Kuuchuu Buranko (Trapeze)

[_gallo_]

Seems nobody has opened a thread for this yet.

New anime form Mononoke's team which will be aired in the Noitamina block this fall. It's based on a novel by Okuda Hideo which won the Naoki Prize in 2004. In 2005 the novel got also a TV Drama adaptation. Official site: http://www.kuchu-buranko.com/

Staff:
Director: Nakamura Kenji ("Mononoke")
Assistant: Kimitochi Chioka ("Hakaba Kitaro", noitamina version)
Character Designer: Hashimoto Takashi ("Mononoke")
Series Composition : Manabu Ishikawa ("Mononoke")
Script : Isao Murayama, Tomoko Taguchi
Art Director: Shoji Tokiwa
Photography: Kazuhiro Yamada (director of photography of two Manglobe's series)
Music: Hideharu Mori
Production Studio: Toei Animation

Cover:

Spoiler:

Short synopsis:
Irabu Ichiro is an eccentric psychiatrist. Patients, who visit him to have a counseling, are perplexed with his weird behavior.

Actually I don't know anything about this novel, but Mononoke is one of the greatest anime of these last years ever made, so I hope for something really good from Nakamura.

[Guardian Enzo]

Synopsis:
Irabu Ichiro is an eccentric psychiatrist. Patients, who visit him to have a counseling, are perplexed with his weird behavior.

[NeoSam]

Official site for the TV anime series has opened:
http://www.kuchu-buranko.com/

The anime will be a total of 11 episdoes with each episode being 30 minutes long.

[wao]

You have no idea how much I'm looking forward to this.

October better hurry the hell up!

Man, it seems like Noitamina is all I watch these days

[Fevvers]

New anime form Mononoke team

I'm sold! Wow, with this and Despera, waiting is such torture!

[Woland]

Just a little thing

Originally Posted by _gallo_

Character Designer: Hashimoto Takashi ("Ayakashi - Japanese Classic Horror")

Hashimoto is only Character designer (and chief animator) for the bakeneko arc of Ayakashi, and, of course, for the whole Mononoke. So as you said in the premise is indeed a new series from Mononoke team

[Revenger1589]

Oh god yes, Mononoke was a masterpiece.

[_gallo_]

Originally Posted by Woland

Just a little thing

Hashimoto is only Character designer (and chief animator) for the bakeneko arc of Ayakashi, and, of course, for the whole Mononoke. So as you said in the premise is indeed a new series from Mononoke team

Fixed, now it's clearer.

So, correct me if I'm wrong, this is Hideo Okuda's second book with Doctor Irabu as protagonist. The first one is “In the Pool” which was published in 2002 and had a great success in Japan. You can find a good reading here (thanks to AnimeDays) which explains a little of the author's style and the behavior of the main character.

Just to speculate a bit, I did read that "Kuchu Buranko" consists of 5 stories, each featuring a different patient:

• Kūchū Buranko (which gave the title to the book)
• Harinezumi
• Yôfu no zura
• Hot Corner
• Joryû sakka

Now I wonder if Nakamura will structure the series into different arcs of 2 or 3 episodes each for every story. Mononoke had a similar structure in that sense. Also, 5 stories seems a bit too much for an eleven episodes series, so I guess he would probably select just 3 or 4 of them. And like Mononoke, for each story there could be a different scriptwriter and maybe a different storyboarder too. I don't know if it is possible, but the book isn't really long and it could be a good way to adapt it into anime.

[White Manju Bun]

Originally Posted by _gallo_

New anime form Mononoke team

And you have my utter attention!!

Actually I don't know anything about this novel, but Mononoke is one of the greatest anime of these last years ever made

QFT!

Am I right in seeing this will be a fall release? Im basing this off the date Im seeing on the offical page but someone please let me know if Im wrong since I cant read it

[Shiroth]

Reading Mononoke brings me to this thread. I'm sold at just that.

[Revenger1589]

From Chartfag's list:

In modern Japan, people visit "doctors of neurology" rather than therapists. Dr. Ichiro Irabu is an eccentric neurologist with an injection fetish, an Oedipus complex and a green Porsche, known for making patients much worse before they get better.

I was born to see this.

[CeDeR]

i have high hopes on this.

[solomon]

Am working on translating the character readouts on wiki for those interested, check back tommorow.

[monir]

Don't forget to post a link.

I'm interested too in this series. I think the only down part is the fact the production company is the dreaded, cheapskate Toei. On a brighter note, the synopsis doesn't indicate the show will require flamboyant movement to capture its audience. Sounds like the merit of the show is its story told words-heavy dialogues.

