Two new voice cast members are joining the main cast of the upcoming The Catcher in the Ballpark! TV anime series. The anime will premiere in Japan sometime in 2025.
Hiroki Tochi is joining the series as Kojiro (right), who is a veteran baseball player with 200 career home runs. Rika Tachibana is also joining as Yuki Takino (left), who is Kojiro’s wife and a former announcer.
They join previously announced cast members that consist of:
- • Fairouz Ai as Ruriko
- • Satoshi Inomata as Murata
- • Ikumi Hasegawa as Aona
- • Satoshi Tanaka as Omatsu
- • Yoji Ueda as Nakaizumi
- • Ayumi Mano as Natsuno Yamada
- • Momoko Seto as Kokoro
- • Jin Urayama as Ryuichi Igarashi
- • Chiharu Sawashiro as Takimoto
Junichi Kitamura (Fluffy Paradise) is directing the anime series, with Shigeru Murakoshi (I Parry Everything) as series screenwriter, Fumio Ida (Yadamon, Basquash! co-character designer) as character designer, and MONACA (Protocol: Rain) as music composer. EMT Squared is handling the animation production.
The original sports comedy manga series by Tatsuro Suga began serialization on September 3, 2020 in Kodansha’s Morning magazine and has released 15 volumes as of November 2024.
The Catcher in the Ballpark! follows an ordinary office worker named Murata, who attends a baseball game and meets Ruriko — a cute gyaru beer vendor. Despite becoming her first regular customer, Ruriko acts quite cold towards Murata on a daily basis, but her innocent personality pops up whenever he’s away.
