The official Japanese website
for Mamoru Oshii's next film "The Sky Crawlers" has revamped itself and
announced the main cast. Rinko Kikuchi, who was nominated for a
Supporting Actress Academy Award for her Chieko role in 2006's Babel,
will voice Suito Kusanagi. Kusanagi is a commander of a base in an
alternate-history aerial war and one of the two leads in this
Production I.G adaptation of Hiroshi Mori's hit manga. This will be
Kikuchi's second anime role, after a part in the Studio 4°C anime
anthology Genius Party.
She will be joined by another prominent
Japanese film actor, Ryo Kase, as the voice actor for the protagonist
Yūichi Kannami. Kase, known to Western audiences for playing Shimizu in
Clint Eastwood's Letters From Iwo Jima, was also Todoroki in Hideaki
Anno's live-action Cutey Honey and Mayama in the live-action adaptation
of the Honey and Clover manga. In the story, Kannami has been
transfered to Kusanagi's base after he lost all of his memories.
Sky Crawlers
