'Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni' Director Sunao Katabuchi Establishes New Animation Studio

by ImperfectBlue
Dec 23, 2019 9:31 PM | 9 Comments

Kono Sekai no Katasumi ni (In This Corner of the World) director Sunao Katabuchi unveiled his new animation studio—Contrail—on Monday. The studio was founded on September 2 of this year, but was kept under wraps until now. Katabuchi intends to work with the studio on feature-length films in the future.

Contrail will be closely tied to MAPPA, the studio that produced Katabuchi's aforementioned breakout film, Kono Sekai no Katsumi ni—winner of Best Film at the 38th Yokohama Film Festival and the Best Animation Award at the 40th Japan Academy Film Prize.

Manabu Ootsuka, the representative director at MAPPA, was named Contrail's CEO. The studio will be located within Tokyo's Suginami Ward where MAPPA is currently headquartered. The two companies hope to cooperate in the future, but the goal of Contrail is to create an environment for Katabuchi's works to flourish, works that Katabuchi hopes will be loved by many for a long time.

Katabuchi teased his next project by posting a sketch on Twitter the same day Contrail was announced. Recruiting for artists and production staff will begin in mid-January, and the studio plans to begin full-scale production before the end of 2020.

Official site: https://contrail.tokyo/
Official Twitter: @CONTRAIL_info

Source: Animation Business Journal

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9 Comments Recent Comments

Certainly sounds exciting. Hope they don't crash and burn.

Dec 25, 2019 7:49 PM by Elessar44

59 seems like a ripe old age to begin your Shinkai phase. Hope his movies are not just a one trick pony. I found the first one to be far too soft for my tastes.

Dec 25, 2019 12:18 AM by VyseLegendaire

Umm.. I guess good luck with this company

Dec 24, 2019 3:20 PM by Marureviere

_Ako_ said:
Good luck... because I know nowadays creating anime is financially hard.
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yes you are right it's not easy anymore, anyway i wish him luck.

Dec 24, 2019 3:09 PM by Fleurrose

Brave. I wish him luck. Sounds to me like the studio is either some sort of JV with or a subsidiary of MAPPA. Let's hope it works.

Dec 24, 2019 2:55 PM by huntress1013

Good luck... because I know nowadays creating anime is financially hard.

Dec 24, 2019 12:48 PM by _Ako_

What can I say except for "good luck"?

Dec 24, 2019 7:57 AM by Piromysl

If this means we’re getting anything comparable to in this corner of the world this is brilliant.

Dec 24, 2019 7:26 AM by betaweeb

Heres hoping for the best, always good to see a new studio pop up especially if it means more artistic freedom like how we got to see when Masaaki Yuasa opened up his studio.

Dec 24, 2019 6:38 AM by JizzyHitler