Kikunosuke Toya Draws the Order's Hardest Posting
The newest name on the call sheet is Curtis Bannister, and Kikunosuke Toya (Denji in Chainsaw Man, Fubuki in The Elusive Samurai) is playing him. Curtis captains the Thirteenth Knight Brigade, though the character profile released with the announcement describes him as understated to the point that he doesn't seem like a captain at all, with a mild temperament to match. His posting is the ugly one. He oversees Sutherland, a territory carrying serious friction between the knights stationed there and the people living under them, and the residents have taken to calling him the "Sky-Blue Captain" after his hair color.
Toya's comment in the release from Hakuhodo DY Music & Pictures on Japanese press-release service PR TIMES is short and mostly about the recording booth. He said he's honored to be handed an important role, and that the sessions have been a lot of fun thanks to Shion Wakayama and the rest of the cast.
The announcement came bundled with a giveaway. The show's official X account is handing three fans a shikishi, the square art board Japanese performers sign, autographed by Toya. Entries close at 23:59 on September 23. The production also put out newly drawn mini-character illustrations of Curtis and Serafina.
The Main Promotional Video Finally Puts the Knights on Screen
The main promotional video runs through the principal cast: Fia Ruud (Shion Wakayama), Zavilia (Shinnosuke Tokudome), Saviz Nav (Yūichirō Umehara) and Cyril Sutherland (Nobunaga Shimazaki), plus the rank and file of the Black Dragon Knight Brigade. Both theme songs are in it, so this is the first proper listen to the opening theme, "Flare of Soul" by Kaya, and the ending theme, "STELLAR" by Utahime Dream All Stars.
Felix Film (Aharen-san Is Indecipherable, MF Ghost) is animating. Tomoe Makino, who directed both Aharen-san seasons at the studio, is directing, with Naoki Murata as assistant director. Deko Akao handles series composition, Satomi Kurita is on character design, Ryōsuke Naya is sound director, and Kenichiro Suehiro is writing the score. The source novels are by Touya with illustrations by chibi, published by Earth Star Entertainment, and Mahito Aobe draws the manga adaptation.
October is the show's second slot. It was originally lined up for April 2026 before the production pushed the premiere back.
Fia's Problem, and the Knights Who Keep Making It Worse
Fia Ruud wants to be a knight and has been told, repeatedly, that she has no talent for the sword. A near-fatal injury shakes loose a memory of her life 300 years earlier. She was a princess and the Great Saint, she fought alongside the knights, and the Demon King's right hand killed her. The Great Saint's absurd power comes back with the memory. So does the threat she died under: be reborn as a saint, and be killed again. Fia decides to live as a knight with the power buried, which holds up right until the next person in front of her needs healing.
Wakayama plays Fia. Shinnosuke Tokudome voices Zavilia, the black dragon she rescued from the brink of death and bound as her familiar, whose stated hobbies are sleeping on Fia's stomach and updating his personal purge list. Yūichirō Umehara plays Saviz Nav, the king's brother and commander of the Black Dragon Knight Brigade, and Nobunaga Shimazaki plays Cyril Sutherland, First Brigade captain, head of the Sutherland ducal house, and a man with real doubts about what a saint is supposed to be.
The rest of the officer corps: Tasuku Hatanaka as Desmond Ronan, the Second Brigade captain and military police commander who ends up cleaning up after Fia's incidents; Daiki Hamano as Zackary Townsend, the Sixth Brigade's greatsword-swinging muscle; and Tomokazu Sugita as Quentin Agutter, the Fourth Monster Brigade captain and a monster obsessive who starts talking twice as fast the moment monsters come up. Yukari Tamura plays Clarissa Abanecy, Shunichi Toki plays Enoch, Daiki Yamashita plays Fabian Winer, and Miyuri Shimabukuro plays Charlotte, a saint struggling with the gap between the title and her actual ability.
Looking Ahead
The premiere lands Saturday, October 3 at 22:00 on TOKYO MX and BS11, with Sun TV at 22:30 the same night and AT-X picking it up Monday, October 5 at 22:00, plus repeats Wednesdays at 10:00 and Fridays at 16:00. In Japan, ABEMA and Prime Video stream from 22:00 on October 3, simulcasting episode 1 with the broadcast and dropping episode 2 a full week before it hits TV. Other services follow after each airing.
No English-language streaming partner is named in the broadcast announcement, so international viewers are waiting on that. The books are already here, though: Seven Seas publishes both the light novels and the main manga in English. In Japan the series has passed 4.5 million copies in circulation, novel volume 13 arrives September 16, the manga is up to volume 14, and the ZERO spin-off runs six novels and five manga volumes. The series also placed second in the hardcover and novels category of Takarajimasha's annual Kono Light Novel ga Sugoi! guide three years running, in the 2024, 2025 and 2026 editions.