Missed out on the world premiere and announcement of Wit Studio's newest anime at Anime Expo? Check out our exclusive video interview with the production team for the Great Pretender airing next year! Guests include Director Hiro Kaburagi (鏑木ひろ), Character Designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto (貞本義行), Screenwriter Ryota Kosawa (古沢良太), and Producer George Wada (和田丈嗣).
Granblue Fantasy is one of the most popular Japanese mobile game worldwide. The game's popularity has led to an upcoming fighting game, Granblue Fantasy: Versus, and a separate RPG game titled Granblue Fantasy:
During this year's Anime Expo, UNIVRS animation director Junichi Yamamoto told us with his new Kickstarter campaign for Little Witch Academia: VR Broom Racing, there were a lot of challenges involved to make sure that the game was still fun and intuitive on a VR device. We sat down with Junichi Yamamoto to talk about his involvement with the direction of the project. Read on for the full interview!
On November 3, Aniplex held the North American premiere for the first film in a three part trilogy, Fate/stay night [Heaven's Feel] THE MOVIE I. presage flower at the Ace Hotel in Los Angeles, California. Heaven's Feel is the third and final route of the original Fate/Stay night visual novel released in 2004. Learn a little about the history and the creation process of the film as we briefly chat with Director Tomonori Sudo (Sudou).
Aniplex of America celebrated the English release of Fate/Grand Order (FGO) at this year’s Anime Expo. FGO is a popular mobile game based on the Fate series by Kinoko Nasu and TYPE-MOON that is currently the top grossing app in Japan on iTunes and Google Play. Right before the official panel, we had the opportunity for a very brief chat backstage with Creative Director Yosuke Shiokawa, Producer Atsuhiro Iwakami, and with Ayako Kawasumi who voices the iconic character, Saber.
While in Seattle for Sakura-Con 2015, we sat down behind closed doors in a round table interview with voice actor Yoshitsugu Matsuoka who is best know for his work as Kirito in Sword Art Online, Sora in No Game No Life, and Yukihira Souma in Shokugeki no Souma; and Producer Shinichiro Kashiwada who has worked on Oreimo, Sword Art Online, and Fate/Zero.
While in attendance at Sakura-Con 2015, we here at The-O Network had the privilege to interview long-time animation director and character designer Hiromi Kato (Digimon: The Movie (U.S.), Death Note (TV), Di Gi Charat (TV), Azumanga Daioh (TV), Ah! My Goddess (TV), Revolutionary Girl Utena (TV), and Guilty Crown (TV)), and asked him a few questions regarding his involvement in the upcoming anime adaptation of the popular smartphone series Chain Chronicle. Read about his thought processes on adapting an existing character vs original along with some information on his future works!
While attending the Los Angeles premiere of Gen Urobuchi's latest film Expelled from Paradise our staffer, Salvador Mateos, had a chance to sit down and talk to the film's producer Koichi Noguchi to ask a little bit about the film and his role within production. With a background in 3D CG production, we speak with Kouichi about his thoughts on the animation industry in Japan along with what he wants audiences to take away from his critically acclaimed sci-fi film.
Shinji Aramaki is a pioneer in 3D Japanese animation. As a director, he brought cell shading to the movie screen with Appleseed in 2004 and followed up with a new and stunning graphical direction for the 2007 sequel, Appleseed Ex Machina. Over the next several years, Aramaki continued to direct 3DCG movies including Starship Troopers: Invasion, and the 2013 adaption of Space Pirate Captain Harlock.
We caught up with Aramaki at Japan Expo USA in California and sat down with him to talk about his most recent work, Appleseed Alpha which pushes the boundaries of animation with photorealistic CG. We also asked him a little about the upcoming 1/6 scale figurine of Briareos made by Hot Toys and got a glimpse into a possible future of the Appleseed movie franchise.
For fans of Japanese visual novel-style games, the name Key evokes a lot of fond memories, magical storylines and endearing characters that often culminate into an cathartic bliss that I personally like to describe as "tear nirvana." Known as the company behind the scripts for tearjerker anime such as Kanon, Air and most recently Little Busters!, VisualArt's, Key's parent company, has finally begun to localize these timeless visual novels into English as part of a collaboration with the localization company Sekai Project.
With the recent release of the kinetic novel Planetarian already under their belt, the next big project for the two companies will be the upcoming Kickstarter campaign for Clannad; the title that is often arguably seen as the company's magnum opus. Take a trip with us as we interview Genki Tenkumo, one of the scenario writers for Clannad, and Yoshikuni Toyoizumi, one of VisualArt's PR representatives, at Japan Expo USA 2014 to discuss the company's plans and their hopes for the English market.