The official website for the new television anime project based on Nobuhiro Watsuki‘s Rurouni Kenshin manga revealed the first key visual and second promotional video for the new anime’s second season titled Rurouni Kenshin Meiji Kenkaku Romantan: Kyoto D?ran (Kyoto Upheaval), on Sunday. The video reveals and previews the ending theme song for the second season’s first cours (quarter of a year) titled “Suik?setten” by NOMELON NOLEMON.

The anime’s staff also announced its advance screenings at the TOHO Cinemas Nihonbashi in Tokyo, and at the T Joy Kyoto cinema on September 22. The advance screening’s locations symbolize the starting point (Nihonbashi in Tokyo) and the end point (Kyoto) of the 53 Stations of the T?kaid?, the rest areas along the T?kaid? coastal route in ancient Japan, and the same route protagonist Kenshin Himura took to travel to Kyoto.

The new season will premiere in October on Fuji TV‘s Noitamina programming block and will air for a continuous two cours (quarter of a year) for a half-year run.

Yuki Komada (BUILD-DIVIDE -#000000- CODE BLACK and BUILD-DIVIDE -#FFFFFF- CODE WHITE series) is directing the new season at LIDEN FILMS. Hideyuki Kurata returns for series scripts, Terumi Nishii also returns to design the character, and is joined by Kazuo Watanabe (first season’s sub-character designer, chief animation director). Y? Takami is again composing the music.

The first season of the new anime premiered on Fuji TV‘s Noitamina programming block and other venues in July 2023. The anime ran for two consecutive cours (quarter of a year). The second cours began in October 2023. Crunchyroll streamed the series as it aired, and it is also streaming an English dub.

The anime re-adapts the main manga series.

S?ma Sait? stars in the series as Kenshin Himura, and Rie Takahashi costars as Kaoru Kamiya. Taku Yashiro plays Sanosuke Sagara, and Makoto Koichi voices Yahiko Myojin. Y?ma Uchida voices Shinomori Aoshi, and Saori ?nishi voices Megumi Takani. Satoshi Hino plays Hajime Sait?.

The anime also stars:

Watsuki and his novelist wife/story collaborator Kaoru Kurosaki launched the Rurouni Kenshin: Hokkaido Arc (Rurouni Kenshin, Meiji Kenkaku Romantan: Hokkaid?-hen) manga in Shueisha‘s Jump SQ. magazine in September 2017. The manga went on hiatus in December 2017 following Watsuki being charged for possession of child pornography. The series later resumed publication in June 2018.

Viz Media had been simultaneously publishing the manga in English, but stopped after the manga went on hiatus in 2017.

Watsuki first launched his 28-volume Rurouni Kenshin manga in Shueisha‘s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine in 1994. The manga has more than 72 million copies in circulation worldwide. The manga centers around Kenshin Himura, once a deadly assassin during the Meiji Restoration, who is trying to find a new life beyond violence.

The manga has since been adapted into a 95-episode TV anime series, an anime film, three original video anime projects, five live-action films, and a stage musical by the all-female musical theater troupe Takarazuka Revue.

Sources: Rurouni Kenshin anime’s website, Comic Natalie