AnimeSuki Forums

**monir** · 2006-12-16, 21:59

Production Company: Studio Hibari

Genre: SciFi

Expected Release Date: March 2007

Website: http://www.moonlightmile.jp/

The series is going to air in WoWOW. Iku Suzuki will be the director for the series while the animation director is going to be Isao Sugimoto. The show is based on a manga by Otagaki Yasuo. The featured character of this story will be voiced by two very talented VAs. Hirata Hiroaki will voice Lostman and Inoue Kazuhiko will voice Saruwatari Gorou. The other significant character, Ikeuchi Ryoko, will be voiced by Tanaka Rie. Consequently I became interested in the title after reading the synopsis that is posted by Eggplant in the New Announced Anime thread.

Two men attemtped to climb Mt. Everest in the winter. One was Saruwatari Gorou, a Japanese, and the other was Jack F. Woodbridge, an American know as "Lostman". The two, having succeeded in climbing the world's steepest mountains, gaze at the international space station above, which was the instant it became their next target.

In January 2005, mankind found new value for the moon, in the form of a natural resource Helium 3, a replacement for fossil fuels. The ample reserve was enough for a thousand years worth of energy for the entire mankind. Concurrently, NASA announced the next generation energy development project "NEXUS", soliciting construction workers globally to work in space. Accepting NASA's offer, Gorou heads off the NASDA as an astronaut-in-training. At the same time, Lostman, who at the time was the ace of the U.S. Navy, was invited by NASA to pilot the shuttle, meets the crew of the ISS (International Space Station).

A good SciFi series has been lacking for sometime. Here is to hoping it will turn out to be a good one.

edit: Updated cast info, thanks to Sonhex!

Sonhex · 2006-12-17, 07:54

I'm sure we're all thinking 'is this going to be like Planetes?'. Well I've heard mixed reviews about the manga, but I'm quite intrigued by this due to the apparent 'real science' behind the story (Helium 3). This is quite an ambitious series though, scheduled for 2 seasons and Studio Hibari is a seasoned production house (they worked on Spirited Away).

I'm keeping an open mind though.

Nightengale · 2006-12-17, 08:29

I can see it now....

The series starts off it's first 5-10 minutes with the traditional 2 men hiking up Mt. Everest, one slips, the other grabs his hand, smiles to each other, and finally reaching the peak, then looking up spouting some corny line about "reaching the peak of the world, the skies are next blahblahlbah."

Does anyone know what the series centralizes upon for one?

**monir** · 2006-12-17, 21:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sonhex

This is quite an ambitious series though, scheduled for 2 seasons and Studio Hibari is a seasoned production house (they worked on Spirited Away).

Other note worthy mentions are GitS - Solid State Society, Petite Cossette, Nausica of the Valley of the Wind, and Angel's Egg. What is noticeable about those titles are that they are all movies except Petite Cossette which is a three episodes OVA in which Studio Hibari is mentioned as the Production Company. For their TV series endeavors, Kasimasi Girl Meets Girl is their only above average animation work. Admittedly, I'm a bit worried because these guys are the ones who also animated Tsuyokiss and Happy Seven which are subpar TV series animation and storywise. That said, as an avid SciFi reader, I'm also keeping an open mind because the synopsis reads interesting.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nightengale

Does anyone know what the series centralizes upon for one?

As far as I understand by reading few comments in various places, the central focus is placed upon an alternate source of energy, i.e Helium 7. In the present, many scientists theorizes on the possibilities of mining Helium 7 from Earth's sattelite. Perhaps a manga reader will have a better idea.

Sonhex · 2006-12-18, 08:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by monir

Other note worthy mentions are GitS - Solid State Society, Petite Cossette, Nausica of the Valley of the Wind, and Angel's Egg. What is noticeable about those titles are that they are all movies except Petite Cossette which is a three episodes OVA in which Studio Hibari is mentioned as the Production Company. For their TV series endeavors, Kasimasi Girl Meets Girl is their only above average animation work. Admittedly, I'm a bit worried because these guys are the ones who also animated Tsuyokiss and Happy Seven which are subpar TV series animation and storywise. That said, as an avid SciFi reader, I'm also keeping an open mind because the synopsis reads interesting...

It is a little disconcerting that Studio Hibari haven't had much experience with tv series. The director though, Iku Suzuki, helmed the excellent Garkun and the script writer is a seasoned pro, having worked on GSD and others. So that's a bit more encouraging. Plus this will air on WOWOW which has a good recent record with popular and quality shows.

