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Wit Studio Produces Live-Action Tokyo Butterfly Film
posted on by Egan Loo
Wit Studio, a company known for anime projects such as Attack on Titan and the ongoing Great Pretender, is expanding further into live-action film production. Its parent group company IG Port announced on Friday that the studio is producing the live-action film Tokyo Butterfly, which will open at Tokyo's Uplink Kichijōji theater on September 11 before a national rollout.
Tokyo Butterfly is the first feature by up-and-coming film director Keitarō Sakon. Sakon graduated from Nihon University College of Art, and he garnered attention with his final school film short "Kazoku no Fūkei" (Family Scenery).
Tokyo Butterfly follows four former members of a college band, six years after they broke up on the verge of their major label debut. The film stars real-life singer-songwriter Kamin Shirahata, Atomu Mizuishi, Ryūju Kobayashi, and Hisao Kurozumi.
This is Wit Studio's fourth live-action film, after 2018's Summer Blooms (Shigatsu no Nagai Yume), 2019's Mio on the Shore (Watashi wa Hikari o Nigitteiru), and this past February's A Quiet Rain (Shizuka na Ame). Tokyo New Cinema co-produced all four films, and Wit Studio worked on the pre-production development of Tokyo Butterfly along with the actual production. The previous films played widely at overseas film festivals, and Summer Blooms won the FIPRESCI award at the Moscow International Film Festival. IG Port first delved into full-fledged live-action film production with Mamoru Oshii's 2016 film Garm Wars: The Last Druid, followed by Katsuyuki Motohiro's 2017 live-action version of Gamon Sakurai's Ajin - Demi-Human manga.
Source: Animation Business Journal (Tadashi Sudo)
