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Oshii Develops, Writes Musashi Miyamoto Samurai Film (Update 2)

Award-winning anime creator and director Mamoru Oshii (Patlabor, Ghost in the Shell, The Sky Crawlers) is developing and writing Miyamoto Musashi: Sōken ni Haseru Yume (Musashi Miyamoto: The Dream of Riding with Two Swords), a Production I.G samurai anime film scheduled for early summer of 2009. The actual director of the project will be Mizuho Nishikubo, an animation director for Oshii's Ghost in the Shell films, Patlabor 2: The Movie, The Sky Crawlers, and the anime sequence in Kill Bill: Volume 1. Before this new film, Nishikubo's most prominent directorial work was another Production I.G samurai work, the Otogi Zoshi television series.

The new film's story will center on Musashi Miyamoto, one of the most famous swordsmen in Japanese history. He pioneered the Hyōhō Niten Ichi-ryū style of two-sword fighting and wrote The Book of Five Rings, a book that has been compared to Sun Tzu's The Art of War for its insight on tactics and strategy.

A prominent colleague of Nishikubo, Samurai Champloo and Kill Bill: Volume 1 animation director Kazuto Nakazawa, will design the characters in the Musashi Miyamoto film. Kazuchika Kise, an animation director and supervisor on Blood+, Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone, and The Ghost in the Shell films, will perform the same duties on this new work. Shūichi Hirata (Ghost in the Shell 2, Metropolis) will direct the art design, and Blood + and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex's 3D director Makoto Endō will handle the computer animation. Pony Canyon will distribute the film in Japan.

Early summer of 2009 is also when the second Evangelion theatrical remake, Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance, will open in Japan. Oshii recently finished The Sky Crawlers film this past summer, and Sony Pictures will release the film internationally. Oshii supervised the Kiru ~ KILL anthology of live-action sword-fighting action sequences and contributed one short to the anthology. He is also writing and directing his first stage play, next year's adaptation of Tetsujin 28 (Gigantor).

Source: animeanime.jp

Image © 2009 Miyamoto Musashi: Sōken ni Haseru Yume Production Committee (Tentative)

Update: The historical Miyamoto figure has directly or indirectly inspired several earlier manga and anime stories. Those stories include Toei Animation's Wanpaku Nitouryou - Shounen Miyamoto Musashi television special (1982), Gōshō Aoyama's Yaiba manga and television series (1988-1993), Phoenix Animation's Ninja Resurrection video (1988), Studio Comet's Shura no Toki television series (2004), and Monkey Punch's Musashi television series (2006). Perhaps the most popular manga based on Miyamoto is Takehiko Inoue's ongoing epic samurai series, Vagabond. Thanks, Jedi General.

Update 2: Kise's spelling corrected. Thanks, reanimator.