As for the science, knowledge of Helium 3 and how to mine and utilize it is largely theoretical so it will be interesting to see what approach MM adopts. I hope for gritty scientific realism, but who knows (except the manga readers) which direction the story takes. Also I understand MM has a lot of sexual content, so I wonder if that will make it into the anime...

Nightengale · 2006-12-18, 08:22

Actually, that's a wee bit of what I'm a bit wary of towards this series. It's great if any sci-fi series aims towards a solid form of scientific realism, but too much can also really ruin an anime's pacing, especially if they jump too deeply into the scientific jargons and starts sacrificing pacing and character development/human drama (( not plot since apparently H-3 is a central storyline figure )). Kinda like how Yakitate Japan would've ended up had Sunrise not filtered the manga's excessive scientific explainations of the breads and focused more on the puns and reactions. Last thing I wanted to see was Kuroyan spending 2 minutes pulling off reactions while 10 minutes explaining why the hell the bread was so damn good.

Sonhex · 2006-12-18, 08:59

Yeah certainly it's the approach that'll prevent something like this from being an animated Discovery Channel special on NASA's Helium-3 ambitions or something equally sterile. Though from little snippets of info I've read on various (mostly French bd sites) MM is quite gritty and stark, in both it's portrayal of military training and the reality of working in space.

While I really don't expect it to be like Planetes, in either greatness or quality, but something like its approach to the reality of space travel and ergonomics would be ideal. The real science is just there, it's background detail; you'll either detect it or it'll just pass you by. Either way it doesn't impact on the human story until it affects the characters directly.

wao · 2006-12-18, 10:05

Um... I'm going to sound like a total prick, but... regarding Studio Hibari's track record, you all are looking at the wrong thing I think.

Spoiler for saving space:

I think Sonhex has it spot on about the impact of the scientific detail.

Certainly - I do like attention to details like that, and it makes the show much more realistic... but I'm mostly concerned when it's just about the feasibility of situations, not really the nitty-gritty. If we've got a real serious space show, don't have people yelling out to each other in outer space or have ships magically get their energy from some undepletable source...

This show doesn't even have to be as good as Planetes, I just wouldn't mind watching something that deals with similar themes in some way or another. Gritty and stark? I'm sold, I really have been wanting to watch another one of those for a long time... meanwhile, I'll wonder where that Goro Taniguchi I missed from Planetes went...

Sonhex · 2006-12-18, 13:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by wao

Um... I'm going to sound like a total prick, but... regarding Studio Hibari's track record, you all are looking at the wrong thing I think.

Spoiler for saving space:

Thanks for elaborating on that. I guess I saw Spirited Away and thought 'ooh that's an impressive credit'. Ghibli fanboy here you see

Anyway I'm looking forward to viewing a trailer or at least peeking at some more production material to guage how this will look (for good or bad). Fingers crossed until then.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wao

... meanwhile, I'll wonder where that Goro Taniguchi I missed from Planetes went...

We can only hope that once he's got Code Geass out of his system he'll depart on just such project to prove that Planetes wasn't a fluke. Code Geass is cool and all that, but knowing what Taniguchi can do you kind of wonder why he isn't doing it already don't you? Economics perhaps? Anyway I guess this off topic...

**monir** · 2006-12-18, 15:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by wao

What's important is to look at shows where they've done animation production. That is a much better gauge because in those cases the studio is directly involved with most aspects of the animation.

I agree. They don't yet have an impressive track records for where Animation Production is involved. Only Kasimasi seemed above average animation wise. Sumomomo has a funny script, but the series is most definitely average when animation is mentioned. Yet, I'm impressed with their involvement in some of those big named movies because of couple of reasons: they were responsible for the digital painting of GitS:SSS. As far as I understand the process of Digital Painting, it is a painstaking one and even then, after all the hard work, doesn't necessarily guarantee an animation studio will have impressive outcome. I believe, one of the reason KyoAni is getting all the ooo's and ahhh's for their animation work, is because they are very good at digi-painting. The other positive impression I have of them would be of their production value of Petit Cossette. After all, they are the one who employed the director which speaks volume about good decision making. Hopefully, they will pull a good one in this occasion even though their track record for producing good quality animation isn't very convincing where TV series is concerned.

