News
Professor Layton, Space Show to Premiere in UK in May
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
The British Film Institute (BFI) in London will be hosting an "Anime Weekend" film event from May 21 to May 23. The event will screen the U.K. premieres of Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva and Welcome to THE SPACE SHOW. It will also screen the anime films Chocolate Underground, Evangelion: 1.0 You Are [Not] Alone, Evangelion: 2.0 You Can [Not] Advance, and Stormy Night, as well as Viz's live-action, novel-based K20: The Fiend with Twenty Faces film.
Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva (Layton Kyōju to Eien no Utahime), an animated movie based on Nintendo and Level5's hit puzzle adventure game series, opened in Japanese theaters at #6 on December 19. Castmembers Yō Ōizumi (Brave Story, Howl's Moving Castle) and Maki Horikita (Densha Otoko series, Always: Sunset on Third Street) reprised their respective roles of Layton and Luke in the movie. Manga Entertainment recently announced that it will release the movie on DVD and Blu-Ray in September.
Welcome to THE SPACE SHOW is a science-fiction film by the R.O.D. Read or Die anime franchise's core team of director Koji Masunari, writer Hideyuki Kurata, and character designer Masashi Ishihama. The story begins in the countryside during the summer vacation of fifth grader Natsuki Ōyama. Natsuki just moved here in June, and she and four of her schoolmates are about to embark on an adventure together that will take them beyond the fields they call home.
Chocolate Underground is the anime version of the Bootleg novel by British author Alex Shearer. The film opened in Japan in January 2009 under the satirical novel's Japanese name, Chocolate Underground. Like the novel, the film and the earlier net-streamed version follow two English boys who create a bootleg chocolate factory after their country bans chocolate. Production I.G (Ghost in the Shell, Kimi ni Todoke) and Trance Arts (The Prince of Tennis) had premiered their anime version on Japanese mobile phones on Valentine's Day 2008. The theatrical release added 20 minutes of new footage. Takayuki Hamana (The Prince of Tennis, Library War) directed the project.
Evangelion: 2.0 You Can [Not] Advance (Evangelion Shin Gekijōban: Ha) is the second film in the theatrical film remake of Anno and Gainax's Neon Genesis Evangelion television anime series. The film continues the story of a group of 14-year-olds entrusted with giant biomechanical units to protect Earth from mysterious Angels. It opened in Japan in June 2009. It then ran in Spain's Sitges, Scotland's Glasgow Film Festival, Canada's Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema, France's Lyon Asian Film Festival, and at the Irish Film Institute in Dublin. Funimation had released versions of the first film, Evangelion: 1.0 You Are [Not] Alone (Evangelion Shin Gekijōban: Jo), in North America in 2009 on DVD and the reissue, Evangelion 1.11: You Are (Not) Alone, this year.
Stormy Night is a 2005 children's animated film about a wolf and a goat who become friends during a stormy night and how they overcome their differences.
The film event will also screen Evangelion 1.0 and the live-action film K-20: The Fiend with Twenty Faces based on Soh Kitamura's novel The Story of Nijyumenso.
[Via UK Anime Network]
Images © Khara, Gainax
© A-1 Pictures/Welcome To The Space Show Production Committee
© 2009 Chocolate Underground Production Committee
© LEVEL-5/Team Layton 2009
© 2005 Stormy Night Film Partners
