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Tatami Galaxy Novelist's Penguin Highway Coming-of-Age Fantasy Gets Anime Film

Studio Colorido (Typhoon Noruda, Fastening Days) announced on Thursday that it is producing an anime film adaptation of Tomihiko Morimi's Penguin Highway novel. The film opens in Japan in August.

The novel's story center on fourth grader Aoyama and a mysterious older woman, who is a dental assistant and also Aoyama's first crush. When a group of penguins appears in his quiet suburban neighborhood, Aoyama works to uncover the reason for their appearance.

Kana Kita (Byplayers' Jasmine) plays Aoyama, while Yū Aoi (Redline's Sonoshee McLaren, live-action Rurouni Kenshin's Megumi Takani) plays the woman.

Hiroyasu Ishida, who directed Colorido's "Hinata no Aoshigure" and "Fumiko's Confession" shorts, is directing the film as his first feature-length directorial work. Typhoon Noruda director Yōjirō Arai is designing the characters for the film. Makoto Ueda, who wrote and supervised the scripts for anime adaptations of Morimi's The Tatami Galaxy and Night is Short, Walk On Girl novels, returns to pen the script for this film. Umitarō Abe is composing the music.

Madhouse previously adapted Morimi's The Tatami Galaxy (Yojōhan Shinwa Taikei) novel into a 2010 television anime under director Masaaki Yuasa. Yuasa returned to adapt Morimi's Night is Short, Walk On Girl (Yoru wa Mijikashi Arukeyo Otome) at his Science SARU studio, and the film premiered last April in Japan. P.A. Works adapted both of Morimi's The Eccentric Family (Uchōten Kazoku) novels into two television anime seasons in 2013 and 2017.

Source: Comic Natalie