Dark Machine Anime Series Reveals Cast, Opening Song, and October TV Debut

The staff for Dark Machine the Animation has unveiled the second promotional video for the anime, revealing more cast members, the opening theme song, and the October television premiere.

The new cast members announced in the video include Ryūnosuke Watanuki as Nyūdō, a player from the Great Cluster team, Jun Kousaka as Hachiman, a player from the Great Cluster team, Minori Suzuki as Bianca, a player from the Esmeralda team, and Rikuya Yasuda as Weiss, a player from the Esmeralda team.

The anime will have its own unique world setting, which will include Dark Machine being a popular gaming metaverse, and will take place "in the not too distant future." The anime is planned for global distribution.

The series stars Kenshō Ono as Kairi, Miyuki Sawashiro as Rudora, Kōki Uchiyama as Shinn, Riho Sugiyama as Bran, Saya Aizawa as Isana, Yūichi Nakamura as Ajima, Kazuyuki Okitsu as Myōjin, Ryōta Suzuki as Ryō, Genta Nakamura as Kinji, and Sōhei Horikane as Hiru.

The staff for the anime's pilot trailer that premiered at Comic-Con International in July 2024 has been confirmed to work on the television anime. Kazumi Terada is directing the anime at Production +h.. The overall project credits Code Geass director Gorō Taniguchi as the creative producer, and Macross artist Hidetaka Tenjin as the chief mechanical designer. Keiichi Yano is the project's creator. "Team Carbuncle" - featuring Takaaki Suzuki, Tatsuhiko Urahata, and Atsuo Ishino, - which was listed for writing credits in the pilot trailer, is in charge of the anime's series scripts with the addition of Satohito Sata.

Other staff members include:

| Position | Staff Member | | --- | --- | | Main Character Designer | Kō Yoshinari | | Sub-Character Designer | Akira Mitani | | Costume Design | Mebachi | | Chief Animation Directors | Yumi Kuroiwa, Hideki Itō | | Storyboard | Masatsugu Arakawa | | Color Key Artist | niko＊miko | | Art Setting | Hiromi Tateiwa, Engawa, Nariyuki Ogi | | Art Directors | Hiromi Tateiwa, Yusuke Ikeda | | CG Director | Akira Inami | | CG Action Director | Ryou Kimura | | Compositing Director of Photography | Naoko Tanaka | | Photography Supervision | Kentarō Waki | | Editing | Yuki Honda | | Sound Director | Takeshi Takadera | | Sound Effects | Tomoko Ohtsuka | | Music | SUGIZO | | Music Production | Flying Dog |

The anime will be available for TV and streaming via Fuji TV.

The Dark Machine game, an asynchronous big team arena shooter, was announced in 2023, and Early Access started in 2024. The game's staff describe the story as taking place in the year 2079, where humankind is living in an energy bubble after Dr. Robert Palmer discovered the Palmer crystal to give humankind all of the energy it would ever need and more.

However, not all of humankind has benefited from this hyper energy source, and underground battles for this energy have developed at a global scale. The factory robots that have been helping to cultivate this energy of the future have been transformed to fighting mechs by these undergrounds and they are fighting for huge stakes.

The game's staff describe the story as including dark energy residing in small quantities in the Palmer crystal, and the use of hyper AI technologies to harness this dark energy and use it for battle advantages. It is currently unclear whether this dark energy can be controlled by mechs.

The game's staff include Code Geass director Gorō Taniguchi as the creative producer, and Macross artist Hidetaka Tenjin as the chief mechanical designer. Yuya Saito is the game director and Koji Hakuta is the producer. The game is a 7-versus-7 mech third-person shooting game.

The staff raised more than US$8.7 million from more than 6,000 investors including Tencent, web3 game platform Immutable, and blockchain company Sui. The staff are developing the game with Unreal Engine 5. The game features the blockchain-based in-game currency MACHINA ($MXNA), and also features NFT asset ownership and an NFT marketplace for direct sales and peer-to-peer exchanges. Players can install and play the game without having to purchase any NFTs, and get free NFTs to start playing the game. Decentralized tournaments are integral to the gameplay.