News

2nd Eureka Seven: Hi - Evolution Film Replaces Kouji Tsujitani With Keiji Fujiwara as Dewey Novak

The official website for the Eureka Seven: Hi - Evolution film trilogy announced on Tuesday that Anemone: Kōkyōshihen Eureka Seven Hi-Evolution (Anemone: Eureka Seven: Hi - Evolution), the second film in the trilogy, has replaced voice actor Kouji Tsujitani with Keiji Fujiwara in the role of Dewey Novak, after the former's recent passing on October 17. Tsujitani had voiced the character since the original 2005 series.

The new role marks Fujiwara's return to the Eureka Seven franchise. He voiced the character Holland in the 2005 series, but did not reprise his role in the new films due to being on hiatus to undergo medical treatment for an unspecified illness. When Fujiwara returned to voice acting last year, the films had already cast Toshiyuki Morikawa as Holland. Fujiwara also voiced Renton Thurston in the EUREKA SEVEN AO series.

The film will open in Japan on November 10. Funimation will debut the film in theaters in 2019.

For the first time in the Eureka Seven franchise, the film will be set in Tokyo. The film centers on Anemone, a girl who lost her father in a battle in Toyko seven years prior to the film's story, leaving her with only her stuffed toy Gulliver, and the AI concierge Dominikids for emotional support. Now she is a key part of a strategy by the experimental unit "Acid" to combat the seventh Eureka, "Eureka Seven," an enemy of humanity that has killed 2.6 billion people. Driven to the brink, all of humanity entrusts its hope to Anemone as she dives deep into the interior of Eureka Seven.

The staff remains mostly the same as the first film, but adds Takuhito Kusanagi and Fumihiro Katagai as designers. Shigeru Fujita and Ayumi Kurashima remain credited as character animation director, but are now also credited as sub-character designers. Kenta Yokoya is now credited as mechanical animation director and design works, while previous mechanical animation director Shingo Abe is now credited as one of the main animators, alongside Hideki Kakita, Shuichi Kaneko, Ken Ootsuka, and Nobuaki Nagano.

The "Nirvash X" mecha will appear in the film. Shōji Kawamori (Macross, Last Hope) designed this new version of the franchise's main mecha, and it is the largest of its kind in the franchise's history.

The first film in the trilogy opened on 107 screens in Japan last September, after making its worldwide debut at Otakon last August. In its first two days, it earned about 63 million yen (about US$561,137). Funimation screened the film in theaters in the United States on February 5 and 7, with screenings in Japanese with English subtitles, and with an English dub.

The first film showed more of The First Summer of Love phenomenon that occurred a decade before the first Eureka Seven series. Before the first film debuted, the anime franchise thus far has hinted at, but never depicted in full, "the beginning of it all." The films then have the same basic story as the first Eureka Seven series, but will have an original ending. The trilogy has completely re-recorded lines, redone footage, and new scenes.

The third film is slated to open in 2019.

For the Japanese version of the first film, aside from Tsujitani, Yūko Sanpei, Kaori Nazuka, Michiko Neya, Juurouta Kosugi, and Aya Hisakawa all returned from the original anime as their characters Renton, Eureka, Talho, Charles, and Ray, respectively. Tohru Furuya played Renton's father Adrock Thurston.

Sources: Eureka Seven: Hi - Evolution anime's official website via Nijimen