Sony Music Labels revealed the theme song artist, new visual, and April 3 premiere date for the anime Araiguma Calcal-dan (Raccoon Calcal Force), a spinoff of the Raccoon Rascal (Araiguma Rascal) franchise, on Friday. Sony Music Labels also unveiled a new promotional video, but removed it to correct an error in the video. It will upload the corrected version later.
© あらいぐま カルカル団」製作委員会
The anime will premiere on Yomiuri TV on April 3 at 24:54 (effectively, April 4 at 12:54 a.m. or April 3 at 11:54 a.m. EDT), and on BS NTV on April 5.
Japanese metalcore band Hanabie. performs the anime’s theme song “Karugaru Everyday!!” (Easy Everyday).
© あらいぐま カルカル団」製作委員会
The anime’s story centers on the Calcal-dan, a secret society aiming for world domination (while consistently topping the rankings for the world’s most popular companies). While most of its members are among the elites of society, all striving to fulfill the goals of the company and its boss, it also has a branch in Tokyo’s quieter Tama region. This branch has low business performance, and the employees have not seen a raise in a while, but its members still strive to perform better each day.
Junya Enoki plays Acacal (center in image above), a cheerful and hopeful new recruit to the Calcal-dan. Taku Yashiro (center right) plays Logical, a low-level executive who is always strictly business. Kenshō Ono plays Subcal (center left, a wordplay on an abbreviation for “sub-cutlure”), a modern-minded employee who expresses a level of detachment to everything. Yōhei Azakami plays Comical (leftmost), a brusque but kind employee. Kenjirō Tsuda plays Middle (rightmost), the branch’s head who exudes a mysterious but cool silver fox aura.
Henry Hirakawa is directing the anime at Nippon Animation. Ayano Yoshioka (Let’s Make a Mug Too) is designing the characters. Arisa Okehazama is composing the music. Kisuke Koizumi is the sound director. Kozo Misawa (Yomiuri TV) and Hitomi Hiratsuka (Nippon Animation) are credited as chief producers. Hiroya Tanaka (Yomiuri TV) and Kasumi Dekune (Nippon Animation) are credited as producers.
The Raccoon Rascal/Rascal the Raccoon franchise originates from Nippon Animation‘s 52-episode 1977 television anime of the same name, itself based on the novel Rascal, A Memoir of a Better Era by Sterling North. The series was part of Nippon Animation‘s World Masterpiece Theater series of anime adapting classic children’s books. Famed Studio Ghibli co-founder and director Hayao Miyazaki was one of the animators for the series.
The franchise inspired the Poka Poka Mori no Rascal anime in 2006, as well as the Meitantei Rascal anime in 2014.
Source: Press release
