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Naoko Yamada, Science Saru Unveil Original Anime Project Garden of Remembrance

Anime studio Science SARU formally announced anime director Naoko Yamada's new original anime work Garden of Remembrance at this year's Annecy International Animation Film Festival on Wednesday. Yamada and Science SARU previewed the anime as part of the festival's Work in Progress track for ongoing productions.

Manga creator Etsuko Mizusawa (Hello, this is Terumi.) is the anime's original character designer. Singer-songwriter Lovely Summer-chan will compose the anime's music.

According to Science SARU co-founder and producer Eunyoung Choi, she brought up the idea of making a short anime film centered on music to Naoko Yamada. Yamada described the theme of the anime: "Someone is thinking of someone, where is the heart's destination." Both Choi and Yamada came up with keywords and concepts for the project, compiling it into a single poem, with Yamada producing the film and Lovely Summer-chan composing the music off of that poem. In the announcement, Yamada described Lovely Summer-chan as an "invincible girl."

Yamada also noted that she requested character designs from Mizusawa, and described the characters as "feeling like real, living girls... almost so real that you feel like you can smell the drool from them napping and sink into their cuteness." Yamada requested that Mizusawa draw the characters in a "chubby" way.

Yamada is a veteran director on several Kyoto Animation works, before leaving the studio and moving to Sceince Saru as a director in 2021. There she directed The Heike Story, her first work with the studio, which debuted in September 2021. In Kyoto Animation, she directed some of the studio's most iconic works, including K-ON!, A Silent Voice, Liz and the Blue Bird, Tamako Market, and Tamako Love Story. She was also the series director on Sound! Euphonium.

Source: Comic Natalie