Vertex Force sets a 3 October start and names its cast
Kazuhiro Takamura's original mecha series has a 3 October broadcast date, a two-stage streaming rollout and a ClariS opening theme, with Nana Mizuki voicing the villain.
The original mecha anime Vertex Force starts on 3 October, and the official site has now filled in the parts that decide whether anyone can actually watch it: a late-night Saturday slot on four terrestrial stations, a two-stage streaming rollout and the names behind the microphones.
When it airs and where it streams
TOKYO MX, BS11, Gunma Television and Tochigi Television all begin on Saturday 3 October at 23:30, with Me-tele following the same night at 26:30 and ABC Television joining from 7 October at 27:15. Streaming is split in two. From 3 October at 23:30, U-NEXT, Anime Houdai and d Anime Store carry the show at the same time as the terrestrial broadcast, including the d Anime Store versions on Niconico, Prime Video and LINE Manga. A second wave opens on 10 October at 00:00 across ABEMA, AnimeFesta, DMM TV, FOD, Hulu, Lemino, Prime Video, TELASA, J:COM STREAM, milplus, TVer, Niconico Live and Niconico Channel, Bandai Channel and Flat Video. Every one of those is a Japanese service, and no territory outside Japan has been announced, which is worth stating plainly rather than promising a simulcast the announcement does not make.
Who is in it, and who is making it
The cast list puts Makoto Koichi behind Akira Todo, Kaede Hondo behind Haruka Todo, Ami Koshimizu behind Eleanor Northbrook, Megumi Han behind Lara Zudenstein and Rie Takahashi behind Yoko Nishina, with Ura Kazuki as Alan and Nana Mizuki voicing EDVA, the antagonist the show has been teasing since the first teaser. Kazuhiro Takamura, the director behind Strike Witches and Vividred Operation, both directs and handles character design, with Goro Kuji as assistant director, Kanetake Ebikawa on engine design, JNTHED on ENIA design, series composition by Takamura with Masashi Suzuki, Hiroyuki Tadokoro as CG director and SMDE on animation production.
The music, and the run-up to broadcast
ClariS perform the opening theme, Synchro Blue, written, composed and arranged by Mayuko Maruyama, with a physical release on 11 November in a first-press limited edition, a standard edition and a period-production limited edition carrying a newly drawn Vertex Force digipak. Hashimelo provide the ending theme, Emerald. The promotional run has been busy: a second key visual and the second main trailer landed on 12 September alongside the cast and theme announcements, and the non-credit opening movie was previewed on 18 September.
Our opinion
Takamura has spent his career insisting that a machine and a girl in the same frame is a complete artistic position rather than a marketing compromise, and the second key visual makes the argument all over again: boy, robot, and a silver-haired silhouette with an eye on the horizon, which is a promise about scale before a single line of dialogue lands. The commercial detail worth watching is the streaming split. Fastest and same-hour delivery goes to U-NEXT, Anime Houdai and d Anime Store while the bigger generalist platforms wait a week, which is a deliberate bet that the audience for an original mecha show is already inside the anime-specific services and does not need to be discovered by them. That is a different strategy from the territory-by-territory licensing push most autumn shows run, and it means the show's fate outside Japan is still an open question rather than a footnote.