Nippon powerhouse Toho has thrown its weight behind directors Yoko Kuno and Nobuhiro Yamashita’s “Ghost Cat Anzu,” overseeing the Japanese release and marking the occasion with a brand-new teaser.
As previously announced, specialty distributor Gkids has already picked up the film for North America, while Charades continues to roll out international sales.
Bringing together Japan’s Shin-Ei Animation and France’s Miyu Productions, the family title tracks the tempestuous friendship shared between 11-year Karin, a strong-minded girl sent to live with her monk granddad in the Japanese countryside, and Anzu, the even-more unpredictable phantom feline who acts as her guardian.
Adapted from Takashi Imashiro’s manga, the animated title will feature the voice talents of Mirai Moriyama as the phantom feline, and Noa Goto as his young charge. The project will hit Japanese screens in July with a North American opening to follow.
Best known his critically acclaimed features, and for helming several episodes of “Midnight Diner,” director Nobuhiro Yamashita shot with live actors subsequently rotoscoped into an animated world overseen by rising talent Yoko Kuno. The method was used to keep the characters’ original charm intact.
An industry leading production and distribution outfit, Toho is coming off a banner year as the company’s “Godzilla Minus One” banked more than $55 million stateside, emerging as one the highest grossing foreign films in recent box office history. Toho’s distribution arm also handled the local of release of Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and The Heron,” which took in more than $45 million in North American box office for Gkids.
