The Darwin Incident TV Anime Reveals Main Cast in 1st Promo Video

Atsumi Tanezaki, Mitsuho Kambe, Akio Ōtsuka star in series debuting in January 2026

The official website for the television anime of Shun Umezawa's The Darwin Incident (Darwin Jihen) manga revealed the show's first promotional video on Friday, along with the three main cast members and a key visual.

The anime will star:

• Atsumi Tanezaki as Charlie

• Mitsuho Kambe as Lucy Eldred

• Akio Ōtsuka as Rivera Feyerabend

The anime will debut in January 2026 and will air on TV Tokyo and its affiliates.

Naokatsu Tsuda (JoJo's Bizarre Adventure) is directing the anime at BELLNOX FILMS. Katsuichi Nakayama (Evangelion: 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon A Time) is the series director. Shinichi Inotsume (PERSONA 5 the Animation) is handling the series scripts. Shinpei Tomooka (BUILD-DIVIDE -#000000- CODE BLACK) is designing the characters. Arisa Okehazama (The Apothecary Diaries) and Mariko Horikawa (Sumikkogurashi – Good to be in the corner film) are composing the music, and Yoshikazu Iwanami (Ajin, Fate/Zero) is the sound director.

Kodansha USA Publishing licensed the manga, and it describes the story:

Created in a biological science lab, Charlie is a half human, half chimpanzee hybrid known as "Humanzee."Raised by his adoptive human parents, Charlie is now 15 and starting high school. There he meets Lucy, a clever loner who becomes his first-ever friend.But his "normal" life is shattered when the animal rights extremists who freed his mother from the lab fifteen years ago reemerge as terrorists bent on kidnapping Charlie at all costs.

Umezawa launched the manga in Afternoon magazine in 2020. Kodansha published the manga's ninth compiled book volume on May 22. Kodansha USA Publishing released the eighth volume in English on September 23.

The manga won the 15th Manga Taisho awards in 2022. It also won an Excellence Award in the Manga Division of the Japanese government's Ministry of Cultural Affairs' 25th Japan Media Arts Festival Awards in 2022. The manga also ranked at #10 for manga for male readers in the 2022 edition of Takarajimasha's Kono Manga ga Sugoi! (This Manga Is Amazing!) guidebook. The manga was nominated in the 47th and 48th Annual Kodansha Manga Awards in 2023 and 2024, respectively.

Sources: The Darwin Incident anime's website, Comic Natalie