Fullmetal Alchemist's Original Ed, Al to Reprise Roles

[Koby]

The March issue of Kadokawa Shoten's Newtype magazine will announce on February 10 that Romi Paku and Rie Kugimiya will reprise their roles of the Elric brothers Edward and Alphonse in the new television version of Hiromu Arakawa's Fullmetal Alchemist "dark fantasy" manga. Newtype magazine had indicated that the creators were still casting the voices as recently as last month. The new series will premiere in Japan on April 5.

The main staff has already been announced in Newtype last month. The new project's director, Yasuhiro Irie, had previously overseen Kurau: Phantom Memory, opening animation footage for the first Fullmetal Alchemist anime and Soul Eater, and episodes of Alien Nine and RahXephon. Hiroshi Ohnogi (Kekkaishi, Noein, Macross Zero) is supervising the scripts, while Hiroki Kanno (RahXephon, Yu Yu Hakusho The Movie: Poltergeist Report) is designing the characters. Akira Senju (Mobile Suit Victory Gundam, Red Garden, Rampo) is composing the music. Besides Oyama, MBS' Hiro Maruyama, Square Enix's Nobuyuki Kurashige, and BONES' Noritomo Yonai are producing.

Viz Media published the 17th volume of the manga version in North America last October, while FUNimation Entertainment released both the first television series and its theatrical movie finale.