HIDIVE Licenses Helck for Summer 2023 Anime Season

HIDIVE has announced that it has licensed the fantasy TV anime series Helck for its streaming platform for the upcoming Summer 2023 season. The anime adaptation is scheduled to premiere sometime in July 2023. 

A 30-second English subtitled teaser trailer was posted on HIDIVE’s YouTube channel. 

Tatsuo Satou (Atom the Beginning, Madan no Ou to Vanadis) is directing the anime series with Yoshinori Deno (Sakugan chief animation director) as animation character designer and Toshizou Nemoto (Bakuten!! series screenwriter) and Mitsutaka Hirota (Reborn to Master the Blade: From Hero-King to Extraordinary Squire series screenwriter) as scenario writers. Other staff include Studio Tulip’s Eiji Iwase (The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague) as art director, Hiyori’s Miho Hasegawa (The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs) as color designer, T2 Studio’s Tsuyoshi Shimura (Sakugan) as photography director, and Yoshihisa Hirano as music composer. Satelight is in charge of the animation production.

Meanwhile, the main voice cast is headlined by Katsuyuki Konishi as Helck, Mikako Komatsu as Vermilio, Yoshitsugu Matsuoka as Azudra, Akira Ishida as Hon, and Shiki Aoki as Asta. Other voice cast members include Haruka Shiraishi as Ista, Hiroyuki Yoshino as Kenros, and  Rena Maeda as Hyura. 

Helck is based on a manga series written and illustrated by Nanaki Nanao. It ran in Shogakukan’s Ura Sunday website and MangaONE app from May 5, 2014 to December 18, 2017, with twelve tankoubon volumes released in total. Viz Media released the manga in English for English-speaking territories. 

A spin-off manga titled Piwi: Fushigi na Ikimono was launched in the MangaONE app from July 16t, 2018 to October 8, 2018. It was collected into a single tankoubon volume and released on November 12, 2018. A prequel manga called Völundio: Divergent Sword Saga began serialization in Ura Sunday and MangaONE on August 31, 2020. Three tankoubon volumes have been released as of February 2022. Comikey releases the series in English digitally. 

HIDIVE describes the synopsis of Helck as: 

A certain country in the demon world. The Demon King was defeated by the hands of one of the heroes, and a competition was held for the title of the New Demon King. The Imperial Four Heavenly Kings Vermilio, who is in charge of the tournament, is furious at the participation of the human hero Helck, who is supposed to be his enemy. After receiving news of the fall of the castle of Urum before the final, Vermilio sets out to retake Urum Castle with Helck and other finalists. With a smile, Helck says, “Let’s destroy humans.” Are those words true? The truth behind the smile is…

Source: press release