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Newspaper: Evangelion's Hideaki Anno to Star in Ghibli's Kaze Tachinu Film

The Sankei Sports newspaper is reporting on Friday that 52-year-old Evangelion director Hideaki Anno will make his feature anime film voice-acting debut as the protagonist Jirō Horikoshi in Hayao Miyazaki's new film Kaze Tachinu (The Wind Is Rising). This will be the first film from Miyazaki since Ponyo about five years ago.

Anno worked as an animator on Miyazaki's 1984 film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, and he agreed to do the role when asked due to his long relationship with Miyazaki. Among other small roles, Anno also played a guest role in the 2002 television anime Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi. He remarked on how difficult it is to voice the many lines in Horikoshi's fast-paced voice.

In February 2009, Miyazaki launched a two-part manga mini-series called "Kaze Tachinu" that focuses on Jirō Horikoshi, the designer of Japan's famed Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter plane of World War II. Author Tatsuo Hori also wrote a novel called Kaze Tachinu, and the film's tagline on the poster references both real-life figures and paraphrases Hori's book: "Show respect for Jiro Horikoshi and Tatsuo Hori. We must try to live." (Hori himself was reportedly quoting Paul Valéry's "Le cimetière marin" or "The Graveyard By The Sea" poem, which read, "Le vent se lève! . . . il faut tenter de vivre!" or "The Wind Is Rising! . . . We must try to live!")

TOHO had planned to release another anime film from Ghibli, Isao Takahata's Kaguya-hime no Monogatari (The Tale of Princess Kaguya), on the same day as Kaze Tachinu. However, TOHO announced last month that it delayed Takahata's film until this fall.

Kaze Tachinu will open in Japan on July 20. Yumi Matsutoya (Kiki's Delivery Service) is providing the “Hikōki Gumo” theme song for the film.

[Via tsk06]