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Kouichi Yamadera, Megumi Hayashibara Voice All Characters in Animator Expo Project

Hideaki Anno's Studio Khara and the media company Dwango announced on Tuesday that voice actor Kouichi Yamadera and voice actress Megumi Hayashibara will voice all the characters in the planned Animator Expo animated omnibus shorts project.

Anno, who is the executive producer of the project, said that he didn't originally plan for the project to have any uniformity, as it wasn't necessary because the themes and types of works included were scattered. However, Anno said he wondered about what to do about the cast for the shorts, since it wouldn't be very realistic in terms of schedule and budget to hire different cast members for each work. He said the solution then immediately dawned on him to hire only one man and one woman to voice all the roles. When he mentioned this to the project's producer, Anno said he already had Yamadera and Hayashibara in mind.

Studio Khara and Dwango released a short preview for their "Hill Climb Girl" anime short on Tuesday. The short is the second of a planned 30 total shorts.

"Hill Climb Girl" is by director Azuma Tani, 3DCG director Takeshi Miyagi, and creature designer Mai Yoneyama. The official website describes the story:

High school girl Hinako loves to ride her bicycle and looks up to a professional road racer.
Every morning she competes with her male classmate on their way to their school on the hill, riding her mama chari bicycle, but she loses every time.
Frustrated Hinako comes up with a way to give her a chance at winning the race from the video of her favorite cycle racer and is ready for the game next morning…

The full short will stream on niconico on Friday. The site is currently streaming last week's "The Dragon Dentist" short with English subtitles on the official site.

Anno himself is serving as executive producer of the initiative with Dwango President Nobuo Kawakami, and he also designed the image character mascot "(Tor)-kun." Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki created the title logo, and fellow Ghibli co-founder Toshio Suzuki colored it.

One new short will stream every week for a planned total of 30 shorts, ranging from original projects and spinoffs to promotional videos and music videos. Each episode will be streamed for free via a dedicated iOS/Android app and on the niconico service. There are no plans for a commercial release at this stage.

Image © 2014 Nihon Animator Mihonichi, LLP

Source: MoCa News