Studio 4°C‘s official Twitter account revealed the cast members, more staff, the Japanese title, and the September 13 worldwide Disney+ debut date for Phoenix: Eden17, a new anime of Osamu Tezuka‘s Phoenix manga, on Thursday. The anime’s Japanese title is Hi no Tori: Eden no Sora (literally, Phoenix: Eden’s Space).
In addition, the anime will also have a film version with a different ending titled Phoenix: Reminiscence of Flower (Hi no Tori: Eden no Hana, literally “Eden’s Flower”) which will open in Japan on November 3. Studio 4°C unveiled a new teaser trailer and visual for Phoenix: Reminiscence of Flower.
© Beyond C.
© Beyond C.
The new cast members for both Phoenix: Eden17 and Phoenix: Reminiscence of Flower include (in matching columns left to right in image above):
- Honoka Yoshida as Com
- Yosuke Kubozuka as George
- Rie Miyazawa as Romi
- Issey Ogata as Sudarban
The new staff members include Katsunari Mano (Death Note Light up the NEW world) and Saku Konohana (Children of the Sea) as scriptwriters, Yūko Egami as color key artist, Kōji Kasamatsu as sound director, and Eiko Tanaka as producer.
Shōjirō Nishimi (Mutafukaz, Batman: Gotham Knight “Have I Got a Story for You,” Ani-Kuri 15 “Invasion from Space – Hiroshi’s Case”) is directing the anime at Studio 4°C. Tatsuzou Nishida (Children of the Sea chief animator) is designing the characters, and is also the chief animation director. Shinji Kimura (Children of the Sea) is the art director. Akiko Saito is the technical line director and CGI director. Kengo Shigemura is editing.
© Beyond C.
The anime follows a woman named Romi and her partner as they depart from the devastated Earth and head for a new life on the planet Eden17. However, life has already been made extinct on the new world, so Romi finds herself eking out an even harsher life there. The anime is based on the “Nostalgia” arc of the original manga, which the official Osamu Tezuka website describes as follows:
The story line of this chapter begins with the death of George in an accident shortly after he and his lover Romi begin to live a new life by themselves on the desert Planet Eden 71. Romi was pregnant with George’s baby at that time.
Having decided to protect the planet and her child by herself, she repeatedly shuns the world to try to have descendents with George’s child. She tried many times but could only have boys. After isolating herself, she wakes up to find an affluent town named Eden.
Phoenix had let an amorphous cosmic creature named Moopie have children with the Romi’s descendents. Romi becomes the queen of Eden, but gradually begins to long for earth.
One day, an Eden boy named Com comes upon a mysterious spaceship made of rock in the prohibited deep mountains. Together with Romi, Com departs for the earth of his ancestors that he has never seen.
Sources: Studio 4°C‘s Twitter account, Comic Natalie
