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Coo's Hara to Direct Colorful Film with Sunrise Studio (Updated)

The anime studio Sunrise announced at Tokyo International Anime Fair 2009 on Friday that Summer Days with Coo director Keiichi Hara is overseeing a new theatrical film called Colorful for a projected 2010 opening. The film is based on Eto Mori's young adults' novel of the same name, which won the Sankei Children's Publishing Cultural Prize in 1999. Shun Nakahara (Tomie: Forbidden Fruit) already directed a live-action film version of the same novel in 2000 with actor Koki Tanaka.

The "heart-warming comedy" follows a person who finds himself trapped outside the normal endless circle of life and death. Thanks to "winning" a lottery in the angel world, the protagonist is brought back to inhabit the body of a 14-year-old boy — who is planning to commit suicide. Thus, the protagonist begins a new life.

The film is one of three films planned for 2009 and beyond that were discussed during Animax Broadcast Japan's "Japanese Anime: Next Generation" panel on Friday. The other two are Mamoru Hosoda's Summer Wars and Hideaki Anno's Evangelion: 2.0 You Can [Not] Advance. The stage panel will be televised as a special on the Animax channel in Japan this June.

Source: animeanime.jp

Note: Neither the novel nor its two film adaptations are related to Torajirou Kishi's Colorful risque comedy manga and its television anime series adaptation.