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Yutaka Yamamoto's 'Twilight' Anime Project Meets Crowdfunding Goal

The Campfire crowdfunding campaign for Yutaka Yamamoto's Hakubo (Twilight) original anime project met its goal of 15 million yen (about US$137,000) on Tuesday. The campaign will end on April 29, the anime is slated to open in theaters in 2018.

Yamamoto himself is credited with the original work, script, direction and sound direction. Sunao Chikaoka (Wake Up, Girls!) is designing the characters. Fuyuto Muraguchi is handling for color design. Yō Yamada (Black Bullet) is in charge of sound production. Sōhei Kano (Fractale) is composing the music. Twilight Studio will be in charge of animation.

The main cast includes Kana Hanazawa, Kaori Fukuhara, and Sumi Shimamoto, among others.

Yamamoto is planning the anime as the last of his self-described "Tōhoku trilogy" set in Japan's Tōhoku region in the northeast. Hakubo in particular follows youths living in "the now and present" in Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture after the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011. (The previous two Tōhoku projects, blossom and Wake Up, Girls!, were set in the town of Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture and Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture, respectively.)

Yamamoto said that he first conceived of the project's initial concept two decades ago when he was in college. When he mulled over what would be a good perspective to depict Fukushima, he recalled this idea from his past and set it in Tohoku.

"A way of life that could be anywhere, experienced by a girl who could be anywhere.
A life that could be anywhere.
A love that could be anywhere."

Yamamoto will post the original novel that inspired the anime on the web.

Yamamoto (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya), also known as Yamakan, announced on Twitter last May that he was taking an indefinite leave to recuperate after "far too unreasonable circumstances piling up" caused him to be in poor health. Yamamoto founded his studio Ordet in 2008 after leaving Kyoto Animation in 2007. The studio worked on Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens with A-1 Pictures, with Yamamoto as director. He has also directed the Fractale series, and directed and supervised the Wake Up, Girls! idol series and films. The franchise's latest entry, the Wake Up, Girls! Beyond the Bottom film, premiered in Japan in December 2015. A new Wake Up, Girls! TV anime has been green-lit for this year, but Yamamoto and Ordet are no longer working on the new project.