Yuri Suzuki is in her last year of middle school and has just got into the high school she wanted. On a date with her boyfriend, two hands reach up out of a puddle and pull her under. When she surfaces she is in Hattusa, capital of the Hittite Empire, in the 14th century BCE. The one who summoned her is Queen Nakia, who wants the throne for her own son and needs a sacrifice for the curse that will clear the other princes out of his way. The one who shelters Yuri, by claiming she is his concubine, is Kail, the third prince and the likeliest heir.
Chie Shinohara serialized the manga in Shogakukan's Shojo Comic from 1995 to 2002. The collected edition runs to 28 volumes, with a 16-volume paperback edition, and the series won the shojo category of the 46th Shogakukan Manga Award. By February 2018 its circulation, digital editions included, had passed 20 million copies. The idea came from a trip to Turkey, where the landscape of a Hittite site gave Shinohara a scene she wanted to draw, and she spent eight years working through research material to build the story.
The TV anime was announced in February this year. It began on 7 July on Nippon TV, with BS Nittele following from 8 July, and it is the first time any of Shinohara's work has been adapted as a TV anime. Tatsunoko Production is animating, Kousuke Kobayashi directs, Yoriko Tomita handles series composition, Kenji Fujisaki designs the characters and Yoshihisa Hirano writes the music. Mirai Tachibana voices Yuri and Wataru Kato voices Kail.
The opening theme, Akatsuki no Sora, is written and sung by Hiroki Nanami, who also narrates in the role of Yuri's boyfriend Himuro. The ending theme is Reunion by Miisa Shimizu. The second cour begins at 1:35am JST on 29 September in Nippon TV's AnichU block, with BS Nittele following. The official site has also named two more cast members: Souma Saito plays the Egyptian general Ramses, and Shun Horie plays Nakia's son Juda.
In English, VIZ Media licensed the manga in February 2004 and published all 28 volumes between June 2004 and January 2010. The story reached the stage in 2018 with the Takarazuka Revue's Cosmos Troupe, and for that run Shinohara drew a new episode following Kail's brother Zannanza on his way to Egypt to marry into the queen's household, with Yuri travelling alongside him.
