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Naoko Yamada and Eunyoung Choi Will Be Guests at Edinburgh Scotland Loves Anime (Updated)

The Scotland Loves Animation has announced that Naoko Yamada and Eunyoung Choi will both be guests at the Edinburgh leg of the Scotland Loves Animation festival in October. They will be on stage after the world premiere screening of the 20-minute film Garden of Remembrance, which Yamada directed and Chōi produced. In the picture to the right, Yamada is on the left and Chōi is on the right.

The screening, which was previously listed in the festival schedule as a 'mystery film," is at 5.50 pm. on Friday October 28 and tickets are available here. Andrew Partridge of Anime Limited added that Yamada and Chōi will be on stage for a 60-minute session.

Yamada is a veteran director on several Kyoto Animation works, before leaving the studio and moving to Sceince Saru as a director in 2021. There she directed The Heike Story, her first work with the studio, which debuted in September 2021. In Kyoto Animation, she directed some of the studio's most iconic works, including K-On!, A Silent Voice, Liz and the Blue Bird, Tamako Market, and Tamako Love Story. She was also the series director on Sound! Euphonium.

Chōi is the co-founder and CEO of the Science SARU studio. Her numerous credits include storyboarding on Night is Short, Walk On Girl, animation director on DEVILMAN crybaby and directing episodes of Ping Pong and Space Dandy, as well as the "Akakiri" episode of Star Wars: Visions.

Anime studio Science SARU announced Garden of Remembrance at this year's Annecy International Animation Film Festival. Yamada and Science SARU previewed the anime as part of the festival's Work in Progress track for ongoing productions.

Manga creator Etsuko Mizusawa (Hello, this is Terumi.) is the anime's original character designer. Singer-songwriter Lovely Summer-chan composed the anime's music.

According to Science SARU co-founder and producer Eunyoung Choi, she brought up the idea of making a short anime film centered on music to Naoko Yamada. Yamada described the theme of the anime: "Someone is thinking of someone, where is the heart's destination." Both Chōi and Yamada came up with keywords and concepts for the project, compiling it into a single poem, with Yamada producing the film and Lovely Summer-chan composing the music off of that poem. In the announcement, Yamada described Lovely Summer-chan as an "invincible girl."

Yamada also noted that she requested character designs from Mizusawa, and described the characters as "feeling like real, living girls... almost so real that you feel like you can smell the drool from them napping and sink into their cuteness." Yamada requested that Mizusawa draw the characters in a "chubby" way.

The event is described on the Scotland Loves Anime website as follows:

"Be the first to see the new film from incredible director Naoko Yamada - this short film is followed by a Q&A with the director herself and Science SARU CEO Eunyoung Choi as they discuss their work on this new work.

"An untidy room. Empty beer tins, empty wine bottles, a half-empty glass of whisky...

"A girl is getting up absent-mindedly and starts preparing herself. YOUR morning starts. Lazy and hard-to-wake-up YOU. The emoticon is ME watching over YOU. I play tricks on YOU, while YOU are playing the guitar and drinking. One day, in town, YOU walk past THE CHILDHOOD FRIEND who is buying an Anemone I liked, and remembering that I liked them, YOU rush out to buy them. THE CHILDHOOD FRIEND displays the Anemone with care.

"One day, years after I died, YOU hear noise from the closet. Opened, YOU see MY garden right in front of YOU. Overflowing emotions of ME and YOU.

"When exiting from the room with memories, a picture of the Anemone that YOU painted is displayed in YOUR new room."

Update - More details added.