Starting the New Year With a Bang

Hello Internet! Long time no see. We’ve been recovering from the holiday season, so we’re finally getting back into the swing of updating the blog with news about Hideo and other cool tidbits like what I’m about to share with you now. Actually, this isn’t really a “tidbit” as much as it is a gigantic metaphorical hammer of awesome hitting you in the face.

Shinichiro Watanabe and Yoko Kanno are teaming up AGAIN for a new anime series called “Sakamichi no Apollo“, based on the manga of the same name. The story takes place during the 1960’s and revolves around a group of students who bond and develop friendships over jazz music. Before I go on, there’s a teaser out to infect your eyeballs and earholes:

For anyone who isn’t already frothing at the mouth over this and wondering why this is a big deal: Cowboy Bebop is a legendary anime in almost all regards, especially in its direction and music. Given that Watanabe is a director who strongly utilizes music in his series (see: Samurai Champloo) and Kanno has made some of the most memorable music (and showcased her range as a composer) for Bebop, Macross Plus, Ghost in the Shell, and many more, this combination is nothing but top-shelf quality. On top of that, throw in the fact that the story revolves around jazz, a genre both Watanabe and Kanno thoroughly explored and nailed in Bebop, and you have the premise for anime greatness.

We at Team Hideo are HUGE fans of Bebop. I adopted my dogs because of it. When I shared this news with Blair online, her typed response was “WHOA”, followed by a lack of response for the remainder of the chat. She was probably replaying the teaser over and over. So yeah, excited.

I know zero details of the actual story itself, but I’ve read online that the manga took home the 2011 Shogakukan Award, which is a huge deal in the world of manga… so I imagine the story itself is worthy of a read and has some depth and heart to it that made it a winner. Seeing the teaser, I’m excited to see someone actually drumming. Why? Because I’d like to see the equivalent of music videos directed by Watanabe. The animation looks fluid enough to capture natural playing elements and it’d be great to see students realistically playing a Kanno composition.

In any case, this great news is an awesome way to kick off the New Year! We’re definitely looking forward to it, and also looking forward to February’s Hideo: Overture performance at Animation on Display!