New Yaiba anime confirms early screening of first 3 episodes

Modified Feb 04, 2025 18:32 GMT

New Yaiba anime confirms early screening of first 3 episodes (Image via Wit Studio)

Tuesday, February 4, 2025 saw the official website for the new television Yaiba anime series confirm that its first three episodes will receive early screenings in Japan. The early screenings will be available at 10 TOHO CINEMAS locations in Japan on Thursday, March 13, 2025. The official website also confirmed that the screenings will include a roundtable video featuring several key staff members.

These screenings for the Yaiba anime will likewise come roughly one month ahead of the anime’s premiere, currently slated for a general April 2025 release window. While a full release date is still unavailable as of this article’s writing, fans do at least know the day of the week and time when the series will be airing in Japan.

New Yaiba anime’s early screenings include roundtable with original mangaka, series director, character designer

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As mentioned above, the early screenings for the first three episodes of the new Yaiba anime will include a roundtable with several key staff members. Easily the most notable is mangaka Gosho Aoyama, who wrote the original manga Shin Samurai-den YAIBA manga series. Also in attendance for these roundtables will be series director Takahiro Hasui, and series character designer Yoshimichi Kameda.

While the anime’s official release date isn’t confirmed, it has announced that it will air on Saturdays at 5:30PM Japanese Standard Time (JST) on YTV, NTV, and affiliated channels. Likewise, given this info, fans at least know the series will premiere on one of April’s four Saturdays, those being the 5, 12, 19, and 26. The 5, 12, and 19 dates seem most likely, as this would place the anime starting sometime during the beginning of the Spring 2025 season.

The currently announced main cast members for the anime series include Minami Takayama as titular protagonist Yaiba Kurogane, Manaka Iwami as Sayaka Mine, Yoshimasa Hosoya as Takeshi Onimaru, Katsuyuki Konishi as Kenjuro Kurogane, and Junichi Suwabe as Musashi Miyamoto. Hasui is directing the series at Wit Studio, with Youko Machida in charge of the series scripts. Kameda is also chief animation director in addition to character designer.

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Takeshi Maenami is the sub-character designer and main animator for the series, with Yutaka Yamada and Yoshiaki Dewa composing the music. Haru Yamada is the sound director, with Maiko Okada serving as the animation producer. As of this article’s writing, the anime’s theme song information has yet to be confirmed.

Aoyama originally launched the series in Shogakukan’s Weekly Shonen Sunday magazine in September 1998. The manga ran there until its conclusion in December 1993, and was collected into a total of 24 compilation volumes. The anime previously inspired a 52-episode anime adaptation which ran from April 1993 to April 1994. The titular character is frequently referenced in Aoyama’s Detective Conan series, including doing a crossover OVA in 2000.