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Yutaka Yamamoto's Twilight Anime Project Reveals Cast, Staff, Teaser Visual
posted on by Anita Tai
The Campfire crowdfunding page for Yutaka Yamamoto's Hakubo (Twilight) original anime film project updated on Monday with the main staff, cast, and a new teaser visual on Monday.
Yamamoto himself is credited with the original work, script, direction and sound direction. Sunao Chikaoka (Wake Up, Girls!) is designing the characters. Fuyuto Muraguchi is handling for color design. Yō Yamada (Black Bullet) is in charge of sound production. Sōhei Kano (Fractale) is composing the music. Twilight Studio will be in charge of animation.
The main cast includes Kana Hanazawa, Kaori Fukuhara, and Sumi Shimamoto, among others.
The campaign seeks to raise 15 million yen (about US$131,598) to fund production, though Yamamoto has said that he plans to go forward with the project even if the campaign does not meet its goal. As of press time has raised 7,693,515 yen (about US$69,402), and the campaign will end on April 29. The film is slated for 2018.
Yamamoto is planning the anime as the last of his self-described "Tōhoku trilogy" set in Japan's Tōhoku region in the northeast. Hakubo in particular follows youths living in "the now and present" in Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture after the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011. (The previous two Tōhoku projects, blossom and Wake Up, Girls!, were set in the town of Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture and Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture, respectively.)
Yamamoto said that he first conceived of the project's initial concept two decades ago when he was in college. When he mulled over what would be a good perspective to depict Fukushima, he recalled this idea from his past and set it in Tohoku.
"A way of life that could be anywhere, experienced by a girl who could be anywhere.
A life that could be anywhere.
A love that could be anywhere."
Yamamoto will post the original novel that inspired the anime on the web.
Yamamoto (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya), also known as Yamakan, announced on Twitter last May that he was taking an indefinite leave to recuperate after "far too unreasonable circumstances piling up" caused him to be in poor health. Yamamoto founded his studio Ordet in 2008 after leaving Kyoto Animation in 2007. The studio worked on Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens with A-1 Pictures, with Yamamoto as director. He has also directed the Fractale series, and directed and supervised the Wake Up, Girls! idol series and films. The franchise's latest entry, the Wake Up, Girls! Beyond the Bottom film, premiered in Japan in December 2015. A new Wake Up, Girls! TV anime has been green-lit for this year, but Yamamoto and Ordet are no longer working on the new project.
[Via Yusaani]
