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Khara, Dwango's 2nd Japan Animator Expo Short Posted With English Subtitles
posted on by Egan Loo
Japan Animator Expo, the project of weekly anime shorts from Hideaki Anno's Studio Khara and the media company Dwango, began streaming the full second short titled “Hill Climb Girl” on Friday.
The seven-minute video is streaming with English subtitles. In the linked page, select "EN" at the top right corner for the English version of the page, and make sure the "English subtitles" link below the video is active.
The official website describes the story:
Hinako, a high school girl, loves to ride a bicycle, who respects a professional road racer. Every morning she competes with a boy of her classmate to the way to their school on the hill, riding her mama chari bicycle, but she loses the game every time. Frustrated Hinako gets a chance for winning the game from the video of her favorite cycle racer and is ready for the game next morning…
Like the first short that premiered at the Tokyo International Film Festival last month, the second short features the voice talent of Ranma 1/2 and Cowboy Bebop co-stars Kouichi Yamadera and Megumi Hayashibara, and Dan Kanemitsu translated the short on behalf of Khara.
The rest of the staff includes:
Director Azuma Tani
Animation Production: Studio Khara digital department
3DCGI director: Takeshi Miyagi
Charactor design: Mai Yoneyama
Editing: Hidemi Li
Art Director: Ryusuke Shiino (ClockDance Inc.)
Color Design: Fusako Nakao (Wish)
Extra character design: Satoshi Ohkubo (imagnet Inc.)
Music Production: Rie Shimasue (King Record)
Sound Effect: Tōru Noguchi (anime sound)
Sound Effect Director: Haru Yamada (sound team・DonJuan)
Sound Effect Production: sound team・donjuan
Music: Yasuyuki Sasaki
Anno himself is serving as executive producer of the initiative with Dwango President Nobuo Kawakami, and he also designed the image character mascot "(Tor)-kun." Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki created the title logo, and fellow Ghibli co-founder Toshio Suzuki colored it.
One new short will stream every week for a planned total of 30 shorts, ranging from original projects and spinoffs to promotional videos and music videos. Each episode will be streamed for free via a dedicated iOS/Android app and on the web. There are no plans for a commercial release at this stage.
The project is holding a contest for opening animation sequences.
Image © 2014 Ōtarō Maijō/nihon animator mihonichi, LLP
