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Caligula Anime Replaces Yuichiro Umehara With Tomoaki Maeno

The official website for Tokyo MX on Sunday.

Umehara was hospitalized in May after being diagnosed with acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, an autoimmune disease that affects the nervous system. The actor is focusing on treatment and recovery and is taking an indefinite hiatus from work.

The anime premiered in Japan on Tokyo MX on April 8 at 11:30 p.m., and streaming the series as it airs in Japan. The show is listed with 12 episodes.

FuRyu's Pony Canyon is producing the music.

Minami Tanaka are performing the ending theme song "Hypno" as their characters.

The anime retains the main voice cast from the games, but some roles are different. The anime's cast includes:

• Chiharu Sawashiro as Ritsu Shikishima (the male and female protagonists have no default name in the games)
• Reina Ueda as μ
• Shunsuke Takeuchi as Shōgo Satake
• Tomoaki Maeno as Izuru Minesawa
• Yoshimasa Hosoya as Kotarō Tomoei
• Rie Murakawa as Kotono Kashiwaba
• Ari Ozawa as Naruko Morita
• Rie Takahashi as Mifue Shinohara
• Minami Tanaka as Suzuna Kagura
• Mai Fuchigami as Marie Mizuguchi
• Asami Shimoda as Aria
• Shōta Aoi as KagiP
• Emi Nitta as SweetP
• Yumiri Hanamori as Shōnen Doll
• Mirei
• Sōma Saitō as IkeP
• Yūma Uchida as Shadow Knife
• Yuka Ōtsubo as Sone

In the original game's story, written by Tadashi Satōmi, a virtual idol known as μ performs -inputted songs and gains self-awareness through exposure to s' bitter feelings and dissatisfaction toward reality. Wanting to save humanity — which she believes is continuously suffering — she lures people to a virtual reality world called Mobius with her songs. She then imprisons them in Mobius, thinking they will be free from the suffering of reality and that all their wishes will come true. The game follows the nine of the "Going Home Club," a club that was formed because the characters want to escape from Mobius and go home. The game's title refers to the "Caligula Effect," which is a pattern of behavior where one wants to see or do something more if it is denied to them.

The in-game composer characters are represented by real independent music composers, including OSTER PROJECT (Sweet P), Polyphonic Branch (Shonen Doll), CyoucyoP (Mirei), Asa (IkeP), 164 (Shadow Knife), and cosMo@BosoP (Sone).

The game shipped in Japan for the remake for the PlayStation 4 that shipped in Japan on May 17.

Source: Caligula Anime's Website via Hachima Kikō