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Japan Animator Expo Streams 'Ragnarok' by Appleseed Director Katayama
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
The official website for Japan Anima(tor)'s Exhibition (Japan Animator Expo), the weekly anime shorts from Hideaki Anno's Studio Khara and the media company Dwango, began streaming the 33rd short "Ragnarok" ("Sekai no Kuni Kara Konnichiwa," or "Hello from the Countries of the World") on Friday.
Kazuyoshi Katayama (Appleseed OAV, Those Who Hunt Elves) wrote the script and directed the original work. Rui Takatō (Devilman G) handled the character design and Yutaka Izubuchi (RahXephon, Patlabor the Mobile Police) handled the robot design. Masami Ozone (Tiger & Bunny The Movie -The Rising-) directed the animation at studio Bridge.
Animator Expo describes the story:
This is the story of the future a little bit ahead.The Japanese representative robot, demonstrated at the venue of The International Giant Robot Exhibition in Odaiba, goes out of control due to an unknown cause and destroys buildings around the venue.
The police and Japan Self-Defence force cannot stop the robot, and the American and Russian robots are sent out to save the situation along with the request from Japanese government and the exhibition association office.
However, because of the horrible power of the Japanese robot, a fight has begun between them.
They fire missiles and shoot energy beam, which should not be loaded, and the area around the venue becomes a battle field.
The UK, Chinese and German robots become victims of the circumstance and jump into the battle.
The situation gets into a battle royal.
Who will be a survivor?
The website for the short is also displaying the robot designs, character designs, artboards, backgrounds, background setting images, and storyboards.
The lineup for the third season of the project is as follows:
| Title | Director/Staff |
|---|---|
| Endless night (TBC) | Sayo Yamamoto |
| GIRL | Hibiki Yoshizaki |
| Cassette Girl | Hiroyasu Kobayashi |
| Ragnarok | Kazuyoshi Katayama |
| COMEDY SKIT 1989 | Kazuto Nakazawa |
| THE ULTRAMAN | Akitoshi Yokoyama |
| NEON GENESIS IMPACTS. | Yūhei Sakuragi |
| (To Be Determined) | Hiroyuki Okiura |
| HAMMERHEAD | Otaro Maijo × Mahiro Maeda |
| BUREAU OF PROTO SOCIETY | Yasuhiro Yoshiura |
| BUBU & BUBULINA | Takashi Nakamura |
The titles above are listed in phonetic Japanese order, and are not necessarily in the order of their scheduled release. For the third season, Japan Animator Expo is once again releasing a new episode every Friday.
Hideaki Anno himself is serving as executive producer of the entire project initiative with Dwango President Nobuo Kawakami, and he also designed the image character mascot "(Tor)-kun." Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki created the title logo, and fellow Ghibli co-founder Toshio Suzuki colored it. The shorts mostly feature the voice talent of Ranma ½ and Cowboy Bebop co-stars Kouichi Yamadera and Megumi Hayashibara.
Image © nihon animator mihonichi LLP.
