Interest
NHK Airs New Paralympic Anime Short With Characters Designed by Hiro Fujiwara
posted on by Ken Iikura-Gross
Japanese national broadcaster NHK announced the latest installment of its "Anime x Para: Who is Your Hero?" ("Ani × Para: Anata no Hero wa Dare Desu ka") series on January 8, and NHK E aired it on Monday. The 20th installment of the series features a sledge hockey story with characters designed by manga creator Hiro Fujiwara (Maid-sama!). The short stars Nobuhiko Okamoto and Hiroki Yasumoto with a theme song by Tortoise Matsumoto.
The "Anime x Para: Who is Your Hero?" project started in 2017. The animated series aims to increase interest in parasports ahead of Summer and Winter Olympic Games. Previous shorts in the series collaborated with Captain Tsubasa for blind soccer, Baby Steps for wheelchair tennis, renowned Ashita no Joe artist Tetsuya Chiba for wheelchair rugby, and Yowamushi Pedal for para-cycling, among others. The 2023 short adapted Sound! Euphonium author Ayano Takeda's Kimi to Kogu - Nagatoro Kōkō Canoe-bu (Rowing With You - Nagatoro High School Canoeing Club) novel series, and 2024 saw a para-archery anime short based on Kazuhiro Fujita's Ushio & Tora series as well as a goalball short based on Osamu Nishi's Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-kun.
