It seems Rinko Kikuchi will indeed be reprising her role as Mako Mori in the Pacific Rim sequel. The return of Stacker Pentecost's adopted daughter was in limbo after the other lead in the first Pacific Rim film, Charlie Hunnam, revealed that he would not be appearing in the sequel. Her return was spoiled by an Instagram pic from the film's cinematographer, Dan Mindel who had a list of actors in the film taped to his camera. Most of the actors on the list were already announced by Kikuchi's name was a pleasant surprise.
The other actor listed was Karl Urban, who most recently was seen in Star Trek Beyond and just wrapped filming his role as Skourge in Thor: Ragnarok. You can just make out on Mindel's card that he's playing a character named Quan.
Pacific Rim: Uprising will arrive in North American theaters on February 23, 2018.
ABOUT PACIFIC RIM 2
Though Pacific Rim 2 was initially removed from Universal's release schedule, development on the project continued and the film received a new release date of February 23, 2018. Guillermo del Toro will step aside to let Daredevil showrunner Steven S. DeKnight sit in the director's chair and screenwriter Travis Beacham has made room for Zak Penn, Jon Spaihts and Derek Connollt (Jurassic World, Kong: Skull Island) to write the sequel.
Initally, del Toro's ambitious plans for his budding franchise included comic books, anime and video game tie-ins. A single-player fighting game was released to generally negative reviews for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 in 2013. A prequel graphic novel Pacific Rim: Tales from Year Zero was written by Beacham and released in 2013.