It is the company's fourth major mixed-media project after BanG Dream!, Revue Starlight, and D4DJ.
"Road59" is a play on the Japanese word "gokudo" (the extreme path), a poetic term referring to the yakuza way of life. The franchise's tagline is "A path from which you cannot return."
The franchise begins with a stage play that will open December 24-27 at Nakano Zero in Tokyo.
MAIN CAST:
Yūki Kimisawa as Bakuto Yanagi (Shinonome-gumi)
Shūya Sunagawa as Shō Himuro (Hakurō-gumi)
Masahiro Inoue as Kensei Sumeragi (Kurojō-gumi)
Shouta Aoi as Benedict Lorenzo Vasari (Phoenix)
Nobuhiro Mōri is penning the story and setting of the franchise. Ghidora is drawing the character designs.
GACKT is performing the franchise's theme song.The setting's story is set in the near future, a few decades after the start of Japan's current Reiwa era, and is set in a new manmade island and "special ward" in Tokyo known as the Tengai Ward. Here, four yakuza organizations vie for prestige and influence, with each organization's leading figures bearing god-like powers as "Jingi." Each of the organizations seek the "Yamatanoorochi no Kubi" (The Head of Orochi) whose blood when consumed grants Jingi a power equal to gods, as well as a girl who bears the Orochi blood and can break the seal on the ancient artifact.
Jingi are individuals who have passed on their supernatural powers from sire to successor since the age of myth. They pass on their power to chosen successors, with their sire offering their blood in a cup in a formal ceremony. In the past, they have made their mark on the secret world by slaying mythical beasts, and performing incredible feats on the battlefield, and have sometimes clashed with each other in the shadows. As the ages pass, they adapt their form to the times, and today they operate in secret societies in the underworld. With ancient powers able to bend the rules of space and time, they are demigod-like beings.