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Kinema Citrus Announces 'Goodbye, Lara,' Ninja Skooler Anime

Kinema Citrus announced at its panel during this year's Anime Central event on Saturday that it is producing two new anime titled Goodbye, Lara (Sayonara Lara) and Ninja Skooler.

Takushi Koide is directing the Goodbye, Lara anime with character designs by Shiori Tani. The anime is based on a concept by Kinema Citrus, and it tells a tale similar to Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid. The story follows a mermaid who makes a forbidden wish to be loved by a human. Following her death, she is reborn 200 years later into modern-day Japan in Lake Biwa, where she learns to adjust in a human world. The setting of Lake Biwa is in Shiga prefecture of Japan, which is also where Koide's hometown is located.

Shunsuke Takarai is directing the Ninja Skooler with character designs by Hami. The anime is based on a concept by Kinema Citrus. The light-hearted anime follows students at a ninja school.

Kinema Citrus is known in recent years as the animation studio that produced Made in Abyss, Revue Starlight, The Rising of The Shield Hero, My Happy Marriage, and Cardfight!! Vanguard overDress. Earlier in its history, the studio was responsible for such anime as Bottom Biting Bug, Yuyushiki, Code:Breaker, Scorching Ping Pong Girls, and Barakamon, and co-production duties on such anime as Black Bullet, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, Is the order a rabbit?, Norn9, and Under the Dog.

Kadokawa is a major owner of Kinema Citrus. Kinema Citrus announced in December 2019 that Bushiroad and Kadokawa had each acquired roughly a third of the shares of the studio. Both each acquired 31.8% of the company's shares (thus controlling 63.6% of shares between them), with Kinema Citrus representative director Muneki Ogasawara maintains a 36.4% controlling stake. The capital tie-up allows the three companies to securely and more confidently develop globally targeted intellectual property. The three companies previously announced a comprehensive business partnership in July 2019. The partnership aims to produce a "stable" intellectual property and producing anime content in response to the growing popularity of anime both domestically and abroad.

Source: Kinema Citrus Panel at Anime Central (Alex Mateo)

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Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.