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Tokyo Int'l Anime Fair Sponsors 4 Anime Pilots for 2011

The Tokyo International Anime Fair has announced on Friday that it is sponsoring four anime pilots which will be unveiled at next year's fair in March. The "Creator's World Anime Pilot Production Support Project" selected the following works:

• Interior
Creator: French curve/Tetsurō Kodama (Mardock Scramble CGI director, Yasai no Yōsei - N.Y. Salad art director, Namie Amuro's "Wild/Dr.")
Interior (pictured above) centers around the unprofitable artist Sam, the unprofitable playwright Bowman, and their friend Gurekku. The one thing they all have in common is that they are poor. The three decide to enter a contest to earn money — but since they cannot afford to mail their entries, they decide to take the long trip to the competition site to bring their entries in person. Kodama is planning the project as a series of 10-minute episodes that will last about 13 to 26 weeks.

• Kanai
Creator: Studio RF/Romanov Higa (Catblue: Dynamite, TANK S.W.A.T. 01, Metal Gear Sold: Peace Walker cut scenes, Hellsing Ultimate action director)
The action story follows three girls who grow up on the island of Okinawa — and discover a robot.

• Monster ni Natta Domerika
Creator: Kazuya Ichikawa (Shadow Skill 3/SOS TV Walpurgis Night Fever director, Appleseed: Ex Machina CG layout and motion team leader)
In this "action epic" set in the run-down slums, the title character Domerika is transformed into a monster one day.

• Kaseki Dorobō to Kyōryūseki
Creator: Kenji Mutō (Cavity Express, Gift)/Sugarless Factory/Honesuta
The dinosaur fantasy revolves around a 12-year-old girl named Yuta and her buddy Gobi — who happens to be a fossil. The two embark on a journey to chase a fossil thief and find Gobi's stolen fossil mother. Mutō drew inspiration from Jules Verne's A Journey to the Center of the Earth and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World.

The Association of Japanese Animations (AJA) is footing part of the bill for the pilots, which will each cost 1.5 million yen (about US$18,000) and run about four to five minutes in length.

Sources: animeanime.jp, Gigazine

Image © Kodama