Natsume’s Book of Friends: the Movie (Natsume no Yujin-cho: Utsusemi ni Musubu), slated to open in Japan on 29 September 2018, has revealed new cast members! The comedy duo Viking will challenge their first voice acting role for this movie and will voice two ayakashi!

Eiji Kotage will voice Monmonbou, who comes to Natsume to get his name back. He loves being inside walls. Mizuki Nishimura will voice Roppon’ude. If you translate Roppon’ude’s name into English, it means ‘six arms’ which exactly describes him; an ayakashi with six arms. He plans to attack Natsume and wants the Book of Friends.

Kotage and Nishimura shared their excitement for their first voice acting roles in a comment!

Comment from Eiji Kotage

‘This was my first time recording something for an anime and I enjoyed it a lot! This work has many lovely characters in it, so definitely watch it on the big screen! I look forward to it.’

Comment from Mizuki Nishimura

‘I always wanted to work with an anime, so when this was decided, I was super happy. I had to go by trial and error when recording for this six-armed Roppon’ude. I would be glad if you came to the cinema to watch the movie!’

Natsume’s Book of Friends: the Movie

To open on 29 September 2018

Story

Takashi Natsume started to see youkai, which other people were not able to, in his childhood. He has inherited a special notebook titled ‘Book of Friends’ from his late grandmother, Reiko, that contains names of countless youkai, who have been defeated by her. Takashi is from then on pursuing the mission of returning the names to their original owners with the help of his self-proclaimed bodyguard, Nyanko-sensei. After spending busy days with people and youkai, Natsume meets his old classmate Yuki and remembers the bitterness related to them. In his past, he got to know Yorie Tsumura, who was part of a youkai’s memories whose name he returned. The woman who knew about Reiko had blissfully been living together with her son, Mukuo. Natsume felt relaxed to meet Yorie and her son. However, it seemed that mysterious youkai were lurking inside the town where the two have lived. After returning from his investigation the ‘Youkai no Tane’ (lit. Demon Seed) which got on Nyanko-sensei’s body, has grown to a tree inside the Fujiwara family’s garden overnight and bore fruits. Nyanko-sensei ate some of the fruits and split into three little Nyanko-sensei.

Staff

Original Work: Yuki Midorikawa
Director: Hideki Ito
Chief Director: Takahiro Omori
Series Composition: Sadayuki Murai
Youkai Design/ Action Director: Tatsuo Yamada
Music: Makoto Yoshimori
Sub Character Design: Hiromitsu Hagiwara
Art Director: Yukihiro Shibutani
Color Setting: Hiromi Miyawaki
Editing: Toshihiko Seki
Director of Photography: Hitoshi Tamura, Tetsuya Kawada
Animation Production: Shuka
Production: Natsume’s Book of Friends Project
Distribution: Aniplex

Cast

Hiroshi Kamiya as Takashi Natsume
Kazuhiko Inoue as Nyanko-sensei
Sanae Kobayashi as Reiko Natsume
Miki Ito as Toko Fujiwara
Eiji Ito as Shigeru Fujiwara
Akira Ishida as Shuichi Natori
Kazuma Horie as Kaname Tanuma
Rina Sato as Toru Taki
Ryohei Kimura as Satoru Nishimura
Hisayoshi Suganuma as Atsushi Kitamoto
Miyuki Sawashiro as Jun Sasada
Satsuki Yukino as Hiiragi
Akemi Okamura as Hinoe
Takaya Kuroda as Mitsuzu
Cho as Chobihige
Takashi Matsuyama as One-eyed Middle-Class Youkai
Hiroshi Shimozaki as Ox-faced Middle-Class Youkai
Kyoko Chikiri as Kappa

Web

Official Website:http://natsume-movie.com/
Official Twitter: @NatsumeYujincho