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I.G, Shirow's Real Drive Anime Streams New Promo Movie

The Nippon TV broadcasting station is streaming a new promotional movie for Production I.G and Masamune Shirow's Real Drive (RD Sennō Chōsashitsu) television anime series. The video premiered in Nippon TV's booth at Tokyo International Anime Fair 2008. The promo emphasizes that this project is the newest collaboration from I.G and Shirow, the creative force behind The Ghost in the Shell anime projects and Ghost Hound. Kazuhiro Furuhashi (Le Chevalier D'Eon, Rurouni Kenshin, Zipang) directs this series which will premieres on April 8 in Japan.

The Real Drive "neo-futuristic science-fiction suspense" story is set in A.D. 2061, when a new, supposedly more secure information network called the Material Network (or "Metal") has taken over human society. However, aberrations begin to crop up as individuals chafe against the rigid system, and so-called "cyber divers" are dispatched to investigate these incidents. The video introduces the main cast: the cyber driver Mari, an "intuitive girl" named Minamo, the team's head Eiichirō, the combat expert Sōta, and the android Horon.

In related news, Kodansha's Monthly Magazine Z and the comic.jp mobile manga website will serialize two different spinoff manga. Magazine Z will debut its Real Drive manga adaptation on April 26 in its June issue. Momotarō Miyano will pen this version. The comic.jp site will start distributing its Chokkan Shōjo Minamo: RD Sennō Chōsashitsu (The Intuitive Girl Minamo: Real Drive Cyber-Diving Investigation Unit) manga on April 6. As the name implies, it will focus on original stories for the anime character Minamo. The anime script editor Jun'ichi Fujisaku (Blood+, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Tsubasa and xxxHOLiC movies) will pen these 26 weekly stories which will debut on comic.jp on April 6.

Source: Saishin Anime Jōhō, Ultimatum, animeanime.jp

Image © Production I.G/Shirow Masamune © 2008 DNDP, VAP, Production I.G