Anime Veterans Launch New Action Sci-Fi Anime Kickstarter: Under the Dog
TOKYO, JAPAN - August 8, 2014
Under the Dog has announced their Kickstarter project on August 8, 2014 with the goal of developing a pilot episode of a science fiction anime. The anime carries an atmosphere similar to that of older anime titles like Akira and Ghost in the Shell through its setting, storytelling, and characters. By using Kickstarter as their funding platform, Under the Dog's production team will sidestep the traditional method of obtaining funding from production committees and retain full creative control of the anime.
Under the Dog takes place in 2025 in Neo Tokyo, five years after a devastating terrorist attack at the Tokyo Olympics. In the wake of the tragedy, the U.N. formed a covert ops unit dedicating to seeking out, then eliminating those responsible for the attack. Anthea Kallenberg, a girl of Swedish, descent is a member of this elite group who has honed her combat abilities and has become a deadly assassin, but must come to terms as to who she really is.
The animated pilot brings together talents from around Japan. Under the Dog's staff includes Jirō Ishii, who wrote the original story and whose extensive experience includes directing video games like the acclaimed visual novel 428: In a Blockaded Shibuya and producing Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, a puzzle game. The anime will be directed by Masahiro Andō, whose directorial credits include Sword of the Stranger, Hana-Saku Iroha, and Blast of Tempest. He has also worked as an Episode Director on Fullmetal Alchemist, did storyboarding for Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Wolf's Rain, and was a Key Animator on the original Ghost in the Shell and Neon Genesis Evangelion. The main character designer is Yūsuke Kozaki, who designed the characters in Fire Emblem: Awakening and No More Heroes. Finally, the animation will be by Kinema Citrus, which has worked on anime like Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, Black Bullet, Barakamon, and the Eureka Seven movie and Orange Co. which handles the CGI and has had experience working on titles like Ghost in the Shell Arise, Tiger & Bunny, Infinite Stratos, Last Exile, Macross Frontier, Code Geass, and the Evangelion Rebuild movies.
“If your parents, family, or classmates are taken hostage and if you die, your family will die too. If you fail, your family will die. If you run away, your family will die. In such a situation where you are driven into a corner [...] and must kill [your] fellow compatriots.” What would you do? How would you live out your life? Your death? “[...] if you have only the choice of dying, how will you die, how can that death help the world that you have left behind?” This is what it is to be “Under the Dog.” - Jirō Ishii
The Under the Dog Kickstarter is seeking $580,000 to fund the production and artistic development of the anime. Backers have the opportunity to secure digital and limited edition physical copies of the anime, help choose the actors who will voice the anime's main characters, receive autographed products like shikishi, and even visit Japan to listen in on a voice recording session and meet the staff. Once the funding target has been hit, work will begin on the anime, with an expected release date to be set around late 2015.
About Under the Dog
Under the Dog is a Kickstarter project looking to fund an independent anime and present it to the world. Founded in Tokyo, Japan in 2013 based on material written in 1994-1995, Under the Dog will be working to bring the science fiction setting to life, releasing it to worldwide audiences by late-2015. Visit www.under-the-dog.com and Facebook: www.facebook.com/Underthedogpr and Twitter: @underthedogpr for more information.
Creative Intelligence Arts, LLC is a company dedicated to bringing together East and West and creating works that blend their influences.