[solomon]

i don't know if you saw Mononoke but that was in fact Toei.

Toei is to be rightly condemmed for their mainly bottom of the barrel production quality but it's not a 100% factor. The 6th and 9th One piece movies were well done as was the Digimon films (directed by Mamoru Hosoda who did TokiKake). Also, Ashita no Nadja was very nice and individial eps of One Piece approach a quality of those special Naruto eps, so while rare, they can make good stuff.

I don't know how but the Director Kenji Nakamura seems to attract talented animators and stylists to his work, so he will probably make like Mononoke and get a lotta good freelance people, along with whatever talented people Toei has on staff. (At least I hope)

[Revenger1589]

The team working on this is basically the same that worked on Mononoke so that should be the least of our worries. I'm extremely excited for this anime.

[solomon]

Here is my translation/clean up of the character read out. I think I got most of the important stuff;

Spoiler for Characters:

Ichiro Irabu
Irabu is a psychiatrist from the Irabu General Hospital. He is fat and pale skinned, with a fetish for administering injections to patients. An unreasonable and rather immature person, he normally ignores Yamashita's plights while challenging him to mid-air trapeze flying due to his self proclaimed "light-weightedness." During his student days, he frequently misunderstood his lectures. Treated as a general nuisance at the School of Medicine, he entered pediatrics soon after graduation. However, due to claims of his tantrums and quarrels with child patients, he switched to psychiatry instead. Doubts remain about his actual grades.

Mayumi
Mayumi is a nurse of psychiatry and an assistant of Irabu. An F Cupped beauty, she is quite taciturn and blunt. She enjoys wearing gaudy and revealing clothing; once during a house call with Irabu, she wore leopard-patterned hotpants.

Kohei Yamashita
Protagonist of "Kūchū Buranko." He is a member of circus troupe of seven years and is a leader of a flying trapeze team. Both parents are fellow members. After suffering repeated failures on the trapeze act he, he visits a psychiatrist on his wife's and fellow members' advice. Due to his failure during a act, he believes his partner is harassing him.

Seiji Ino
Protagonist of "Harinezumi." He is an underboss of the yakuza "Kioi family" from Shibuya. He suffers from such serious trypanophobia that he cannot use chopsticks. Instead he uses a spoon at meals. He takes a psychiatric test on his common-law wife’s advice.

Tatsuro Ikeyama
Protagonist of "Gifu no Zura." He is a university lecturer and is a doctor of neurology working in a University-affiliated hospital. His father of law is the Dean of the School of Medicine, which supposedly could aid in his future employment prospects. A classmate of Irabu's during their college days. He has a type of obsessive-compulsive neurosis that compels him to force any place of tidiness into disarray. This disorder is so strong, that with just one glance at it, Ikeyama becomes agonized with the impulse of wanting to strip off his father-in-law's wig.

Shinichi Bando
Protagonist of "Hot Corner." He is a pro-baseball player and is ten-year veteran third baseman. He suffered from yips, and he leaves the first team by pretending to have an injured right shoulder.

Aiko Hoshiyama
Hoshiyama is a leading character of "Joryū Sakka." She is a popular novelist known for her stories which "express the subtleties of the hearts of today's urban men and women." While working on her newest story, she becomes ill at ease with writing new material. After relapsing into a continued state of compulsive vomiting which had been previously been cured for 2 years, she consults psychiatry.

[MidnightReverie]

The website updated with seiyuu information and images. Irabu Ichiro's big, middle and small versions will be voiced Mitsuya Yuji and Paku Romi.

Spoiler for First three episodes info:

Episode 1 "Kuchu Buranko" (Flying Trapeze)
Lead character Yamashita Kouhei, voiced by Morikawa Toshiyuki (Sengoku BASARA's Katakura Kojuurou)

Episode 2 "Botsu chippanashi" (Making a stand) *
Lead character Taguchi Tetsuya, voiced by Sakurai Takahiro (Mononoke's Medicine Seller)

Episode 3 "Renai Shousetsuka" (Romance novelist)
Lead character Hoshiyama Junichi, voice by Miki Shinichiro (Gundam 00's Lockon Stratos) **

* This is from the first novel "In the pool". The others are from the second novel "Kuchu Buranko".
** The lead character's gender has changed.

[White Manju Bun]

I can die happily after seeing the seiyuu for epi 2

[monir]

lol..hold on to that thought Manju. I'm excited too.