High Speed! Free! Starting Days Film Adds More Cast Members

More cast members for the upcoming anime film High Speed! Free! Starting Days were announced last Monday. Toshiyuki Toyonaga, Kouki Uchiyama, Kenji Nojima and Satsohi Hino are cast as actors for the previously revealed characters for the film. The character designs and profiles for Nagisa, Rei, Rin, Sosuke, and Kisumi were also unveiled by the film’s official website.

The new cast members include:

Toshiyuki Toyonaga as Asahi Shiina

 

Toshiyuki Toyonaga as Asahi Shiina, first-year at Iwatobi Middle School. His forte in swimming is the butterfly. He is the mood-maker of the team with his bright and energetic personality. He also is a bit full of himself. He has a positive outlook on life that allows him to look forward in any situation, and he has the innocence and passion to face swimming head on.

Kouki Uchiyama as Ikuya Kirishima

 

Kouki Uchiyama as Ikuya Kirishima, first-year at Iwatobi Middle School. His forte in swimming is the breaststroke. Although he is delicate and sensitive, he is bad at showing his true emotions, and sometimes says nasty things on impulse. He has been attending Hanto SC since he was in elementary school. It appears that he has a bit of a rough relationship with his elder brother Natsuya.

Kenji Nojima as Natsuya Kirishima

 

Kenji Nojima as Natsuya Kirishima, the third-year student captain of the Iwatobi Middle School swim club and Ikuya’s elder brother. A person who is acknowledged by everyone around him.

Satoshi Hino as Nao Serizawa

 

Satoshi Hino as Nao Serizawa, the third-year student manager of the Iwatobi Middle School swim club who serves as Haruka and the others’ instructor. Natsuya trusts him.

A new key visual with the tagline “We stand at the starting line to our future” has been unveiled in the film’s website.

 

New character designs and character profiles for High Speed! Free! Starting Days anime film:

Kisumi Shigino, a first-year student at Iwatobi Middle School. He has a refreshing, bright, and sociable personality. His strong point is basketball, and he keeps inviting Haruka and others to join the basketball club at every chance he gets.

Sosuke Yamazaki, a first-year student at Sano Middle School. During elementary school, he became aware of Haruka and his friends through a swim club tournament. He is an understanding person who is close friends with Rin.

Nagisa Hazuki, a six-year elementary school student who attends he Iwatobi Swim Club. He met Haruka and his friends through the Swim Club and he enjoys himself while also being very zealous about swimming.

Rei Ryugazaki, a six-year elementary school student. He loves reading and goes to the library often.

Rin Matsuoka, he swam with Haruka in a relay team together at the Swim Club when he was a six-year elementary school student. He is currently studying swimming abroad in Australia.

Cast members who were previous revealed are:

Nobunaga Shimazaki as Haruka Nanase

Nobunaga Shimazaki as Haruka Nanase, a first-year at the Iwatobi Middle School who holds special feelings for water. His forte in swimming is freestyle (crawl). He has a strong preference for swimming in freestyle. He has a curt personality and doesn’t like dealing with other people, but his skilled swimming dazzles others.

Tatsuhisa Suzuki as Makoto Tachibana

Tatsuhisa Suzuki as Makoto Tachibana, Haruka’s childhood friend and best friend. A first-year at Iwatobi Middle School. His forte in swimming is the backstroke. He has a kind and considerate personality, and he often dotes on Haruka and those around him. He has a very good build, and his swimming style is so hearty that it seems to not match his personality at all.

High Speed! Free! Starting Days film’s plot:

 

Haruka Nanase feels something special when he touches water. The medley relay was the last competition he was able to participate in during elementary school. Haruka, along with Makoto Tachibana, Nagisa Hazuki, and Rin Matsuoka, saw something they’d never seen before.

In spring, with the cherry blossoms in full bloom. Haruka moves on to Iwatobi Middle School with Makoto and starts a new life. Both enter the swim team, and plan to compete in the medley relay together with Asahi Shiina and Ikuya Kirishima.

All four students have different objectives and ways of thinking, and different baggage they’re carrying, and so their practice for the relay hasn’t been going well.

What is required to make a team? What does Haruka, whose heart is trapped in the medley relay of the past, think during this new event?

High Speed! -Free! Starting Days – depicts these boys trying to find the answer, and discovering new ideas about swimming.

The boys’ sparkling youth, and the future they’ve bet on swimming, begins.

High Speed! Free! Starting Days anime film is directed by Yasuhiro Takemoto with Futoshi Nishiya returning as the character designer and serving as the chief animation director. The original character design was already credited to Nishiya too. The film’s story composition is credited to Masahiro Yokotani who is the head writer for the earlier seasons of Free! TV anime series. Meanwhile, the actual screenplay is written by Maiko Nishioka and Joji Unojuchi returns as the art director together with key artist Yūka Yoneda. The following staff from the TV anime series also return: prop designer Seiichi Akitake, director of photography Kazuya Takao, sound director Yota Tsuruoka, and music composer Tatsuya Katou.

Free! Anime centers on Haruka and the other swimmers during their high school while the film follows their story in their middle school days. The original Free! anime series was loosely based on High Speed! novel while the film is directly inspired by it.

High Speed! Free! Starting Days film will hit the Japanese theaters on December 6, 2015.

Images © 2015 Kōji Ōji, Kyoto Animation/High Speed Production Committee
Source: Anime News Network