Btw, the series will have 26 episodes as reported in Moonphase. Moonlight Mile 1st season: Lift Off will have 12 episodes and Moonlight Mile 2nd season: Touch Down will have 14 episodes. I'm guessing the second season will start in Fall 2007.

wao · 2006-12-18, 21:50

That's pretty cool, two seasons. Since they're splitting it up it's essentially like two 13-part shows, which means perhaps the usual problems that come with having 26-ep shows (in terms of pacing) maaay be avoided. Unless they spring one of those evil cliffhanger sort of things on us.
I hope they don't have to do that... -.-

Spoiler for offtopic about animation:

**monir** · 2006-12-18, 22:52

Quote:

Even for Cossette - I don't know the production details behind it, but it's most certainly plausible that it was the producers who hired the director and not the studio.

Yeap, that's my understanding as well which is why I'm hopeful Studio Hibari may come through since they are the one shown as the producers for Petit Cossette.

Good info as always!

Sonhex · 2007-01-10, 08:45

Some casting info from here, Gorou is played by Inoue Kazuhiko (most recently heard as Sotetsu from Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto). Jack F. Woodbridge/Lostman played by Hirata Hiroaki (Benny from Black Lagoon/Sanji in One Piece). Ryoko is played by Rie Tanaka, who I'm sure everyone knows

Stellar cast, really looking forward to this now.

**monir** · 2007-01-11, 14:34

I registered a boat load of posts yesterday and I still failed to notice Sonhex's update. Keeping up with so many thread isn't easy. Anyway, updated the opening post.

I agree with Sonhex's assessment of the cast. Hiroaki-san happens to be one of my most favorite VAs. A stellar performance of his talent can be witnessed in Kaze no Yojimbo. My interest in this upcoming series has gone up a few notch with him included in the cast. May be this will be the break out series for Studio Hibari!?

cyth · 2007-01-19, 09:00

The website is now hosting a Promotional Video for it.

Also, the ending theme is now known:

「Scarecrow」 by the pillows (avex trax).

eggplant · 2007-01-19, 11:04

Hm, not much to see from the trailer.

Great cast comprised of veteran seiyuus.

Since this will air on WOWOW's non-scrambled (subscription only) slot on Saturday nights, and every title in this slot since TOKKO has an R-15 rating, it looks like Moonlight Mile won't be an exception. If that's the case, I wonder how they're going to handle the sex scenes.

Sonhex · 2007-01-19, 11:33

Good to see they're opting for realism, but the CG in that promo looks very sterile to me. More like a simulation than a stylish backdrop; especially that fly-by of the IIS. Epic music though, very James Horner...

prince leon · 2007-01-29, 04:09

Tanaka Rie is all I needed to see. I'm already sold on the series just because of her.

Sonhex · 2007-01-29, 07:35

Speaking of the gorgeous Miss.Rie Tanaka...

Left to right - Hirata Hiroaki (Lostman), Rie Tanaka (Ryoko), Inoue Kazuhiko (Gurou).

Picture from this article, an interview with the three of them talking about MM (and having a good giggle about some of the 'adult' scenes

).

Xellos-_^ · 2007-01-29, 12:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by wao

Certainly - I do like attention to details like that, and it makes the show much more realistic... but I'm mostly concerned when it's just about the feasibility of situations, not really the nitty-gritty. If we've got a real serious space show, don't have people yelling out to each other in outer space or have ships magically get their energy from some undepletable source...

This show doesn't even have to be as good as Planetes, I just wouldn't mind watching something that deals with similar themes in some way or another. Gritty and stark? I'm sold, I really have been wanting to watch another one of those for a long time... meanwhile, I'll wonder where that Goro Taniguchi I missed from Planetes went...

The technical details could be taken care off by having a 60sec explanation in the beginning of each Ep. Kinda like how Divergence Eve did it. The rest of the eps didn't go into too much of details of the techno babble but the opening took care of that.

