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Kurayukaba Full-Length Anime Film Wins at Fantasia Int'l Film Festival

Shigeyoshi Tsukahara and Twiflo's original anime project Kurayukaba full-length film won the Best Animated Feature in the Audience Awards category of the 27th annual Fantasia International Film Festival on Tuesday.

The Concierge, the anime film of Tsuchika Nishimura's The Concierge at Hokkyoku Department Store manga, won second place in the same category. The First Slam Dunk, the new anime film of Takehiko Inoue's Slam Dunk basketball manga, won third place.

The First Slam Dunk also won the Axis: Satoshi Kon Award for Excellence in Animation for best animated feature film, and the SAND LAND anime film won the special jury mention in the same category at this year's Fantasia International Film Festival.

The Kurayukaba project's first crowdfunding campaign ran from December 2018 to February 2019 to fund the pilot film. The campaign raised 6,901,864 yen (about US$63,000) from 397 backers: 276% of its 2,500,000 yen (about US$22,100) goal. The campaign reached its 4,000,000 yen (about US$35,300) stretch goal to create a one-minute video (the original goal was for a 30-second video).

Twin Engine's official Motion Gallery crowdfunding campaign for the film launched in April 2020, and it aimed to raise 20 million yen (about US$188,000) to fund a film at least 40 minutes long. The campaign ended in August 2020 with 8,798,500 yen (about US$79,513).

The feature's "opening chapter," earlier pilot film, and documentary video of the cast's dialogue recording sessions had a limited screening in Tokyo's Cine Libre Ikebukuro theater in August 2021, along with director Shigeyoshi Tsukahara's four earlier shorts.

Twiflo describes the anime:

Our story is set beneath the surface of the great metropolis, below the district of Ogi-town in a realm of dreams that floats in a haze of purple lignite smoke.

A network of roads stretches away underground, concealing bandits at every turn! An armored train snakes through the looming darkness: the steel-clad train Sokore 463 is equipped with a 75mm mountain gun that can blow a target to smithereens! In command is the mysterious girl Tanne.

What awaits her and her comrades? From the winding alleys of Akegata (dawn) to the deep subterranean world of Kuragari (dark), a daring adventure unfolds!

Professional storyteller Matsunojō Kanda plays the main character Sōtarō, who pursues the mystery of the mass disappearance in the deep subterranean world. The cast also includes Tomoyo Kurosawa as Tanne, Yū Serizawa as Saki, and Raikō Sakamoto as Inarizaka.

Tsukahara ("The Man Traveling with the Brocade Portrait," "Joseito," "Hashi no Mukou," SEKAI NO OWARI rock band's in-concert anime footage and set design) made his feature-length directorial debut with the anime at Makaria, and he is also credited for the original story and screenplay. Kazunori Minagawa (animation director on Macross Delta, Tokyo Ravens, Yuruyuri, Code Geass: Akito the Exiled) designed the characters.

The project also screened at the 2018 Annecy International Animated Film Festival in June 2018.

Sources: Press release, Fantasia International Film Festival's website, Comic Natalie