Touken Ranbu

Touken Ranbu
Developer(s)	Nitroplus
Publisher(s)	DMM Games
Platform(s)	Adobe Flash
Release	January 14, 2015
Genre(s)	Online web browser game

Touken Ranbu (刀剣乱舞, Tōken Ranbu, lit. "Wild Dance of Swords") is a free-to-play collectible card browser video game developed by Nitroplus and DMM Games, available only in Japan since January 2015. It is being adapted as two anime series.

Gameplay

Players assume the role of a sage (審神者, saniwa) who travels into the past to defeat evil forces, and has the ability to animate legendary swords, which are depicted as attractive young men. Touken Ranbu is mostly a gender-swapped clone of the game Kantai Collection, also by DMM, which anthropomorphizes historical warships as young girls. Combat is largely automated, with progress mainly dependent on resource management and grinding.

Reception

Touken Ranbu quickly became very popular in Japan, particularly with young women, and had over a million registered players as of June 2015. The game has been credited with accelerating the Japanese cultural trend of "katana women" (カタナ女子, katana joshi) – women who are interested in, and who pose with, historical Japanese swords. That trend had been started a few years previously with the Sengoku Basara video games, which made katana fans a distinct part of the Japanese subculture of female history aficionados (reki-jo). The popularity of Touken Ranbu was such that a Japanese women's interest magazine published an article about exercise routines based on sword fighting techniques from the game, and the 2015 Tokyo Wonder Festival's figure exhibition was reportedly "completely dominated by hot male swordsmen".

Anime

Touken Ranbu
Anime television series
Touken Ranbu: Hanamaru
Directed by	Takashi Naoya
Written by	Pierre Sugiura
Music by	Kenji Kawai
Studio	Doga Kobo
Licensed by	NA: Funimation
Original network	Tokyo MX, KTV, BS11
English network	SEA: ANIPLUS HD
Original run	October 3, 2016 – present
Episodes	12
Anime television series
Studio	Ufotable
Original run	2017 – scheduled

The game is to receive two anime adaptations. The first, Touken Ranbu: Hanamaru (刀剣乱舞-花丸-), is a television series produced by Doga Kobo, directed by Takashi Naoya and written by Pierre Sugiura, with character designs by Junichiro Taniguchi. The first episode debuted 3 October 2016. Funimation has licensed Hanamaru for an English language release.

The second adaptation will be produced by Ufotable, and is scheduled to air in 2017.

Voice cast (2016 series)

Characters	English
Yasusada Yamatonokami	Dallas Reid
Kiyomitsu Kashu	Garret Storms
Heshikiri Hasebe	Aaron Roberts
Imanotsurugi	Anastasia Muñoz
Ishikirimaru	Justin Duncan
Nikkari Aoe	Robby Gemaehlich
Kasen Kanesada	Oscar Seung
Hachisuka Kotetsu	Ian Sinclair
Yoshiyuki Mutsunokami	Jason Liebrecht
Maeda Toshiro	Ryan Reynolds
Shishio	Blake Shepard
Yagen Toshiro	Derick Snow
Namazuo Toshiro	Rachel Robinson
Mitsutada Shokudaikiri	Marcus D. Stimac
Yamanbagiri Kunihiro	Clifford Chapin
Souza Samonji	Ian Sinclair
Gokota	Leah Clark

External links

• Official website
• Development and management on Twitter
• Original flipnote on Twitter