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Santa Company Gets New Anime With MyAnimeList Worldwide Debut on January 28

ORENDA and Umi no Magnet Education Committee announced on Thursday that they are producing a new Santa Company anime film titled Santa Company: Manatsu no Merry Christmas (A Merry Christmas in Summer) that will debut worldwide online through MyAnimeList on January 28 at 6:00 p.m. EST/3:00 p.m. PST (January 29 at 8:00 a.m. in Japan). The new film aims to raise awareness of marine waste, and is part of the "CHANGE FOR THE BLUE" initiative by the Nippon Foundation's Umi to Nippon Project.

Haruka Tomatsu and Rie Kugimiya return as Mint and Thomas, respectively. Mami Yamashita, Tōru Furuya, and Masaharu Satō play the characters Noel, Edison, and Panel, respectively. Idol group STU48 members Miyuna Kadowaki and Marina Otani will also play the characters Cute Angel and Mysterious Angel, respectively.

Kenji Itoso returns to direct the anime, with Ondayū once again penning the script. Masashi Kudo (MAOYU, Sakura Wars the Animation) is designing the characters. Kenjirō Ishida is credited as the animation producer. Yūki Nemoto is the art director. Takeshi Senda is the director of photography. SUPA LOVE is once again composing the music.

Other staff members include:

• Prop Design: Joshua Corpuz
• Color Design: Akatsuki Nagasaka
• CG Director: Yoel Parmenas Purnomo Sidhi
• Editing: Kōki Hirose
• Audio Director: Nobuyuki Abe
• Sound Effects: Masahiro Shōji
• Sound Production: On-Lead

Idol group STU48 will perform the ending theme song "Hitorigoto de Kataru Kurai Nara."

Itoso held a Kickstarter campaign in 2013 to fund the first Santa Company film, which met its US$50,000 goal. The original anime debuted at the Tokyo International Film Festival in October 2014. Santa Company: Christmas no Himitsu (The Secret of Christmas), an extended film version of the film, opened theatrically in Japan in November 2019. The new version comemmorated 100 years of diplomatic relations between Japan and Finland.

Source: Press release