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Sentai Filmworks Licenses Cagaster of an Insect Cage, Aragne: Sign of Vermillion Anime

Sentai Filmworks revealed on Thursday that it has licensed the anime of Kachō Hashimoto's Cagaster of an Insect Cage (Mushikago no Cagaster) manga and Saku Sakamoto's Aragne: Sign of Vermillion (Aragne no Mushikago) horror anime film. It will release the films on Blu-ray Disc on March 31 and March 2, respectively.

Sentai Filmworks describes the Cagaster of an Insect Cage film:

The nightmare that wiped out two thirds of the human race thirty years ago wasn't caused by germs. It was bugs on an entirely different kind of scale: bizarre insects that mutate their victims into half-human creatures that rapidly evolve into rampaging giant monsters! Yet, as unstoppable as the monstrous insects seemed, humanity is as hard to kill as cockroaches, and exterminators like Kidou now spend their lives stalking and killing the creatures called Cagasters. As the brief still-partially human phase is the best time to strike, however, exterminators soon learn to distance themselves, socially and emotionally, from normal people. But when Kidou finds himself suddenly tasked with returning a young survivor to her mother, he starts to realize that his emotions and humanity may not be buried as deeply as he believed in CAGASTER OF AN INSECT CAGE!

The anime film debuted worldwide on Netflix in February.

While the anime was initially announced in 2018 with GONZO in charge of animation production, the studio transferred a portion of its anime production, intellectual property, and rights management business to the newly formed Studio KAI company, and Studio KAI handled the animation production for Cagaster of an Insect Cage.

Koichi Chigira (Tokyo Babylon, Full Metal Panic!, Last Exile) directed the anime. Other staff members included Shuuichi Kouyama (Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo, Black Cat) in charge of series scripts, Akihiko Yamashita (Howl's Moving Castle, Arrietty) designing characters, Hitomi Kuroishi (Code Geass, Shangri-la) as composing the music, and the Okinawa Gonzo company for the 3D CG work.

Hilchryme performed both the opening song "Be ZERO" (heard in the video above) and the ending theme song "Okubyō na Ōkami 2019" (Cowardly Wolf 2019).

The manga ran on Hashimoto's website from 2005 to 2013, and Tokuma Shoten eventually published seven volumes of the manga from January to June 2016. (The first two volumes shipped simultaneously in the first month.)

Sentai Filmworks describes the Aragne: Sign of Vermillion film:

There's something very wrong with the apartment that young university student Rin has rented, and it's more than just the terrible condition that it's in. There's something grim and foreboding about the place… an omnipresent atmosphere of dread that makes Rin feel as though she's constantly being watched by a thousand unblinking eyes. And the surrounding area isn't any better. Between sinister street people on strange missions, bizarre cults and rumors of a serial killer, it might seem that staying locked in behind closed doors would be the safest thing to do. But what if the real danger is already inside? There's no escape for Rin or her secrets now, and the only thing more terrifying than the horrific events that take place in her apartment are the nightmarish entities that conduct them in ARAGNE: SIGN OF VERMILLION!

The Fantasia Festival in Montreal, Canada screened the film's world premiere in July 2018. HIDIVE started streaming the film on the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Latin America, and Scandinavian countries in March.

Sakamoto directed the film based on his original concept and script. He also personally produced the animation and music for the film. Few anime productions of more than 60 minutes have been produced by one person in the past. Film director and author Osamu Fukutani supervised production.

The staff ran a successful crowdfunding campaign to help fund the anime on the Japanese crowdfunding platform Makuake. The project met its 2 million yen (about US$17,800) goal in March 2017. The staff then ran a successful Kickstarter campaign for an English translation and funds to screen the film at festivals. The campaign ran from September to October 2017.

The film will get a prequel spinoff titled Amrita no Kyōen (The Feast of Amrita), and it will debut in 2021. The story will center on a high school girl named Tamahi, who encounters strange creatures while navigating a gigantic apartment building.

Source: Press release