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Lain's Head Writer, Director Join ABe on Despera (Updated)

Chiaki J. Konaka, the series script supervisor of Serial Experiments Lain, Texhnolyze, and Hellsing, has revealed on Friday that he is collaborating with manga creator/character designer Yoshitoshi ABe and director Ryutaro Nakamura on their new project called Despera. The last time that all three artists had worked together was on the Lain anime series. ABe had revealed the project's existence at Washington state's Sakura-Con 2009 convention in April.

The official announcement and introduction for the project will be made in the July issue of Tokuma Shoten's Animage magazine on Wednesday. (Animage will celebrate its 31st anniversary in that issue.) A graphic novel version will begin a one-year serialized run in the following issue on July 10. Konaka adds that there will also be a "follow-up project" on Animage's website that will be detailed later.

Thank you to weils for the news tip.

Update: According to Moon Phase Comments, the title is derived from a poem from the Dadaist poet Jun Tsuji (1884-1944). The story centers around Ain, a 14-year-old girl who builds devices despite the lack of the scientific background required for them. The science-fiction story is set in Japan's Taishō era in 1922 — one year before the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake in the Tokyo area.