Scum of the Brave Anime Casts Akari Kito as Aki Jogamine

The team behind the Scum of the Brave (Yūsha no Kuzu) television anime shared some casting news on Saturday. Akari Kitō has joined the show as Aki Jogamine, a second year student with a knack for causing trouble.

She joins Ryōta Suzuki, who voices the lead, a shinigami named Yashiro. The series is being directed by Shinji Ushiro at studio OLM, with Yoichi Kato handling the scripts and series composition, Rika Murakami on character designs, and Kenichiro Suehiro writing the music.

Scum of the Brave is set to debut in January 2026 and will air on NTV and its affiliated stations. It is based on the manga written by Rocket Shokai and drawn by Nakashima723, which began in 2018 and runs through LEED Publishing’s Comic Border service, with its seventh volume out as of March 21.

The story actually started life as a web novel on Kakuyomu back in 2016, and it is now being reworked into a revised novel edition with fresh illustrations by toi8. Manga Planet is releasing the manga in English digitally for readers outside Japan.

As for the premise, it imagines an alternate 21st century where wealthy mafia figures can become “Demon Kings” through a popular surgery, and hunters known as “Braves” are sent to take them down. Yashiro just wants pizza, beer, and card games, but a paid job tutoring three young Braves pulls him into something bigger. Writer Rocket Shokai also has another anime, Sentenced to Be a Hero, arriving in January 2026.

My take: A lazy hero who only signs on for the money is a setup I never get tired of, and Akari Kitō as the resident troublemaker sounds like a fun bit of casting. I will be keeping an eye on this one come January.