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Gainax Fukushima Tohoku Earthquake Short Gets 25-Minute Version

Anime studio Gainax Fukushima's "Omoi no Kakera" (Fragments of Feelings) animated short to promote Fukushima and Tohoku will get a 25-minute version. The extended version will run on NHK on March 24 at 8:15. The channel will also run the original two-minute and five-minute versions intermittently.

The original two-minute short follows junior high student Hina Satō (voiced by Kiyono Yasuno), an energetic girl living in a seaport town in Tohoku. Her mother (Miho Arakawa) passed away during the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami and now she lives with her father in temporary housing. Over the course of the short, Hina remembers her mother and the effects of the earthquake.

Yoshinori Asao wrote the screenplay and served as general director while Shouji Saeki (Medaka Box) directed and storyboarded the short. Manami Umeshita (Stella Women's Academy, High School Division Class C3) designed the characters and Taiiku Okazaki scored the music.

Gainax Fukushima's website will publish a making-of video in the future. The branch also animated a series of commercials for TOHO Bank. The two-episode anime short to promote the city of Date in Fukushima Prefecture will screen on April 24 with voice actors Sarah Emi Bridcutt and Ayumu Murase.

[Via Yara-On!]