Recently, Crunchyroll announced several lineups for their Winter 2022 dubs, including the Orient English dub. The 12-episode Orient TV series launched on Crunchy roll on February 23and it started on January 6, 2022 in Japan on AT-X and TV Tokyo.
For anime fans new to Orient, the series is an adaptation of Shinobu Ohtaka’s shounen manga. Between May 2018 and January 2021, it was serialized in Kodansha’s Weekly Shonen Magazine. And from February 2021, the series appeared in Kodansha’s Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine.
Currently, 14 volumes of the tankōbon have been published in Japan. And Kodansha USA released the English translation of the first volume in digital form in April 2020.
The manga enjoys a fair degree of popularity. Nevertheless, the reception has been lukewarm as it does not break new ground for a shounen series according to critics and fans. Still, it’s good enough to appeal to middle-class readers, and the illustrations and story get better as the series ages.
What is the Oriental story about?
Set in the Sengoku period in Japan, Orient is an adventure fantasy. The story follows the exploits of the three main characters, namely: Musashi, Kojiro Kanemaki and Tsugumi Hattori. In Musashi’s case, he works as a miner. But he is miserable because he knows that he is mining rocks for his overseers; demons that enslaved Hinomoto and his people.
Unfortunately, his colleagues do not share the same view and regard their demonic overlords as liberators who freed them from samurai rule 150 years ago.
One day, fresh graduates arrive at the mine and witness the gruesome treatment of the miners by the demons. And the leader of the demons wreaks havoc in the quarry, endangering Musashi’s life. Fortunately, the Takeda samurai clan saves him in the nick of time. And from that moment on, Musashi craves adventure and forming his own samurai clan.
Who are the voice cast and staff?
The Japanese voice cast of the Orient TV anime series is as follows (English voice in brackets):
- Yuma Uchida (AJ Beckles) as Musashi
- Soma Saito (Stephen Fu) as Kojiro Kanemaki
- Rie Takahashi (Emi Lo) as Tsugumi Hattori
- Satoshi Hino as Naotora Takeda
- Azumi Waki as Nanao Inusaka
- Hiro Shimono as Shiro Inukai
- Haruki Ishiya as Aoshi Sanada
- Wataru Hatano as Hideo Kosameda
- Saori Onishi as Shunrai Yamamoto
- Katsuyuki Konishi as Jisai Kanemaki
- Houko Kuwashima as Obsidian Goddess
The voiceover for the English dub is Chris Cason, and the TV series director is Tetsuya Yanagisawa, with the latter directing High School DxD and Seireitsukai no Blade Dance. ACGT is the animation studio and Avex Pictures is producing. We hope the Orient English dub will satisfy shounen fans in an already crowded market. Stay tuned!
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