There is plenty of anime about cute girls partaking in a variety of mundane activities, from playing music to fishing or even riding motorcycles. When it comes to anime director Tsutomu Mizushima, though, his idea of a “cute girls doing cute things show” raises the stakes considerably. He was the creative mind behind Girls und Panzer, a massively successful anime franchise that asks the age-old question “what if a bunch of cute anime girls engaged in deadly tank warfare?” Mizushima went on to explore his passion for another field of military technology in 2019 with The Magnificent Kotobuki, an anime series about a group of girls operating as rag-tag fighter plane pilots as they dive into deadly dogfights. Now, that charming series is set to see a second life as a compiled anime film in Japan this September.
Titled Kōya no Kotobuki Hikōtai Kanzenban (The Magnificent Kotobuki Complete Edition), this upcoming film compiles the 12-episode television anime into a single theatrical cut with brand new scenes and sharpened visuals. The full cast and staff from the original anime are set to return for the film, which will also have fancy MX4D screenings available.
Sentai Filmworks released the anime on Blu-ray Disc earlier this year, and it describes the series as follows:
In a desolate world where the safest form of transporting cargo is by zeppelin; air pirates roam the sky, preying on aerial commerce and holding remote towns for ransom. Against these airborne marauders, the only defense is to hire high-flying protection of your own, and that’s where mercenary pilots like the girls of the Kotobuki Squadron come in. Behind the joysticks of their lightweight Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa fighters, these lady falcons play a deadly game of escort, where a single mistake can end up in a fiery crash or mid-air collision. But for birds of prey like Kylie, Reona, Chika, Emma, Kate, and Zara, the danger is worth it for the chance to spread their wings and soar into the heavens. The wild blue yonder gets even wilder as every dogfight becomes a catfight in The Magnificent Kotobuki!
Mizushima, who also previously directed Shirobako, served as both the director and sound director on The Magnificent Kotobuki. Michiko Yokete, who previously worked on series like Shrobako, Prison School, Cowboy Bebop, and Rurouni Kenshin, handled the series scripts. Hiroyuki Kanbe of Oreimo fame was the assistant director. Hidari, the artist behind Natsuiro Kiseki, Santa Company, and Phantom in the Twilight, drew the original character designs while The Princess and the Pilot and The Sky Crawlers artist Shou Sugai adapted those designs for animation. Shigeyuki Ninomiya, previously on staff for Girls und Panzer, Shirobako, and Kuromukuro, is credited as the military supervisor for the series alongside military setting consultants Tetsuya Nakano, Jiro Tokihama, and Vampire Hunter D veteran Hideyuki Kikuchi.
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