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Sarusuberi, the newest work by Keiichi Hara who is one of Japan’s representative animation directors, will release countrywide in 2015. It will be set 200 years ago during the Edo period. The anime is being developed by Production I.G, a representative animation studio of Japan, which is aiming to complete it sometime this year. It will be distributed around the country by Tokyo Theatres, with a planned 2015 release date.
Also, a production announcement is planned to be held at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival which is beginning in France on June 9. Since its inception in 1960, Annecy has continued to be the world’s biggest international animation film festival. In 2011, director Hara won the Special Distinction Award and Audience Award for his work Colorful. At the festival, animation-related professionals from around the world gather and new works are put in the spotlight. This new work by Hara isn’t just for Japan but is intended for a worldwide audience. It has already been decided that Isao Takahata from Japan, who is winning an Honorary Award this year, will visit Annecy for a screening of his work The Tale of Princess Kaguya. With these big-name directors from Japan participating, it’s likely that this year will be filled with big highlights.
Director Hara started his career at Shin-Ei Animation with anime intended for kids. He raised his reputation all at once with Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: The Battle of the Warring States. The film even won several awards. After that, he established a solid reputation for himself with Summer Days with Coo, Colorful, and the live-action film Hajimari no Michi. He has won the Grand Prize in the animation category of the Japan Media Arts Festival twice and the Best Animation Film award at the Mainichi Film Award three times, which is an indication of his skill. It’s safe to say that Sarusuberi is a film being hotly anticipated by anime fans and movie fans alike.
The work director Hara chose to create a movie about is Sarusuberi, the representative work of the late Hinako Sugiura who was known as an Edo period researcher, manga artist, and writer. The Edo period work depicts Katsushika O-Ei, daughter of famed ukiyo-e artist Katsushika Hokusai who helps support her father’s work and was active as an ukiyo-e artist herself. This work that depicts dialogue between these two and Edo merchants is becoming an entertaining drama by director Hara. A teaser video for overseas audiences will also be screened during the production announcement at Annecy. Look forward to the 2015 release.
Comment from director Keiichi Hara:
Even among Hinako Sugiura’s work, Sarusuberi especially is a work in which reality and illusions, the life, death, and everyday lives of humans, and the changing of the seasons are all depicted realistically; she created a work that was richly different from all sides. By adapting this story into a movie, I want to make it a historical play that has a sense of reality, and at the same time I want to make her wonderful work more widely known.”
Sarusuberi is being distributed by Tokyo Theatres and will have a countrywide roadshow release in 2015.
Source: animeanime