Image via Kimi no Iro Movie X/Twitter Account
© 2024 「きみの色」製作委員会
GKIDS announced at the AnimeNYC industry panel on Saturday that Science SARU and Naoko Yamada's The Colors Inside (Kimi no Iro) anime feature film, as well as Shinei Animation and France's Miyu Productions' 2D animated film Ghost Cat Anzu, will hit North American theaters in winter 2024.
The Colors Inside will open in Japan on August 30. GKIDS has acquired the film for North America, Latin America, Australia, and New Zealand. Anime Ltd. has acquired the film for Europe. PLAION PICTURES will handle Italian and German-speaking territories, while CHARADES will handle sales for the rest of Europe, Latin America, Australia, and New Zealand.
The story revolves around Totsuko, a high school girl who can see the “colors” of emotions in people’s hearts. She attends a missionary school in Nagasaki. In order to keep her friends and family from feeling dark, she worries, reads situations, and even lies to solve things. At an antique bookstore on the corner of town, she meets a beautiful woman with incredibly beautiful skin and a music-loving boy who is trying to form a band. The story follows these three sensitive people who come together to play in a band.
Yamada directed the film at Science SARU. Story Inc. is credited as planner and producer. Reiko Yoshida (K-ON!, Girls und Panzer, Ride Your Wave, Violet Evergarden) wrote the script and Kensuke Ushio (Space Dandy, A Silent Voice, Liz and the Blue Bird, Chainsaw Man) composed the music. Daisuke Richard designed the original characters, while Takashi Kojima designed the characters and served as animation director.
The film premiered at this year's Annecy International Film Festival in early June. It also won the Best Animated Feature Award at the 26th Shanghai International Film Festival in June.
Image via Ghost Cat Anzu's X/Twitter
©️いましろたかし・講談社／化け猫あんずちゃん製作委員会
Ghost Cat Anzu opens in Japan on July 19.
The film stars:
Mutsuo Yoshioka and Shōhei Uno also provide voice acting.
The cast also played the characters in scenes that served as reference for animating the characters, with their dialogue during their motion capture also used in the film.
Yōko Kuno and Nobuhiro Yamashita are directing the film, and Shinji Imaoka is writing the script. The 90-minute film uses mixed animation techniques that combine 2D digital animation with rotoscopy. Yōko Kuno is the character designer, Julien De Man is the art director and color artist, Namiko Ishidate and Yukie Nakauchi are the animation directors, and Keiichi Suzuki is composing the music.
Chiaki Satō (ASAB) performs the theme song “Maatatabi”.
The film will premiere in its final form at the Annecy Animated Film Festival in June 2023. Paris-based CHARADES will handle international sales. GKIDS has acquired the North American rights to the film.
Miyu Productions describes the story in the film:
Karin, 11, is abandoned by her father at the home of her grandfather, a monk in a small town in rural Japan. Her grandfather asks Anzu, a cheerful and helpful though rather temperamental werecat, to take care of her. The meeting of their strong characters sparks, at least at first…
Kodansha published the one-volume manga Bakeneko Anzu-chan in 2007.
Source: GKIDS panel at AnimeNYC (Anita Tai)
