Gots me an e-mail in my inbox this morning titled 'homework'. Someone had loaded up a couple trailers onto the Twitch Video Player and Todd and I were so impressed by what we saw that he sent me on the task to find out what we were looking at. Here's the story near as I have found out. Japanese artist Atsuya Uki originally published a one-shot manga called Amon Game in 2005 for a really prestige manga competition called the Shiki Grand Prize and won. He brought his idea to Anime Innovation Tokyo in 2007, where they funded him and his independent project, Cencoroll, until Aniplex picked it up. It is now 2009 and a new trailer came up the other week.
A huge monster suddenly appears on the top of a building in an ordinary provincial town. The local Defense Forces go into action, and the people of the town are in uproar. A young girl Yuki, happens to know the secret is that Tetsu keeps a strange creature called Cenco. Yuki, being brave-hearted and naturally inquisitive, becomes fascinated by Tetsu and his unusual pet, Cenco. A mysterious boy – who has control over the huge monster threatening the town – then appears and an unexpected battle begins. Who do they fight for? Who are they? By getting involved with a battle, how is Yuki’s fate going to be?
Not only do the trailers hugely impress with amazing character design and amazing detail but according to sources, Uki wrote, designed, directed, and animated the project singlehandedly. Okay. I call the animation bar officially raised. Both trailers are after the break. Prepare to be amazed!
Thank you kind folks whom loaded these up for us.
Echoes of Voices of a Distant Star (?) in terms of single handed projects.
Who cares. It looks great :)
This looks like what would be the result if Hideaki Anno made a Ghibli movie. Totally awesome.
love the music in both trailers too
@crapmonster wasn't trying to be rude at all. i just thought when you said hasn't makoto done this before that you meant thematically. i also think makoto is great.
This is the kind of anime I've been missing. Looking out for this one.
sorry brett, misunderstood your reply.
i don't care who did what, if it was a whole team or just somebody's grandma, I just watched it without sound and the visuals alone are top-notch. theme-wise I detect the usual prepuberty schoolgirl vibe complete with upskirpt shots and open mouth but well, seems no manga artist can escape this one.
here's to hoping the script is as good as the visuals.
Well, as a struggling one-man-animator myself I look at this and go SHIT-MAWEEN-MO-FU!!! I need to get off my frickin' ass and do something myself!
Not only is the one-man-thing impressive (I just stagger at the fluidity of the animation). Even if it wasn't a one-man-band. I still think it looks like a must-see OVA. And someone mentioned Anno. I hope that if this guy doesn't get funding in the future, then Gainax have to pick him up.
In my mind there's very little reminiscent of Makoto Shinkai in this besides the one-guy-aspect. This is clearly more action-oriented while Shinkai is more, some would say emo, contemplative. And most of the action in Voices was CGI.
Maybe we should make up a new word for this phenomena? What about "OPA" (One Person Animation)? That would leave out the gender-issues of "man" and "guy".
I like it. Reminds me of Fooly Cooly. The music is fun, too.
Really outstanding that we live in an era where this sort of animation quality can be done by one person in their home. Also, for the record, it's Furi Kuri, NOT Fooly Cooly.
Saltoner, it's actually both. Such is the punning nature of the project.
At the end of episode 6, you can clearly see 'Fooly Cooly', in English, as the title of a magazine article.
Furi Kuri is it's own pun (with multiple meanings strewn across the show), and the English equivalent is part of the pun.
This looks technically amazing considering the circumstances (even if it were done by a team it would still be a high quality production), but very derivative. Especially of FLCL, with the giant creature being dragged around town that swallows people, ect.
And Shirow66, Hideaki Anno did make a Ghibli movie. It's called The Invention of Destruction in the Imaginary Machines, and it's a 5 minute short for the Ghibli museum.
Good to see that you guys are showing a lot of interest towards this project as well.
What music is playing in both trailers?