New competitive diving anime to fill hole in hearts of fans of sports series/shirtless guys【Vid】

Oft-adapted series of novels gets first animated version.

If you’re a fan of anime’s booming “slender and handsome young men competing in sports” genre, you might be feeling a bit blue these days, due to ice skating series/surprisingly effective lip balm sales promotion Yuri!!! on Ice coming to a close. But while a sequel to Yuri!! on Ice remains at the rumor stage, there’s a concrete development on something for fans to look forward to, with the news that novel series Dive!! is getting an anime adaptation.

Based on four books by author Eto Mori, Dive!! is billed as a coming-of-age story set in the world of competitive high school diving. The novel series was awarded the Shogakukan Youth Literature award from publisher Shogakukan in 2003, which ushered in manga and live-action film versions of the story in 2007 and 2008, respectively. Come this summer, Dive!! will be once again crossing over into a new medium, as its scheduled to premiere in broadcaster Fuji TV’s Noitamina time block, generally considered a showcase for projects with higher-than-average artistic ambitions.

▼ Teaser trailer for the Dive!! anime

The most passionate (and lavishly spending) supporters of sports anime in the current marketplace are female fans, and both the director of the upcoming series, Kaouru Suzuki, and the project’s screenwriter, Toko Machida, are women. Character visual concepts for the major characters appearing in Dive!! are being handled by Yasuda Suzuhito, best known for his character artwork contributions to similarly excited-by-it’s-own-name Durarara!! and inquisitive Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? (also known as Danmachi or “that anime with the boob string”).

On the audio front, only a single vice actor has been announced so far, with Yuki Kaji, the vice of Attack on Titan’s protagonist Eren, set to play Tomoki Sakai, the main character of Dive!!.

The series is scheduled to make its broadcast debut in July of 2017.

Source: Comic Natalie
Images: YouTube/ノイタミナ YouTubeチャンネル

Credit: