GKIDS Acquires Theatrical & Home Entertainment Rights to DAN DA DAN
NEW YORK (June 4, 2024) – GKIDS, the Academy Award®-winning producer and distributor of artist-driven and award-winning animation, announced today that it has acquired theatrical, videogram, and digital transactional rights to the highly anticipated new anime series DAN DA DAN. The acquisition serves as GKIDS' first engagement with a first-run series, following North American distribution of various famed retrospective series work. GKIDS will announce further details in the coming months.
With production from the acclaimed animation studio Science SARU (DEVILMAN crybaby, INU-OH, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, The Colors Within), the series is the directorial debut of studio veteran Fuga Yamashiro (Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, The Heike Story). Composer kensuke ushio (Chainsaw Man, DEVILMAN crybaby, The Colors Within) additionally joins the production for the score. The series is a television adaptation of author Yukinobu Tatsu's manga of the same name, which is currently serialized in the wildly popular “Shonen Jump Plus” BY SHUEISHA, under the globally beloved Shonen Jump imprint. Yukinobu Tatsu, the author, previously worked as an assistant to Tatsuki Fujimoto on his global hit series “Chainsaw Man'' and “Fire Punch,” and Yuji Kaku on “Hell's Paradise: Jigokuraku.”
Conceived as a love letter to genre film, B-movies, and retro sci-fi works, DAN DA DAN follows the story of a high school girl named Momo who is from a family of spirit mediums, and Okarun, a high school boy who is an occult freak. As the two compete to disprove the existence of the other's passion, they get caught up in an encounter of both the spiritual and paranormal, imbuing both teenagers with powers beyond belief.
DAN DA DAN marks GKIDS' sixth title from visionary studio Science SARU, following local releases of Lu Over the Wall, The Night is Short, Walk On Girl, Ride Your Wave, the Golden Globe®-nominated INU-OH, and GKIDS' most recent acquisition, The Colors Within.
“After years of championing feature animation and the occasional classic series, GKIDS is thrilled to join in the release of our first-ever new animated series,” said GKIDS' President David Jesteadt. “We could not think of better partners than MBS and the artist geniuses at Science SARU, who we have had the fortune of working with on many films before. DAN DA DAN has been an office-favorite manga since its beginning, and we look forward to helping fans discover this vital new series later this fall.”
Synopsis
DAN DA DAN follows Momo, a high school girl from a family of spirit mediums, and her classmate Okarun, an occult freak. The two of them start talking after Momo rescues Okarun from getting bullied. However, an argument ensues between them – Momo believes in ghosts but denies aliens, and Okarun believes in aliens but denies ghosts. To make the mutual deniers believe in each other, Momo goes to an abandoned hospital known for its UFO sightings, and Okarun goes to a tunnel that is said to be haunted. In each place, they encounter overwhelming paranormal activity that transcends comprehension. Amid these predicaments, Momo awakens her hidden power and Okarun gains the power of a curse to challenge the paranormal forces! Their fateful love begins as well!?
The story of the occult battle and adolescence starts!
Based on the popular manga by Yukinobu Tatsu, DAN DA DAN is an electrifying, action-packed love letter to sci-fi and horror with the heart of a ruthlessly funny teen rom-com. The directorial debut from Fuga Yamashiro is the latest series from cutting-edge animation studio Science SARU (The Colors Within, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off) with pulse-pounding original music from kensuke ushio (Chainsaw Man).
About GKIDS
GKIDS is the Academy Award-winning producer and distributor of artist-driven and award-winning animation from around the world. After an astounding 13 Best Animated Feature nominations, the company took home the Oscar in 2024 for Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli's acclaimed feature, The Boy and the Heron. The company's previous nominations include The Secret of Kells in 2010, A Cat in Paris and Chico & Rita in 2012, Ernest & Celestine in 2014, The Tale of The Princess Kaguya and Song of the Sea in 2015, Boy and the World and When Marnie Was There in 2016, My Life as a Zucchini in 2017, The Breadwinner in 2018, Mirai in 2019, Wolfwalkers in 2021, and The Boy and the Heron in 2024. For more than a decade, GKIDS' influence on cinema has redefined the perception of animation as an artistic medium on par with live-action film through its stewardship of the Studio Ghibli catalog and by introducing American audiences to the critically-acclaimed films of other master filmmakers from around the world such as Mamoru Hosoda (Mirai, Belle), Tomm Moore (The Secret of Kells, Wolfwalkers), Benjamin Renner (Ernest & Celestine), Makoto Shinkai (Weathering With You), Nora Twomey (The Breadwinner), Alberto Vázquez (Unicorn Wars) and Masaaki Yuasa (Inu-Oh, The Night is Short, Walk on Girl), among countless others. Also, GKIDS is the founder and host of ANIMATION IS FILM, the annual LA-based film festival which embraces the highest aspirations of animation as a cinematic art form, and is a vocal advocate for filmmakers who push the boundaries of the medium to its fullest range of artistic expressions. www.gkids.com
About MBS
Mainichi Broadcasting System, Inc., (MBS) is known as a pioneer in the Japanese broadcasting industry. Tracing back through history, MBS was one of the first commercial radio stations in Japan, starting its first radio broadcasts in 1951 and later beginning terrestrial television broadcasting in 1959. MBS has its head office in Osaka, which is the business center of Kansai, the western part of Japan, with new emerging businesses and innovative ideas. For anime, MBS has been co-producing and broadcasting for more than half a century. The broadcaster is the TV home to numerous global hit anime franchises like “Attack on Titan,” “Full Metal Alchemist” and “Jujutsu Kaisen.” In addition to co-producing those and many other series, MBS was a co-producer of “Akira,” seen as one of the most influential anime films of all time. https://www.mbs.jp/english/
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