News

Anime Theme Park to open in 2003

John Hughes reports that one of Japan's largest corporations, Nippon Telephone and Telegraph and nine other firms are organizing a joint venture to build a theme park outside Tokyo based on the animated characters developed by Nippon Animation Company. Nippon Animation is best known for their World Masterpiece Theater programs that adapted famous children's novels into animated series, and which began the directing careers of Hayao Miyazaki and Issao Takahata of Studio Ghibli. (Such shows include "Dog of Flanders, Anne of Green Gables, Romeo's Blue Skies, Heidi, Tico of the Seven Seas, and several others.) The park has a tentative opening date of 2003.