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Ponycan USA Promotes Kuromukuro, Mayoiga/The Lost Village TV Anime, Sound! Euphonium Film

Ponycan USA promoted the Kuromukuro and The Lost Village (Mayoiga) television anime and the Gekijō-ban Hibike! Euphonium ~ Kitauji Kōkō Suisōraku-Bu e Yōkoso~ anime film at Seattle's Sakura-Con on Saturday. The company is considering localizing these titles in English, but has not yet decided whether or not it will.

Ponycan USA also announced that it will start a YouTube live-steam channel on April 18 that will feature discussions with Japanese guests.

Kuromukuro is the 15th anniversary project of the anime studio P.A. Works.The anime will premiere on Thursday April 7 on Tokyo MX at 10:00 p.m. It will also air on KBS Kyoto, Sun TV, BS11, and other channels.

The anime itself will take place in Toyama Prefecture (the location of P.A. Works' studio), and will feature the TATE mountain range in the prefecture as well as other famous locales. The robot research institution in the show will be located near Toyama Prefecture's famous Kurobe Dam. The anime's story takes place in summer 2016. During the original construction of the dam, an ancient artifact was discovered, and so the United Nations Kurobe Research Institute was established. Intellectuals from all over the world gathered to study the object, and the children of those researchers attend Mt. TATE International Senior High School, including the institute head's daughter, Yukina Shirahane. The story begins when a lone samurai once again awakens.

Snow Grouse is credited with the original work. Tensai Okamura (Darker than Black, Blue Exorcist, Wolf's Rain, The Seven Deadly Sins) is directing the "mecha action" anime at P.A. Works. Ryō Higaki (Another, Moribito - Guardian of the Spirit) is handling the series composition, and Yuriko Ishii (Another, A Lull in the Sea) is designing the characters and serving as chief animation director with Ayumi Nishibata. Tomoaki Okada (Darker than Black, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Star Driver, Wolf's Rain) is credited with visual concepts and mecha designs. Hiroaki Tsutsumi is composing the music at Pony Canyon.

The Lost Village is an original television anime. The anime will premiere on WOWOW on April 1 at 11:30 p.m., before premiering on MBS, TBS, and CBC on April 8 and on BS-TBS on April 9. The series will air on MBS's "Animeism" programming block.

The anime staff launched a crowdfunding campaign and met its goal of its 3,330,000 yen (about US$29,500) goal.

The official website describes the story:

30 young men and women who came together on a shady bus tour. The tour's destination: an illusive, possibly nonexistent village called Nanakimura. In Nanakimura, one can lead a utopian existence, free of the world's obstacles … or so it was rumored, like an urban legend.

"In despair over the real world ... wanting to escape the tedious daily life … wanting to restart your life from scratch…"

The bus headed deep into the mountains, carrying 30 people each harboring their own expectations and wounds in their hearts…

And so, the place these 30 arrived at, was an uninhabited village with the lingering faint scents of life, even though it was falling apart.

What is the truth of Nanakimura facing the 30? You can't miss even one episode!

Tsutomu Mizushima (Girls und Panzer, Shirobako, Prison School) is directing the series at anime studio diomedéa (Kan Colle). Mari Okada (anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day, The Anthem of the Heart, Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans) is serving as series script supervisor, Naomi Ide (Kan Colle) is designing the characters, and Mizushima is personally directing the sound at Studio Mausu. Masaru Yokoyama (The Anthem of the Heart, Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans) is composing the music at Pony Canyon.

The Gekijō-ban Hibike! Euphonium ~ Kitauji Kōkō Suisōraku-Bu e Yōkoso~ film will look back at the spring 2015 television series, which depicted a high school concert band's journey to the prefectural band competition. The film will open in Japan on April 23. A separate sequel television anime series will depict what happens afterward.

The spring 2015 television anime adapts Ayano Takeda's 2013 novel, which is also titled Hibike! Euphonium Kitauji Kōkō Suisōraku-Bu e Yōkoso. The story follows the Kitauji High School Concert Band, which used to always advance to national competitions. Ever since the adviser changed, though, it has not advanced past the Kansai tournament. However, thanks to the newly appointed adviser's strict instruction, the students are steadily improving. The band members' daily lives are full of ups and downs including fights over solos and the decision to resign extracurricular activities to focus on studies.

The television anime premiered last April, and Pony Canyon USA streamed the series on Crunchyroll as it aired in Japan. Pony Canyon USA will release the television anime in North America.