s cast as Kunishige Rokuhira, the protagonist Chihiro’s father.
Image via Kagurabachi anime’s website
©Takeru Hokazono/SHUEISHA,Project Kagurabachi
Image via Kagurabachi anime’s website
©Takeru Hokazono/SHUEISHA,Project Kagurabachi
Viz Media’s Shonen Jump service and Shueisha’s MANGA Plus service are releasing the Kagurabachi manga digitally in English. MANGA Plus describes the story:
Young Chihiro spends his days training under his famous swordsmith father. One day he hopes to become a great sword-maker himself. The goofy father and the serious son–they thought these days would last forever. But suddenly, tragedy strikes. A dark day soaked in blood. Chihiro and his blade now live only for revenge. Epic sword battle action!
The anime stars Taihi Kimura as Chihiro Rokuhira.
Tetsuya Takeuchi (From Bureaucrat to Villainess: Dad’s Been Reincarnated! director; key animator for Naruto and Naruto Shippūden) is directing the anime at Cypic (The World Is Dancing). Keigo Sasaki (character designer for Blue Exorcist, Uma Musume: Cinderella Gray) is designing the characters. Shochiku and CyberAgent are on the production committee.
The anime will debut in April 2027. The “world tour” event for the anime will begin this July at Anime Expo in Los Angeles, Japan Expo Paris in Paris, ANImagic in Mannheim, Germany, and in August at Anime NYC in New York. The event will show the first 20 minutes of the first episode, and will end in Japan in spring 2027 where the full first episode will be screened.
Hokazono debuted the Kagurabachi manga in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine in September 2023. Shueisha published the manga’s 11th compiled volume in Japan on May 1. The manga surpassed 2.2 million copies in circulation as of May 2025. The manga has 4 million copies in circulation.
Viz Media is also releasing the manga in print and released the seventh volume on May 5.
The manga topped the print category in the Next Manga Awards 2024. The manga was nominated in December 2024 for the 70th Shogakukan Manga Awards, and was nominated for the 49th annual Kodansha Manga Awards in April 2025. The manga was also nominated for the 2025 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. The manga ranked at #13 in January for Da Vinci’s top manga titles of 2025.
CyberAgent established Cygames in 2011, and the company has produced games such as Rage of Bahamut and Granblue Fantasy. Cygames established an anime division in March 2015 and the anime production subsidiary Cygames Pictures in April 2016.
Sources: Kagurabachi anime’s website, Comic Natalie
