The Annecy International Film Festival previewed the upcoming film of well-known director Kenji Iwaisawa who is also widely popular for his superhit film ‘On-Gaku: Our Sound’. Director Kenji Iwaisawa’s new film is titled “Hyakuemu”. Since the Annecy International Film Festival previewed the film as part of the Work in Progress lineup, Hyakuemu has been the talk of the people as the audience is eagerly waiting for this film. However, Hyakuemu’s release date is still far from now, adding a layer of curiosity and intrigue among the fans to learn more about this film. Nevertheless, we have some imperative details about Kenji Iwaisawa’s new film which is an anime film. Let’s delve into the details and learn more information.
To note, Hyakuemu is currently a part of the Work in Progress lineup. Speaking of its preview at the Annecy International Film Festival, Hyakuemu was listed as an anime film with a duration of 1 hour and 35 minutes. The other key details of the film such as its director, animation director, character designer, and others were also revealed at the festival. As mentioned Kenji Iwaisawa is serving as the director of this anime film while Keisuke Kojima is the character designer and animation director as well. Akane Taketsugu has produced the film while Keikankun Yamaguchi is assigned as the art director of the upcoming anime film.
As mentioned, Hyakuemu has been part of people’s discussion since it premiered at the Annecy International Film Festival, the audience is also eager to learn what is the story of the film and who are the lead characters of Hyakuemu. For the unversed, Hyakuemu is based on a manga series created by Uoto under the same title, storyline, and characters as well. As far as we know it was Uoto’s first manga series and it was launched with the title “The Hyakuemu” in November 2018 in the Magazine Pocket of Kodansha. The third compiled volume of The Hyakuemu was launched in August 2019 by Kodansha.
The story of Kenji Iwaisawa’s new film Hyakuemu revolves around a kid named Togashi who has a passion for running. Togashi has a god’s gift of winning every race 100 meters without putting in too much effort. Everything goes smoothly in Togashi’s life until he meets Komiya in the 6th class. Komiya is a transfer student determined to run but he has a sort of technique and a little bit of talent as well. Thus, Togashi promises to teach him how to run and win the race. Togashi teaches Komiya to set a new purpose of running the race, to win no matter what. After several years, Togashi and Komiya meet once again but this time as rivals on the track with the same purpose to win the race no matter what.
Last year in October, Hyakuemu director Kenji Iwaisawa said at the Tokyo International Film Festival that another anime film was in full-fledged production and announced Hina is Beautiful. He kept on saying that the film in full-fledged production would be released before Hina Is Beautiful. The last film of director Kenji Iwaisawa released was On-Gaku: Our Sound which was based on Hiroyuki Ohashi’s manga with the same title. The director announced the project in 2012 and the film was released in January 2020 in Japan. The film was distributed across North America by GKID in December 2020. Nevertheless, in 2019, Kenji Iwaisawa’s film also won the Grand Prize at the Ottawa International Animation Festival and the Grand Prize in the Entertainment category at the 24th Japan Media Arts Festival Awards in 2021.
