Twin Engine announced that the Mononoke anime film based on the avant-garde anime series of the same name has been delayed indefinitely with no current release date.
In addition, the film’s main character, the Medicine Seller, will no longer be portrayed by Takahiro Sakurai who previously voiced the character in the series’ original run in 2007. The decision was made, as relayed in the film’s official Twitter account as “Mononoke is set in Ooku, and tries to depict the suffering and remedy of women. Judging from the standpoint of the story, we decided to change the cast of the Medicine Seller.”
The reason is that Takahiro Sakurai had been in an extramarital affair for 10 years with a writer from his radio show P.S. Genki Desu: Takahiro. The affair was released by a report from the Shukan Bunshun, which then caused his radio show to be terminated.
The new cast members and release date for the film will be revealed this summer.
▍About Mononoke
Mononoke is a spin-off story based on the horror anthology series Ayakashi: A Samurai Horror Tales. The series story follows a man known only as the wandering Medicine Seller, and follows their encounters with ayakashi, spirits, and other manner of supernatural begins.
The Medicine seller has the ability to exorcise demons by first understanding the spirit’s shape, unveiling the truth, then reasoning to send it back to the afterlife.
The film was funded through its Kickstarter campaign and due to the change in voice actor, some of its reward tiers will be adjusted slightly to not include Takahiro Sakurai.
