Spirit Circle's 18-episode anime starts in December, the last series directed by the late Tatsuo Sato
Satoshi Mizukami's reincarnation manga gets a TV anime from Twin Engine, animated by EOTA and Nagomi, with Kazuki Ura and Anna Nagase in the leads. Sato died in April; assistant director Kentaro Mizuno saw production through.
Tatsuo Sato, the director behind Martian Successor Nadesico, Stellvia and Bodacious Space Pirates, died on April 24 this year at 61. His final series as director is now dated: Spirit Circle, an adaptation of Satoshi Mizukami's manga, begins in December 2026 and runs for 18 episodes.
Twin Engine, which is producing, opened the official website on November 5 with a teaser visual, the first promotional video, staff and cast. Sato is credited as both director and series composer. After his death, the production was carried to completion by assistant director Kentaro Mizuno (Rocket Girls) and the rest of the team, working from the direction Sato had set. MyAnimeList reports the cause of death as liver failure.
A grudge across lifetimes
Fuuta Okeya is 14, sees ghosts, and keeps a birthmark on his left cheek covered with a bandage. When transfer student Kouko Ishigami arrives in his class, scar on her forehead and a tall, friendly ghost at her side, Fuuta wants to get to know her. Showing her the mark turns her against him: she explains that the two of them are tied together by reincarnation and that she put that mark on him herself in an earlier life, so she could find him again and defeat him. Using the burning ring that gives the series its name, she sends him tumbling down a staircase and into the memory of a past life, the first of several he will revisit while working out why they became enemies.
The voices
Kazuki Ura (Tougen Anki) leads as Fuuta. Anna Nagase (Koori no Jouheki) plays Kouko, and she sings the ending theme, "Koko ga Donna Sekai demo", her first solo vocal release according to Anime Corner. Eri Yukimura plays Rune and Yuichi Nakamura plays East.
Animation is split between EOTA and Nagomi, with Satoru Fujimoto, who worked on Symphogear G, designing the characters.
Ten years after the final chapter
Mizukami serialized Spirit Circle in Shonen Gahosha's Young King OURs from May 2012 to March 2016, wrapping it up in 45 chapters across six volumes; the last one came out in June 2016. The series has about 800,000 copies in circulation and was a Best Comic nominee at the 48th Seiun Awards in 2017. English readers can find it from Seven Seas Entertainment, which completed its sixth volume in January 2019, after an earlier digital simulpub on Crunchyroll Manga starting in January 2014. Mizukami is also the creator of Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer and Planet With.
No broadcaster, streaming partner or exact start date has been announced yet.
