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Aniplus Asia to Screen Saekano Film in Southeast Asia
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
Southeast Asian anime distributor Aniplus-Asia announced on Wednesday that it will screen Saenai Heroine no Sodate-kata fine, the anime film based on Fumiaki Maruto's Saekano: How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend light novel series, in Southeast Asia. It did not reveal an opening date or the screening territories.
The film opened at #5 in Japan. It earned 136,362,600 yen (about US$1.25 million) on Saturday and Sunday. The film opened on October 26 on 121 screens, and has so far earned a cumulative total of 483,039,290 yen (about US$4.44 million).
Kanta Kamei served as chief director at CloverWorks, and Akihisa Shibata (episode director for the two previous seasons) was the director. Fumiaki Maruto returned to write the script, and Tomoaki Takase returned to design the characters. Aniplex is distributing the film.
The returning cast included:
- Yoshitsugu Matsuoka as Tomoya Aki
- Kiyono Yasuno as Megumi Katō
- Saori Ōnishi as Eriri Spencer Sawamura
- Ai Kayano as Utaha Kasumigaoka
- Sayuri Yahagi as Michiru Hyōdō
- Chinatsu Akasaki as Izumi Hashima
- Tetsuya Kakihara as Iori Hashima
The film is not a compilation film of the previous anime, but is a new work.
Maruto's original light novel series with illustrations by Kurehito Misaki revolves around Tomoya Aki, an otaku who is working part-time to earn enough money to buy anime on Blu-ray Disc. He meets a beautiful girl on his way home during spring vacation. He eventually models the heroine of his own dōjin game after her. However, he finds out a month later that the girl is in fact his classmate, and he doesn't know her name. He learns that the girl — named Megumi — actually is hardly noticed by others. Tomoya also has no artistic ability or writing skills, so he asks ace of the art club Eriri Spencer Sawamura to provide the art, as well as the honor student Utaha Kasumigaoka to write the scenario. Can they produce a decent game for Comic Market?
The novels inspired an anime adaptation titled Saekano: How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend that premiered in January 2015 in Japan on Fuji TV's Noitamina programming block, and a second series premiered on the same block in April 2017. Aniplus-Asia aired the first season as it aired in Japan. While Aniplus-Asia did not stream Saekano: How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend Flat, the second season, the show eventually became available for streaming worldwide through Amazon Prime Video.
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