The official website of the upcoming Urusei Yatsura anime announced on Aug 25, 2022, that Shizuka Ishigami has been cast to voice Benten. She is the childhood friend of Lum and is part of the Gods of luck clan.

A key visual for Benten as well as Shizuka Ishigami’s comments were also revealed on the official website.

Ishigami’s comment:

It is a masterpiece that existed before I was born. Lum-chan is a girl that everyone knows and loves even decades later… I think that’s really great! Of course, I love the characters other than Lum-chan, who have nothing but many personalities, and Rumiko-sensei’s drawings as a work that will never fade away no matter what time you read it.

Benten-sama has a winning and manly personality, but she also understands her own attractiveness as a woman, so I hope I can find a good balance between the two in my performance.
As Lum-chan’s childhood friend, I am looking forward to interacting with many different people!

The other voice acting cast for Urusei Yatsura includes:

• Hiroshi Kamiya as Ataru Moroboshi
• Sumire Uesaka as Lum
• Maaya Uchida as Shinobu Miyake
• Mamoru Miyano as Shutaro Mendo
• Wataru Takagi as Cherry
• Miyuki Sawashiro as Sakura
• Kana Hanazawa as Ran
• Katsuyuki Konishi as Rei
• Saori Haya as Oyuki

The official website also revealed that the first season of the anime will run for 2 consecutive cours from October 2022.

It will be broadcast on Fuji TV “Noitamina” and other stations.

The technical cast for the series includes Hideya Takahashi and Yasuhiro Kimura as directors, with Yuuko Kakihara as script writer. Naoyuki Asano will serve as character designer.

The animation of the series is undertaken by David Production.

The Urusei Yatsura manga was the first work of Rumiko Takahashi to be published in Weekly Shonen Sunday magazine from 1978 to 1987. It has 366 individual chapter, 6 movies, 12 OVAs. The series received 195 episodes long anime series which ran from Oct 14, 1981 to March 19, 1986 produced by Kitty Films.

Viz Media published the manga series in English in North America in the 1990s by renaming it to Lum and The Return of Lum. However, they dropped it after 9 volumes.

Source: Official Website

©Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan/Animation “Urusei Yatsura” Production Committee