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Surreal Post-Apocalyptic Animal Anime Donyatsu's 1st Short Streamed

The official website for Donyatsu, the anime adaptation of Yuusuke Kozaki's surreal manga about animal/snack hybrids in a post-apocalyptic world, began streaming the first anime short on Sunday. In the short, Donyatsu — a feline donut mix voiced by Yukari Tamura — plays a game of catch with the half bagel Begaru (Keiji Fujiwara), but things go awry.

The second version of the ending anime sequence is also streaming by itself. The sequence features the theme song "Toroamachu" by "Hikarin Shiina" (a wordplay on voice actress Hikari Shiina).

In addition to Tamura and Fujiwara, Junji Majima voices "Baumcougar," a cougar/Baumkuchen mix, while Saori Hayashi plays "Kumacaron," a bear/macaron hybrid. Shiina rounds out the cast as the cat/roll cake "Rōnya."

The anime shorts, each roughly two minutes long, began running before feature films in Tokyo's Shinjuku Wald 9 and other theaters in the T-Joy chain on June 1. A new short will debut every month from director Mankyū (PUCHIM@S, Tono to Issho, 30-sai no Hoken Taiiku, Kakko-Kawaii Sengen!) and the studio Gathering (PUCHIM@S, Tono to Issho, 30-sai no Hoken Taiiku, Inumarudashi—).

Kozaki launched the manga in Square Enix's Young Gangan magazine in December 2011, and Square Enix published the second compiled book volume this past March.

Kozaki is arguable best known outside Japan for his design work in the Fire Emblem Awakening, No More Heroes, and Osu! Tatakae! Oendan games. He also created designs for the Speed Grapher anime, which led to his role as character designer for Sunrise's Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto. He designed the virtual idol duo Meaw for the Starchild Records label. Kozaki published his first major manga series Kyoko Karasuma - Detective of the Asakusa Police Department in 2002 in the magazine Mystery B-Street. He will appear as a guest at the "Japan Expo, 1st Impact" convention in California in August.