Sunao Katabuchi Unveils The Mourning Children Film’s Pilot Video, Staff at KyoMAF

The staff of the Kyoto International Manga and Anime Fair revealed on Friday that the event’s panel for Sunao Katabuchi‘s new feature-length anime film The Mourning Children: Nagiko and the Girls Wearing Tsurubami Black (Tsurubami-Iro no Nagiko-tachi) will show the pilot video for the film, and will also reveal more of the film’s staff.

The event will take place on September 16 to 17.

Katabuchi began developing the project in 2017. The story is set in Kyoto during the 10th century “when The Pillow Book was written” by real-life literary figure Sei Shōnagon.

A previous video for the film teased that the film’s story will feature an epidemic, and teased that Sei Shōnagon will be a character in the film, alongside character names such as Koretada, Tokinaka, Chikatada, and Takaie.

Chie Uratani (Hijikata Toshizo: Shiro no Kiseki, Princess Arete, Ushiro no Shōmen Daare) is serving as directing assistant (translated as co-director in a previous video), and Masashi Ando (The Deer King, Princess Mononoke) is the chief animation director. Toshiharu Mizutani (Akira, Children of the Whales, Banana Fish, Little Busters!) is directing the art.

Contrail, the anime studio that Katabuchi established in September 2019, is producing the film. MAPPA‘s Manabu Ohtsuka is Contrail’s representative director, and Katabuchi is a board member. The company is located in Tokyo’s Suginami ward.

Katabuchi has directed such anime as Black Lagoon, Black Lagoon: Roberta’s Blood Trail, Black Lagoon: The Second Barrage, Mai Mai Miracle, Princess Arete, and Meiken Lassie. He wrote the screenplay and directed the critically acclaimed In This Corner of the World film, which opened in November 2016. The extended version of the film, In This Corner (and Other Corners) of the World, opened in Japan in December 2019.

Source: Comic Natalie