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Colorful, Arrietty, Stitch, Evangelion Promos Streamed

The official website for Keiichi Hara and Sunrise's anime film adaptation of Eto Mori's Colorful young adults' novel is now streaming a 90-second trailer. Hara, the director best known for Summer Days with Coo, is adapting the novel which won the Sankei Children's Publishing Cultural Prize in 1999. (The novel and film are unrelated to Torajirou Kishi's Colorful manga and television anime series.) The "heart-warming comedy" follows a person who finds himself trapped outside the normal endless circle of life and death. Thanks to winning a lottery in the angel world, the protagonist is brought back to inhabit the body of a 14-year-old boy — who just committed suicide. Thus, the protagonist begins a new life. The film will open on August 21.

Mitsubushi Group's official channel on the YouTube website began streaming a 15-second high-definition "Kumo-kun" ("Spider") tie-in commercial between Mitsubishi's MS&AD Holdings and Studio Ghibli on Monday. The commercial features brief footage from the Karigurashi no Arrietty film by first-time feature director Hiromasa Yonebayashi and Studio Ghibli. The film adapts Mary Norton's 1952 British novel The Borrowers about small people who live under the floorboards of regular people. MS&AD Holdings is the parent company of Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance, Aioi Insurance, and Nissay Dowa General Insurance. Karigurashi no Arrietty will open in Japan on July 17.

The TV Asahi Broadcasting station is streaming a 30-second commercial for the new Stitch!: Zutto Saikō no Tomodachi anime series. (In the linked page, select the movie thumbnail image in the lower lefthand corner.) The new series continues the story of the alien creature Stitch and its human friend Yūna from the previous two television series from the Madhouse anime studio. In the new series, however, Shinei Animation (Doraemon, Crayon Shin-chan) is producing. In the story, Yūna moves from Izayoi (a fictional island in southern Japan) to New Town (a fictional town in Okinawa), and she transfers to a new school. The television series premieres in Japan on Tuesday.

Japan's Fuji-Q Highland amusement park has posted its third and fourth progress report videos on the world's first life-size bust of the EVA-01 unit from the Evangelion anime franchise. The third video covers the head unit, the finishing touches on the bust, the life-size figure of the character Kaworu Nagisa, and the floor map. The fourth video covers the test assembly of the parts, the special effects testing, the transportation of the disassembled parts, and the construction of the entry plug cockpit. The first two progress report videos are still available, and the fifth video will debut on Wednesday. The "Evangelion: World - Life-Size EVA-01 Construction Project" pavilion will open on July 23.

Images © 2010 Eto Mori/Colorful Production Committee
© 2010 GNDHDDTW
© Disney
© Khara

[Via Nippon Cinema, Nausicaa.net]