News

Santa Company's Kenji Studio Streams English-Subtitled Coluboccoro Clip

KENJI STUDIO, director Kenji Itoso's studio, released a three-minute, English-subtitled clip from its short anime film Coluboccoro on Monday to celebrate the success of its Kickstarter campaign to release the film on Blu-ray and DVD with English subtitles.

As of press time, the campaign has earned US$38,077 with 10 days remaining. The first stretch goal, at US$100,000, will fund added footage for a 30-minute run-time.

The Kickstarter campaign describes the film:

It is a time not of the now. At the birthplace of culture and religion. Where science has evolved amongst a gathering of races and people both high and low. In a town, with a ruler. Like any other town, unlike any other ruler. Suzu, the girl's name is. Her parents lost to her at a young age, her days strict with an upbringing befitting of the now and future sovereign. But doubt had crept in for the life she lived. So out she stole one day, to that place one must never set foot, to the Forbidden Grounds. Far above the town the Forbidden Grounds lay. And there, Suzu finds a seed, the likes of which she has never seen before. What kind of seed could it be? Wondering, she wanders back and waters the seed… And there, it sprouts right before her eyes, a mysterious creature popping up from the dirt!

A startled Suzu timidly speaks, “…and you are?”

“Colu!” it peeped.

Suzu returns to the Forbidden Grounds, to find out just what the creature is. Beyond lays a world she has never seen, the secret of the town waiting hidden. And just like that, destinies are laid bare. All possibilities become one thread, spinning the ultimate truth. Will Suzu take hold and lead it to the end?

Coluboccoro was originally a fantasy short that Itoso produced with Anime Innovation Tokyo, and it won the grand prize in the Creative Market Tokyo 2011 event. (Itoso was the unit director on the late Satoshi Kon's dormant Yume-Miru Kikai film.)

Itoso conceived, planned, wrote, storyboarded, and directed the "Coluboccoro" short himself. Its grand prize led to Itoso receiving a go-ahead to make the Santa Company film. Norihiko Tsuru composed the music, Hanami performed the theme song, and the voice cast starred Emiri Katō.

KENJI STUDIO had already run a Kickstarter campaign for Santa Company in 2013, and it completed the film last year after meeting its fundraising goal. Itoso stated on the Coluboccoro Kickstarter page that Coluboccoro and Santa Company "are part of a larger work," and a third anime fantasy is planned to make a trilogy.

[Via WTK]