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On-Gaku: Our Sound Anime Film Gets 'Brush-Up' Version on September 19

ON-GAKU: Our Sound, Kenji Iwaisawa's anime film adaptation of Hiroyuki Ohashi's "ON-GAKU" manga, will have a "Brush-Up Version" with over 200 cuts cleaned up personally by Iwaisawa over the course of half a year. The new version will open at Tokyo's Shinjuku Musashinokan theater on September 19, to celebrate the opening of Iwaisawa's 100 Meters (Hyakuemu) film on the same day. Iwaisawa drew the below poster visual for the new edition of the ON-GAKU: Our Sound film.

GKIDS screened the film in theaters in North America in December 2020 in 24 cities. GKIDS and Shout! Factory released the film on Blu-ray Disc and DVD in March 2021.

GKIDS describes the film:

When you're a bored teenager looking for thrills, sometimes the only thing you can turn to is rock 'n roll. Having no skill, money, or even a full set of drums, a feared trio of high school delinquents nevertheless decide they are destined for musical glory in a quest to impress their only friend Aya, avoid a rival gang, and – most importantly – jam out. Animated almost entirely by director Kenji Iwaisawa, and featuring a lead performance by Japanese alt-rock legend Shintaro Sakamoto, ON-GAKU: OUR SOUND brings its own sound and vision to the Hiroyuki Ohashi manga from which it was adapted. With pitch-perfect deadpan humor, the film presents a highly original take on the beloved slacker comedy: a lo-fi buddy film with a blaring musical finale that will leave you wanting an immediate encore.

Ohashi announced the film project in 2012, and launched a crowdfunding campaign on the Makuake website in July 2018. The campaign sought to raise 3.5 million yen (about US$31,000) to finish and edit the film by 2019. The campaign ended in September 2018, and raised 4,129,000 yen (about US$38,166).

Kenji Iwaisawa directed the film. Iwaisawa is known for his animated shorts such as "Fukurai-cho, Tunnel Roji no Otoko," and "Big Boss." Ohashi was responsible for the work's character designs and for overall supervision. Rock 'n' Roll Mountain distributed the film in Japan, with distribution cooperation by Arc Films. The musical unit The Dresscodes (theme song for GANTZ:O film) performed the theme song for the film.

The film won the Grand Prize for Feature Animation award at the Ottawa International Animation Festival in September 2019. The film also competed in the sixth annual New Chitose Airport International Animation Festival in the festival's Featured Animation Competition category in November 2019.

The film then opened in Japan in January 2020 and ranked at #3 in the mini-theater ranking in its opening weekend. The film won in the Best Original Music Award for a Feature Film award at Annecy International Animation Film Festival in June 2020. The film has since won the Noburou Oofuji Award at the 75th Annual Mainichi Film Awards in January 2021, and the Entertainment Division's Grand Prize in the 24th Japan Media Arts Festival Awards in March 2021.

Ohashi originally self-published the "ON-GAKU" manga in 2005, and it tells the story of young delinquents who decide to start a rock band despite never having touched instruments before. Ohta Publishing later printed the manga in its 2009 ON-GAKU to Manga collection of Ohashi's work.

Source: Comic Natalie