A new Casshern anime has been announced as part of an Annecy Festival panel hosted by Singapore-headquartered global anime venture company KASAGI LABO. It’s tentatively titled Casshern 2045, features Yoshitaka Amano (Angel’s Egg art director, Vampire Hunter D light novel illustrator, Ayakashi: Samurai Horror Tales original character designer) as the original character designer, and claims to be remaking things with a modern perspective (this description is accompanied by the words “future prediction” in brackets).
Author Tow Ubukata (Bye-Bye, Earth author; RWBY: Ice Queendom and Psycho-Pass Season 2 and 3 series composer) is attached to the project as scriptwriter. An artwork by Amano was revealed with the current staff details.
The original Casshern (alternatively spelled as Casshan), or Shinzouningen Casshan, TV anime debuted in 1973 and ran for 35 episodes. The synopsis reads:
Dr. Azuma creates robots to benefit mankind, but they unexpectedly rebel and begin to destroy everything in their paths. To deal with the catastrophe, Dr. Azuma’s son volunteers to become a human robot, even though he knows he will never be able to return to human form again. He confronts this grave situation to ensure a bright future for all humans.
1993 saw the debut of the Casshan: Robot Hunter (or just Casshan) OVA series. Another TV anime titled Casshern Sins began airing in 2008 and ran for 24 episodes. Tatsunoko Production was involved with the animation production for the first two anime, while Madhouse produced Casshern Sins. The original credits Tatsunoko Production founder Tatsuo Yoshida and the Tatsunoko Production Planning Room as creators.
Last November, Kasagi Labo founder and CEO Kendrick Wong, after mentioning an upcoming US$33M anime fund, told Anime Corner that the venture company “will put real resources behind legacy IPs like Casshan to bring them back using modern production.”
According to Cartoon Brew, Kasagi Labo also announced a new Ninja Scroll anime movie and an original sci-fi anime film (working title Ars Gratia) with illustrator Ilya Kuvshinov (Cyberpunk Edgerunners “Let You Down” music video director, Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 character designer) as director and character designer. Good Smile Company and LIDENFILMS are reportedly involved with the latter.
In 2023, Kasagi Labo announced the original anime Special Kid Factory, which is directed by Sabikui Bisco‘s Atsushi Ikariya at NAZ Studio. Its partner Oshi, a fanbase platform which has Wong as its CEO and (co-)founder and Madhouse/MAPPA/Studio M2 founder Masao Maruyama as an advisor, is being used for the upcoming GATE Season 2 (the Anime Corner interview says that Kasagi Labo and Oshi are production committee members) and the popular independent animated music video Living in a World Without Magic. There is interest in turning the latter into a feature-length animation (Cartoon Brew says that Michiko Yokote, series composer for anime like Call of the Night and Shirobako, is writing the screenplay), and an associated community campaign called Mahoseka Film Club is currently running until July 8.
Kasagi Labo operates the anime database AnimeOshi, for which it is seeking people “to act as a creative engine using AI to accelerate your workflow.” In the Anime Corner interview, Wong said that the company considers “AI as an assistive layer that supports in-between animation, background enhancement, and localization in production. For fans, it powers interactivity through custom wallpapers, character voice filters, and AI-narrated recaps. This is in the beginning stages, and our policy is clear that AI is assisting human creators, but can never replace them.”
Source: Press release (via Cartoon Brew)