Madhouse Announces Original Movie Set in Iceland for 2022

From the team that once took us all the way to Antarctica in order to tell us a solid coming of age story comes a brand new movie that will take us in the opposite direction, to Iceland!

On Friday, July 2nd, veteran animation studio Madhouse revealed the title and staff for a brand new theatrical anime project which will hit theaters in Japan in 2022. The title of the feature is Goodbye, Don Glees! and, as mentioned, features the director, Atsuko Ishizuka, and character designer, Takahiro Yoshimatsu, from the beloved series A Place Further Than the Universe. 

The story for the movie will take place in Iceland at the start of summer vacation. It will star a fifteen-year-old boy who is on the verge of adulthood and… that’s about as much as we know at the moment. 

I didn’t get around to watching Ishizuka’s previous series until way after it had already finished airing, but I absolutely loved it. From the way things are phrased in the original reports on both Comic Natalie and Anime News Network, it sounds like Madhouse is giving Ishizuka quite a bit of latitude to create something that will be uniquely hers and that idea excites me. 

I’ve mentioned on Twitter in the past that it feels like the anime industry has come full circle as we’re seeing production committees and studios take more chances with original stories rather than sticking only with adaptations of manga, light novels, or games. Every television season, we’re now seeing a handful of original titles sprinkled in throughout the standard adaptations that we’ve grown accustomed to and that thought gets me pumped up. It means that we’re potentially going to see the rise of more talented directors and animators stepping up to create the next big hit. 

With any luck, this movie will prove to be another success for Ishizuka. I’ll definitely be keeping my eyes open for more updates regarding this feature in the coming weeks and months. 

Sources: Comic Natalie, Anime News Network