×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

News
33rd Animator Expo is 'Ragnarok' From Appleseed Director Katayama

posted on by Karen Ressler
RahXephon's Izubuchi provides designs for robot battle royale

The official website for Japan Anima(tor)'s Exhibition (Japan Animator Expo), the weekly anime shorts from Hideaki Anno's Studio Khara and the media company Dwango, announced on Monday that the 33rd short will be Kazuyoshi Katayama's "Ragnarok" ("Sekai no Kuni Kara Konnichiwa," or "Hello from the Countries of the World"). The short will debut on Friday.

Katayama (Appleseed OAV, Those Who Hunt Elves) is writing the script and directing the original work. Rui Takatō (Devilman G) is handling character design and Yutaka Izubuchi (RahXephon, Patlabor the Mobile Police) is handling robot design. Masami Ozone (Tiger & Bunny The Movie -The Rising-) is directing the animation at studio Bridge.

Animator Expo describes the story:

This is the story of the future a little bit ahead.

The Japanese representative robot, demonstrated at the venue of The International Giant Robot Exhibition in Odaiba, goes out of control due to an unknown cause and destroys buildings around the venue.

The police and Japan Self-Defence force cannot stop the robot, and the American and Russian robots are sent out to save the situation along with the request from Japanese government and the exhibition association office.

However, because of the horrible power of the Japanese robot, a fight has begun between them.

They fire missiles and shoot energy beam, which should not be loaded, and the area around the venue becomes a battle field.

The UK, Chinese and German robots become victims of the circumstance and jump into the battle.

The situation gets into a battle royal.

Who will be a survivor?

The lineup for the third season of the project is as follows:

Title Director/Staff
Endless night (TBC) Sayo Yamamoto
GIRL Hibiki Yoshizaki
Cassette Girl Hiroyasu Kobayashi
Ragnarok Kazuyoshi Katayama
COMEDY SKIT 1989 Kazuto Nakazawa
THE ULTRAMAN Akitoshi Yokoyama
NEON GENESIS IMPACTS. Yūhei Sakuragi
(To Be Determined) Hiroyuki Okiura
HAMMERHEAD Otaro Maijo × Mahiro Maeda
BUREAU OF PROTO SOCIETY Yasuhiro Yoshiura
BUBU & BUBULINA Takashi Nakamura

The titles above are listed in phonetic Japanese order, and are not necessarily in the order of their scheduled release. For the third season, Japan Animator Expo is once again releasing a new episode every Friday.

Hideaki Anno himself is serving as executive producer of the entire project initiative with Dwango President Nobuo Kawakami, and he also designed the image character mascot "(Tor)-kun." Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki created the title logo, and fellow Ghibli co-founder Toshio Suzuki colored it. The shorts mostly feature the voice talent of Ranma ½ and Cowboy Bebop co-stars Kouichi Yamadera and Megumi Hayashibara.

Image © nihon animator mihonichi LLP.


discuss this in the forum (1 post) |
bookmark/share with: short url

this article has been modified since it was originally posted; see change history

News homepage / archives