2006-12-16, 21:59	Link #1
monir cho~ kakkoii Moderator Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: 3rd Planet	Moonlight Mile Production Company: Studio Hibari Genre: SciFi Expected Release Date: March 2007 Website: http://www.moonlightmile.jp/ The series is going to air in WoWOW. Iku Suzuki will be the director for the series while the animation director is going to be Isao Sugimoto. The show is based on a manga by Otagaki Yasuo. The featured character of this story will be voiced by two very talented VAs. Hirata Hiroaki will voice Lostman and Inoue Kazuhiko will voice Saruwatari Gorou. The other significant character, Ikeuchi Ryoko, will be voiced by Tanaka Rie. Consequently I became interested in the title after reading the synopsis that is posted by Eggplant in the New Announced Anime thread. Two men attemtped to climb Mt. Everest in the winter. One was Saruwatari Gorou, a Japanese, and the other was Jack F. Woodbridge, an American know as "Lostman". The two, having succeeded in climbing the world's steepest mountains, gaze at the international space station above, which was the instant it became their next target. In January 2005, mankind found new value for the moon, in the form of a natural resource Helium 3, a replacement for fossil fuels. The ample reserve was enough for a thousand years worth of energy for the entire mankind. Concurrently, NASA announced the next generation energy development project "NEXUS", soliciting construction workers globally to work in space. Accepting NASA's offer, Gorou heads off the NASDA as an astronaut-in-training. At the same time, Lostman, who at the time was the ace of the U.S. Navy, was invited by NASA to pilot the shuttle, meets the crew of the ISS (International Space Station). A good SciFi series has been lacking for sometime. Here is to hoping it will turn out to be a good one. edit: Updated cast info, thanks to Sonhex! Last edited by monir; 2007-01-11 at 14:33.

2006-12-17, 08:29	Link #3
Nightengale ~Night of Gales~ Author Join Date: Dec 2005	I can see it now.... The series starts off it's first 5-10 minutes with the traditional 2 men hiking up Mt. Everest, one slips, the other grabs his hand, smiles to each other, and finally reaching the peak, then looking up spouting some corny line about "reaching the peak of the world, the skies are next blahblahlbah." Does anyone know what the series centralizes upon for one? __________________ *Night~and~Gale: ~ The Final Mythology of the Man who Defied Destiny.* The sleeping lion shall awaken beyond the depths of time, crossing ten billion lights, come to Terra.

2006-12-18, 08:22	Link #6
Nightengale ~Night of Gales~ Author Join Date: Dec 2005	Actually, that's a wee bit of what I'm a bit wary of towards this series. It's great if any sci-fi series aims towards a solid form of scientific realism, but too much can also really ruin an anime's pacing, especially if they jump too deeply into the scientific jargons and starts sacrificing pacing and character development/human drama (( not plot since apparently H-3 is a central storyline figure )). Kinda like how Yakitate Japan would've ended up had Sunrise not filtered the manga's excessive scientific explainations of the breads and focused more on the puns and reactions. Last thing I wanted to see was Kuroyan spending 2 minutes pulling off reactions while 10 minutes explaining why the hell the bread was so damn good. __________________ *Night~and~Gale: ~ The Final Mythology of the Man who Defied Destiny.* The sleeping lion shall awaken beyond the depths of time, crossing ten billion lights, come to Terra.

2006-12-18, 10:05	Link #8
wao OK. Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: The Fields of High Attus Age: 34	Um... I'm going to sound like a total prick, but... regarding Studio Hibari's track record, you all are looking at the wrong thing I think. Spoiler for saving space: Sure they took part in Spirited Away, Angel's Egg, blah blah... but take a look at the roles, they're all "Finish Animation", "Supporting Animation", "In-between Animation", "Digital Paint" - that's mostly technical work that many other studios share the job of doing, anyway... The final piece you see says absolutely nothing about the studios that do this work because it's all farmed-out menial work. A lot of movies do this, they could look awesome on screen but that's largely because they have a lot of in-betweeners (quality is not much of a concern at that stage) and more importantly the key animators are good. Amazingly-animated TV eps can rely entirely on Korean in-betweeners as long as the key animation is good... What's important is to look at shows where they've done animation production. That is a much better gauge because in those cases the studio is directly involved with most aspects of the animation. That's where you can see their true colours, and in Hibari's case, they generally aren't spanking amazing. I think Cossette though is an exception because there are cases where you have sub-par studio employees, but the animation looks amazing because of a. the director and b. the staff that he (or she) brings along. Shinbo Akiyuki is such a director. (and taking a look at the animators list, it seems like quite a number of them are associates of the character designer Suzuki.) It can even happen in mere episodes. I remember Studio Gallop is not the most fantastic of studios, but they did the first two arcs of Rurouni Kenshin, and the occasional awesome stuff there was mostly done, IIRC, by staff that didn't belong to Gallop but happened to appear or something. I think Sonhex has it spot on about the impact of the scientific detail. Certainly - I do like attention to details like that, and it makes the show much more realistic... but I'm mostly concerned when it's just about the feasibility of situations, not really the nitty-gritty. If we've got a real serious space show, don't have people yelling out to each other in outer space or have ships magically get their energy from some undepletable source... This show doesn't even have to be as good as Planetes, I just wouldn't mind watching something that deals with similar themes in some way or another. Gritty and stark? I'm sold, I really have been wanting to watch another one of those for a long time... meanwhile, I'll wonder where that Goro Taniguchi I missed from Planetes went... __________________ Thanks for the fish

