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After the Rain Performs Atom the Beginning Anime's Opening Theme

The offiicial website for the television anime adaptation of Tetsuro Kasahara's Atom The Beginning manga announced on Thursday that the musical duo After the Rain will perform the opening theme song "Kaidoku Funō" (Indecipherable). The song's single will ship in Japan on April 12.

The duo also announced on Thursday that they are performing the opening theme song "Anticlockwise" for the Clockwork Planet television anime series. That single will ship simultaneously with the "Kaidoku Funō" single.

The musical duo is composed of Soraru and Mafumafu. Soraru is in charge of vocals, mix, and mastering, while Mafumafu also performs vocals and composes music, writes lyrics, and arranges songs. The duo debuted with the album After Rain Quest in 2014. The musical unit released Kuro Crest Story in 2016, and the album attained the second spot on the Oricon weekly music chart. The pair performed the opening theme song "First End" for Reikenzan: Hoshikuzu-tachi no Utage last year.

Atom The Beginning's story takes place in Japan after a great calamity. There were two geniuses who dreamed of the future. One was Umatarō Tenma. The other was Hiroshi Ochanomizu.

The two labored day and night in robot research — Tenma to create a "god," and Ochanomizu to create a "friend." Thus a robot, A106, was born from their collaborative friendship. Would A106 really become a god, or a friend? The young brilliant duo glimpsed the impending future…

The website began streaming the anime's first promotional video in November. The video confirmed the staff and spring 2017 premiere and featured the narration: "This is a previously untold 'episode zero' story leading up to the birth of Astro Boy." The anime's staff includes:

• Original Work: Osamu Tezuka
• Project Planning Cooperation and Supervision: Makoto Tezuka
• Concept Works: Masami Yuuki (Patlabor franchise, Birdy the Mighty)
• Cooperation: Tezuka Productions
• Chief Director: Katsuyuki Motohiro (Psycho-Pass, live-action Ajin film)
• Director: Tatsuo Satō (Bodacious Space Pirates, Martian Successor Nadesico)
• Series Composition: Jun'ichi Fujisaku (Blood+, Appleseed XIII)
• Animation Production: OLM, Production I.G, Signal.MD
• Character Design: Takahiro Yoshimatsu (Trigun, Basquash!)
• Mechanical Design: Shinobu Tsuneki, Yoshihiro Ishimoto, Shinichi Miyazaki
• Prop Design: Mebara, Asuna Imahashi, Taiyō Yoshida
• Chief Animation Director: Hideki Ito
• Color Key: Miho Tanaka
• Art: Hiroshi Katō
• 3DCG Director: Takaaki Sugano
• Monitor Graphics: Takashi Aoki
• Special Effects: Masahiro Murakami
• Director of Photography: Teppei Satō
• Editing: Yūki Honda
• Sound Director: Yoshikazu Iwanami
• Music: Noriyuki Asakura

Kasahara (Ride Back) launched Atom The Beginning in Shogakukan's Monthly Hero's magazine in December 2014 as a prequel of Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy manga. Tezuka's son Makoto Tezuka handles the editorial supervision of the manga, and the series is in collaboration with Tezuka Productions. Masami Yuuki (Patlabor the Mobile Police, Birdy the Mighty creator) is credited with "concept works" for the series. Shogakukan shipped the third compiled volume of the manga on June 3, and shipped the fourth volume on December 5.

Source: Comic Natalie