News
First Squad, Summer Wars' English-Subbed Promos Posted
posted on by Egan Loo
Last week's Locarno International Film Festival posted the opening sequence of First Squad - The Moment Of Truth and the 155-second opening of Summer Wars — with English subtitles — online. (In the linked pages, select the "Extra" menu items.) The same festival in Switzerland also posted a 63-second video clip for Takeshi Koike and MADHOUSE's Redline car-racing anime film.
First Squad is set during the opening days of World War II on the Eastern Front. A group of Soviet teenagers with extraordinary abilities have been drafted into a special unit to fight the invading German army. Opposing them is a Schutzstaffel (SS) officer who is attempting to raise from the dead an army of crusaders from the 12th-century Order of the Sacred Cross and enlist them in the Nazi cause. Russian artists Misha Sprits and Aljosha Klimov created First Squad, and Yoshiharu Ashino (Tweeny Witches) is directing the project in Japan at Studio 4°C. The film premiered at the Moscow International Film Festival in June and won the Kommersant newspaper's prize.
Summer Wars is the next anime film from Mamoru Hosoda (Digimon movies, Superflat Monogram) after his award-winning The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (Toki o Kakeru Shōjo or TokiKake). The light-hearted "action entertainment" story revolves around a modern-day family on a midsummer adventure. The project reunites many of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time's staffers, including scriptwriter Satoko Okudera (Angel, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Miyori no Mori) and character designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto (Evangelion, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, FLCL). The Summer Wars film opened in Japan on August 1, and the YouTube website is streaming a longer 5-minute opening in Japanese.
The North American anime distributor Funimation has posted a promotional video for ShoDojo.com, the website that it describes as "your anime video community." Funimation officially unveiled the beta version of the website at Anime Expo in July.
Source: Catsuka via AnimeNation for the Locarno videos
© 2009 Summer Wars Film Partners
