Crunchyroll’s offering another sneak peek at this world of robotic rivalries.

Earlier today, Crunchyroll started streaming a subtitled TV spot for DARLING in the FRANXX. The 30-second spot focuses mainly on lead characters Hiro and Zero Two.

DARLING in the FRANXX will hit Japanese TV on January 13. Crunchyroll will stream the show as part of their Winter simulcast lineup, and Funimation will produce a SimulDub.

The show is a co-production between Trigger and A-1 Pictures. The series is slated to hit Japanese TV in January 2018.

Atsushi Nishigori (THE IDOLM@STER) is directing the project, with Masayoshi Tanaka (anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day, High School of the Dead) providing character designs. The team of Atsushi Nishigori and Naotaka Hayashi will collaborate on series composition.

Mika Nakashima and HYDE are working together for the show’s theme song, Kiss of Death. Nakashima wrote and performed the vocals, while HYDE scored and composed the musical track.

The confirmed voice cast includes:

  • Zero Two: Haruka Tomatsu
  • Hiro: Yūto Uemura
  • Mitsuru: Aoi Ichikawa
  • Futoshi: Hiroshi Gotō
  • Ichigo: Kana Ichinose
  • Zorome: Mutsumi Tamura
  • Miku: Nanami Yamashita
  • Kokoro: Saori Hayami
  • Ikuno: Shizuka Ishikawa
  • Goro: Yuichiro Umehara

Several character visuals have been released since the show’s initial announcement:

Strelizia
Genista
Delphinium
Chlorophytum
Argentea
Code:666 “Zorome”
002 “Zero Two”
Code:326 “Mitsuru”
Code:390 “Miku”
Code:556 “Kokoro”
Code:196 “Ikuno”
Code:015 “Ichigo”
Code:016 “Hiro”
Code:056 “Goro”
Code:214 “Futoshi”

The series will be set in a distant, dystopian future. The land has been devastated, to the point that humanity has found sancturary in a mobile fortress city known as Plantation. Inside of Plantation, pilots are raised in a place known as Mistilteinn, or “the birdcage” for short. The children of the birdcage live oblivious to the outside world. They’re raised only to battle or carry out missions against mysterious life forms known as the Kyōryū. To battle these beings, the young pilots must take command of robots called Franxx.

For these kids, piloting a Franxx means to validate their own existence.

A young man named Hiro goes by the code name Code:016. Once, he was seen as a prodigy. Lately, though, he’s fallen behind the others, and his very existence seems moot. One day, a mysterious girl known as Zero Two appears before him. And, for some reason, a pair of horns grows from her head.

Source: YouTube (Crunchyroll)