News

In This Corner of the World's Sunao Katabuchi Directs New Original Short Film

Fukushima Prefecture's variety magazine Fukushima Map announced on Monday its second "brand movie," a short film titled "Fukufuku no Chizu" (Map of Fukufuku) by director Sunao Katabuchi (In This Corner of the World). The short film will be screened during a "Completion Announcement Event" on March 5 at the Forum Fukushima 5 theater. 

Katabuchi is directing the short film at CONTRAIL and is also writing the script. Katabuki is working again with staff from the In This Corner of the World film, including assistant director Chie Uratani, manga creator Fumiyo Kouno for the original character designs, and kotringo for music composition. Izumi Seguchi (Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie, maboroshi animation director) is the short film's character designer and animation director,  Mayu Ōta (Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba in-between animator) and Moe Maruta (Jujutsu Kaisen 0 in-between animator) are the assistant animation directors, and Kiyomi Ōta (Only Yesterday, Porco Rosso, Princess Mononoke's background art) is the art director.

The short film tells the story of a French philosopher named Sophie, who visits Fukushima Prefecture for the first time to attend a friend's wedding. Sophie loses her way in Fukushima, but a mysterious "friend" and a "map" appear before her, and she follows their lead making detours and stops. Little by little, Sophie realizes that everything in Fukushima is a "culture" that has been created by someone and has been passed down through generations.

Katabuchi has been involved with the areas that had been affected by the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami, and served as the animation director for the reconstruction support song "Hana wa Saku" of NHK's Great East Japan Earthquake Project. 

Katabuchi has directed such anime as Black Lagoon, Black Lagoon: Roberta's Blood Trail, Black Lagoon: The Second Barrage, Mai Mai Miracle, Princess Arete, and Meiken Lassie. He wrote the screenplay and directed the critically acclaimed In This Corner of the World film, which opened in November 2016. The extended version of the film, In This Corner (and Other Corners) of the World, opened in Japan in December 2019.

Katabuchi's latest feature-length animated film The Mourning Children: Nagiko and the Girls Wearing Tsurubami Black (Tsurubami-Iro no Nagiko-tachi) screened as a "WIP (work in progress) feature" at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in April 2025. 

Fukushima-born and "Look Back" anime film Director Kiyotaka Oshiyama directed the first "brand movie" of Fukushima Map, a short film titled "Aka no Kioku" (The Red That Remembers), which debuted in March 2025.

Sources: Fukushima Map, Comic Natalie