News

Toei Animation Streams Full 5-Minute Anime Short Film Urvan

Toei Animation began streaming its full five-minute anime short film URVAN on YouTube on Friday.

Atsutoshi Umezawa is credited with planning and storyboarding, and was executive director on the project. Yūichi Tsuzuki directed the short. Shintaro Fukase was a producer on the project, and Yasuharu Takanashi composed the music. Sachi Suzuki designed the characters and was the animation director, Naho Hasegawa was the director of photography, and Manabu Kamino edited the film. Maya Kasai was the art director, Nami Nakajima was the color designer, Toshiyasu Shimada was the CG director, and Akihiro Murakami is credited with production assistance.

Toei Animation's new intellectual property research team PEROs (Prototyping and Experimental Research in Oizumi Studio) produced the short film. The short film will also air on TV Sasebo in cooperation with Kyushu Tele-Communications. The film is set in the city of Sasebo in Nagasaki prefecture.

Film production started last spring, but the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) situation made it difficult for staff to perform on-site research and location scouting. Due to the limitations, the staff used a new production method, in cooperation with Nagasaki International University's Departments of Humanities and International Tourism's Hitoshi Oba Seminar.

Instead of going on-site, Toei Animation created backgrounds based on landscape photos taken by students of the seminar, and used web conference service Zoom and file sharing service Box to produce the animation remotely. The staff incorporated Sasebo's local resources including specialty products and culture with cyberpunk and action elements to create the new intellectual property.

The short film was originally slated to debut in late January, but was delayed due to COVID-19.

Sources: Email correspondence, PR Times, Toei Animation's YouTube channel