News
Hosoda's Mirai no Mirai in Cinemas on November 2
posted on by Andrew Osmond
Following a news story on Anime UK News, Anime Limited has confirmed to ANN that Mamoru Hosoda's latest film, Mirai no Mirai (Mirai From the Future), will be released in the UK and Ireland cinemas on November 2. (The film will open in Japan on July 20.)
A website for the film has been launched here. According to Anime UK News, the film will be released in a subtitled edition; it is unconfirmed whether there will also be an English-dubbed edition. The film will be distributed by Anime Limited and National Amusements. [NB: An earlier version of this article wrongly gave Altitude Films as one of the distributors; apologies for the mistake.]
The tagline on the poster reads, "I met the future."
The film's story centers around a family living in a small house in an obscure corner of a certain city — in particular, the family's spoiled four-year-old boy KUN-chan. When KUN-chan gets a little sister named Mirai, he feels that his new sister stole his parents' love from him, and is overwhelmed by many experiences he undergoes for the first time in his life. In the midst of it all, he meets an older version of Mirai, who has come from the future.
Hosoda is directing the film at his Studio Chizu, and is also credited as scriptwriter and for the original story. Hiroyuki Aoyama – the animation director on earlier Hosoda films The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars, and The Boy and The Beast – and Ayako Hata – a key animator on the same films, are returning for this new film as animation directors. Yohei Takamatsu and Takashi Omori, who Hosoda had previously worked with on The Boy and The Beast, are also returning as art directors for the film. Producer Yuichiro Saito is also returning from Hosoda's earlier films.
In a interview with Variety in May, Hosoda discusses the themes of the new film. The new film's theme will be "siblings," continuing on from the themes of "youth" in The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, "family" in Summer Wars, "motherhood" in Wolf Children, and "fatherhood" in The Boy and The Beast.
Hosoda says that the new film is inspired by his own experience as a father, noting that "Mirai" (which can be translated as "future") is the name of both the sister character in the film, as well as his own daughter. He states that the conflict in the film echoes his real-life experience of his eldest child feeling that his new sibling "stole her parents, which made her ferociously jealous." He acknowledged that the new film is closer to the human drama of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Wolf Children than the action stories of Summer Wars and The Boy and The Beast.
Hosoda states that he wrote the screenplay alone, but listened to "opinions and the experiences of the producers."
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