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Live-Action Rurouni Kenshin Sequels Previewed in 5-Minute Highlight Reel
posted on by Egan Loo
The animeanime.jp website began streaming over five minutes of video from this summer's Rurouni Kenshin live-action films on Friday. The "highlight reel special" aims to acquaint filmgoers with the first film in five minutes.
The video notes that a March 21, 2013 Internet Research poll found that 87% of potential viewers were looking forward to these sequels. It also notes that the two films have a combined budget of 3 billion yen ($30 million). The video features the theme song "Mighty Long Fall" by the band Shishio, as well as Shishio's right-hand man, Sōjirō Seta.
Rurouni Kenshin: Densetsu no Saigo-hen (Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends) on September 13. The film is holding a promotional campaign in all 47 prefectures in Japan:
The sequels will feature the return of the following cast :
- Takeru Satoh as Kenshin Himura
- Emi Takei as Kaoru Kamiya
- Munetaka Aoki as Sanosuke Sagara
- Yū Aoi as Megumi Takani
- Yōsuke Eguchi as Hajime Saitō
Additional include:
as Misao Makimachi
Ryūnosuke Kamiki as Sōjirō Seta
Yūsuke Iseya as Aoshi Shinomori
68-year-old Tekkonkinkreet, The Twilight Samurai, 47 Ronin remake) as Nenji Kashiwazaki/Okina
47-year-old Kazufumi Miyazawa (The Boom music band) as Toshimichi Ōkubo
39-year-old Yukiyoshi Ozawa (Umi no Hotaru) as Hirobumi Itō
12-year-old Ninja Kids!!! Summer Mission Impossible) as Yahiko Myōjin
25-year-old model Maryjun Takahashi as Yumi Komagata
The cast of the Juppongatana (Ten Swords), a group of elite swordsmen led by Shishio (played by Tatsuya Fujiwara), include:
- Ryōsuke Miura as Chō Sawagejō
- Kenichi Takitō as Hōji Sadojima
- Tomomi Maruyama as Anji Yūkyūzan
- Matsu Murata as Usui Uonuma
- Hiroko Yashiki as Kamatari Honjō
- Yūya Hara as Henya Kariwa
- Takao Yamada as Iwanbō
- Kentarō Shimazu as Saizuchi
- Kōta Yamaguchi as Fuji
along with character costume designer Kazuhiro Sawataishi.
The first live-action Rurouni Kenshin premiere in Los Angeles in December 2012.
Watsuki's manga ran from 1994 to 1999 in Shishio.
An anime series aired in Japan from 1996 to 1998 and spawned several anime film and video projects. released the two more recent video anime series on Blu-ray Disc and DVD, which also covered the Kyoto arc. 
Images © Production Committee
