Japanese crime fiction has given us detectives who are schoolboys shrunk by poison, detectives who are dead, and a great many who solve murders between bouts of homework. Murciélago offers something with fewer pencil cases. Its heroine is a former death-row inmate whom the state has decided, by way of some extraordinary legal measures, would be more useful killing killers than waiting for the drop. The anime adaptation released a new teaser and its main cast this week, and it arrives on HIDIVE in January 2027.
The executioner in question is Kuroko Koumori. Her minder and partner is Hinako Tozakura, who looks like she should be handing out leaflets for a school fête and drives like the getaway specialist in a heist film. Fans of Kenichi Sonoda’s Gunsmith Cats will recognise the general energy. Fans of language will enjoy the joke in the names: murciélago is Spanish for bat, and so is koumori in Japanese. Somebody at Square Enix clearly owned a phrasebook and wasn’t afraid to use it.
The voice cast is Hitomi Ueda as Kuroko, Minori Suzuki as Hinako and Sumire Uesaka as Chiyo Yanaoka. Animation comes from Satelight and Staple Entertainment, with Takashi Naoya as chief director and in charge of series composition, Matsuo Asami directing, and music by Masanori Akita and Yuichi Tsuchiya. Satelight is best known for Macross Frontier, so a studio that made its name on transforming fighter jets and pop idols is now handling a woman whose hobbies chiefly involve sharp objects. Range, we believe they call it.
The source is Kana Yoshimura’s manga, which has run in Square Enix’s Young Gangan since August 2013, reached 29 volumes in Japan and passed 2.3 million copies worldwide. Yen Press publishes it in English and sums up the premise as a mass murderer landing her dream job as a hitwoman for the Tokyo police, with a licence to kill other killers. Dexter Morgan spent eight seasons hiding exactly that from the Miami police. Kuroko has the paperwork.
A word of warning for the unwary. The manga is not something to leave lying around the vicarage. Its violence is gleefully excessive, and Kuroko’s appetites, murderous and otherwise, are presented without much in the way of a fig leaf. How much of that survives a television broadcast remains to be seen. The teaser certainly suggests the anime is aiming for the Black Lagoon end of the shelf rather than the cosy-crime aisle.
HIDIVE has the exclusive simulcast in the UK, Ireland, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, with the series debuting in January 2027. No day or time yet. Given its leading lady, the opening credits may want a health warning, and possibly a solicitor.
Watch the teaser on YouTube: Murciélago – TV anime teaser trailer
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