Makoto Koichi Steps Into a Role Held for 20 Years
Makoto Koichi (Nurugai in Hell's Paradise, Yahiko Myojin in the 2023 Rurouni Kenshin) voices Sgt. Keroro in the new series, and her casting comment takes the recast head-on. Plenty of fans feel sadness or confusion about the cast changing, she wrote, and she feels that same sadness herself. As the actor now entrusted with the role, she said she wants to hold onto respect for everything Keroro Gunso has built up over the years and deliver the best she can do right now.
The role carries a lot of history. Kumiko Watanabe voiced Keroro from the 2004 TV series, which ran until 2011, all the way through the 20th-anniversary theatrical film that opened in Japan on June 26, 2026. Bandai Namco Pictures announced back in December 2025 that the new TV series would replace the entire cast, leaving the film as the send-off for the veterans.
Rika Nagae, Toshiki Masuda and the Rest of the Platoon
Filling out the platoon, Rika Nagae plays Private Second Class Tamama, Toshiki Masuda (Eijiro Kirishima in My Hero Academia) plays Corporal Giroro, Kosuke Echigoya plays Sergeant Major Kururu, and Satoshi Inomata plays Lance Corporal Dororo. All five are heard in character in the first main trailer, which was released alongside a new key visual. Japanese anime news site Anime Anime reported the casting along with full comments from every actor.
Masuda wrote the longest comment of the five. He read the manga and watched the anime as a kid, and said that once he started going back through Giroro's material for the audition, Giroro stopped feeling like someone else. Before the audition was even finished, he wrote, Giroro felt like his own other half, and he will never forget the day he was told he passed.
He also went down the line on his co-stars, calling Koichi's Keroro clumsy and impossible to dislike, Nagae's Tamama free-spirited and hard to look away from, Echigoya's Kururu the unflappable anchor for a noisy platoon, and Inomata's Dororo dependable whether he is being cool or pathetic. Then he dropped a tease: Natsumi is apparently wonderful too, and he is frustrated that he cannot say anything about her yet.
Nagae, for her part, said she wants to carry over all of Tamama's power, cuteness and occasionally explosive jealousy. Echigoya and Inomata both spoke about how long the series has been loved, with Echigoya calling the responsibility as big as the honor.
The Story Restarts From the Beginning
Keroro Gunso☆ is a brand-new adaptation of Mine Yoshizaki's manga, published by KADOKAWA under its Kadokawa Comics Ace imprint. Keron alien Sgt. Keroro arrives from space to invade Earth, sneaks into the Hinata household, and gets captured by siblings Fuyuki and Natsumi, leaving him stranded on Earth. He becomes "friends" with Fuyuki and keeps working toward his invasion while living with the family.
BN Pictures is producing, with production support from Bridge and Ile. Nobuhiro Kondo serves as chief director, and he has worked on the franchise before: he directed the original Keroro Gunso from its third season onward. Toshihiko Sano directs, Toshimitsu Takeuchi handles series composition, Hatsue Nakayama is on character design, Yo Yamada is sound director, and Kan Sawada writes the music.
Looking Ahead
Before the premiere, episodes 1 and 2 screen early on September 26 at the United Cinemas Toyosu theater in Tokyo, with all five platoon actors on stage for a talk segment. Tickets are 3,500 yen including tax, and the lottery entry window closes September 13 at 11:59 PM. More announcements are set for September 14 at 5:00 PM Japan time, the likeliest slot for the rest of the human cast, Natsumi included.
The broadcast starts October 3, 2026, every Saturday at 9:30 AM across a six-station TV Tokyo network. No international streaming partner has been announced for the new series yet. The 2004 anime has been on Crunchyroll since 2021 and Discotek has issued it on Blu-ray in North America, so there is a back catalog to work through in the meantime. On the manga side, Tokyopop released 20 volumes in English before the publisher shut down in 2011.