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Shin-ei Animation Partners with French Studio for Ghost Cat Anzu Film
posted on by Adriana Hazra
Entertainment news outlet Variety reported on June 9 that animation studio Shin-Ei Animation has partnered with France's Miyu Productions to co-produce the Ghost Cat Anzu 2D animated film based on Takashi Imashiro's Bakeneko Anzu-chan manga. Yōko Kuno and Nobuhiro Yamashita are directing the film and Shinji Imaoka is writing its script.
The film will be 90 minutes long and will utilize mixed animation techniques combining 2D digital animation with rotoscopy.
Miyu Productions describes the film's story:
Karin, 11 years old, is abandoned by her father at her grandfather's house, the monk of a small town in the Japanese countryside. Her grandfather asks Anzu, his jovial and helpful although rather capricious ghost cat, to look after her. The meeting of their strong characters causes sparks, at least at the beginning…
Kodansha published the one-volume Bakeneko Anzu-chan manga in 2007.
Shin-Ei Animation is best known for producing Doraemon and Crayon Shin-chan, two long-running television anime that both consistently rank among the highest weekly ratings for animated programs in Japan. Daikichirō Kusube founded the studio in 1976.
The studio's recent well-known series include Teasing Master Takagi-san, Those Snow White Notes, and Pui Pui Molcar. The studio also frequently co-produces anime with other studios, including such recent anime as The World Ends with You the Animation, Sweetness & Lightning, and A Couple of Cuckoos. The studio established a new studio in Kobe city that started operations last month as its first branch outside Tokyo.
Source: Variety (John Hopewell)