New details have been released about Tribe Nine, an ambitious new multimedia franchise from the creators of the Danganronpa series.
The new franchise is takes place in a colorful but post-apocalyptic world, in the city of Neo Too Kyo, which is loosely based on the real 23 wards of Tokyo. In this new lawless society, various factions emerge who compete for control of the city through a new, more extreme version of baseball that is played with high tech bats and mitts that can also transform into weapons. The new series is the latest creation from Kazutaka Kodaka, who also created the cult-classic Danganronpa series of video games and anime adaptations. Kodaka is once again joined by Danganronpa character designer Rui Komatsuzaki and composer Masafumi Takada.
The anime side of the franchise will be co-produced by anime publisher Funimation and the animation studio Liden Films, who are best known for producing the anime adaptation of Tokyo Revengers. The anime will star Rent-A-Girlfriend's Shun Horie as its main protagonist, Haru Shirogane, and veteran voice actor Akira Ishida as the voice of Shun Akiyama. Ishida is best known as the voice of Naruto's sand ninja Gaara, as well as Mobile Suit Gundam SEED's Athrun Zala. The anime series will debut in Japan and on Funimation's streaming service in January 2022.
A smartphone action-RPG is also in the works. The game will be co-developed by Japanese mobile game studio Akatsuki, who previously collaborated with Final Fantasy publisher Square-Enix on Romancing Saga Re:Universe, a mobile game spinoff of Akitoshi Kawazu's long-running experimental RPG series. The game's design work is being handled by Kodaka's Too Kyo Games, which was founded in 2017 by members of the Danganronpa and Zero Escape development teams after they left their original video game studio, Spike Chunsoft. Too Kyo Games is best known for its 2020 adventure/2D-platforming game World's End Club, which was initially released on iOS and Mac OS devices as an exclusive for the Apple Arcade subscription service, but was later ported to the Nintendo Switch. The new Tribe Nine game currently has no release date.
A Webtoon based on Tribe Nine is also in development, but was not shown.
While many of the key members of the original games' development teams have now left Spike Chunsoft, the company recently announced a new game in the series, Danganronpa S: Ultimate Summer Camp, which blends elements of RPGs with board games and features characters from all three previous games in the series. The game is scheduled to be released for the Nintendo Switch on Dec. 3.
Source: YouTube, Funimation