2006-12-18, 21:50	Link #11
wao OK. Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: The Fields of High Attus Age: 34	That's pretty cool, two seasons. Since they're splitting it up it's essentially like two 13-part shows, which means perhaps the usual problems that come with having 26-ep shows (in terms of pacing) maaay be avoided. Unless they spring one of those evil cliffhanger sort of things on us. I hope they don't have to do that... -.- Spoiler for offtopic about animation: As for digital painting - no, that still is very much a menial job as far as I know. Even doing in-between animation requires more creativity and skill; these guys are doing digital paint without the actual colour designing and colour assigning (that was done obviously by I.G.). And if they screw up, I.G.'s the one checking the paintwork anyway, and they'll fix up any messes. Anyway in the age of digital paint, it's a lot harder to screw up compared to the days of cel - there's a handy thing called digital erasing/undo... Only in cases like Musashi do you have blatant mistakes in colouring and things like that. And anyway, what colour should go where is not assigned by the painters themselves.... As far as I know, at least, digital painting is a largely unlauded work because it's a bit difficult to actually screw up (so you'd expect only perfection or near perfection from them), but one really must admire all the people who do it - I'd go mad just sitting at the computer using that digital-paint program all the time. @_@ Frame after frame after frame. That is why digital paint is almost always farmed out to other studios... Even for Cossette - I don't know the production details behind it, but it's most certainly plausible that it was the producers who hired the director and not the studio. I think that happens kind of often... (And I think Haruhi was lauded much more for its colour design and quality of drawings + movement than the actual paint - you can't really comment on the digital paint unless it's actually bad because only then do you see any difference. As far as I know.) __________________ Thanks for the fish

2006-12-17, 07:54	Link #2
Sonhex Not dead. Yet. Graphic Designer Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: UK	I'm sure we're all thinking 'is this going to be like Planetes?'. Well I've heard mixed reviews about the manga, but I'm quite intrigued by this due to the apparent 'real science' behind the story (Helium 3). This is quite an ambitious series though, scheduled for 2 seasons and Studio Hibari is a seasoned production house (they worked on Spirited Away). I'm keeping an open mind though.

2006-12-18, 08:59	Link #7
Sonhex Not dead. Yet. Graphic Designer Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: UK	Yeah certainly it's the approach that'll prevent something like this from being an animated Discovery Channel special on NASA's Helium-3 ambitions or something equally sterile. Though from little snippets of info I've read on various (mostly French bd sites) MM is quite gritty and stark, in both it's portrayal of military training and the reality of working in space. While I really don't expect it to be like Planetes, in either greatness or quality, but something like its approach to the reality of space travel and ergonomics would be ideal. The real science is just there, it's background detail; you'll either detect it or it'll just pass you by. Either way it doesn't impact on the human story until it affects the characters directly.

2007-01-10, 08:45	Link #13
Sonhex Not dead. Yet. Graphic Designer Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: UK	Some casting info from here, Gorou is played by Inoue Kazuhiko (most recently heard as Sotetsu from Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto). Jack F. Woodbridge/Lostman played by Hirata Hiroaki (Benny from Black Lagoon/Sanji in One Piece). Ryoko is played by Rie Tanaka, who I'm sure everyone knows Stellar cast, really looking forward to this now.

2007-01-19, 09:00	Link #15
cyth Banned Join Date: Dec 2006 Age: 38	The website is now hosting a Promotional Video for it. Also, the ending theme is now known: 「Scarecrow」 by the pillows (avex trax).

2007-01-19, 11:04	Link #16
eggplant Eggplant Join Date: Dec 2005	Hm, not much to see from the trailer. Great cast comprised of veteran seiyuus. Since this will air on WOWOW's non-scrambled (subscription only) slot on Saturday nights, and every title in this slot since TOKKO has an R-15 rating, it looks like Moonlight Mile won't be an exception. If that's the case, I wonder how they're going to handle the sex scenes. __________________ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yuri de yuri de yuriyuri ne!--Tsunomoto Rein

2007-01-19, 11:33	Link #17
Sonhex Not dead. Yet. Graphic Designer Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: UK	Good to see they're opting for realism, but the CG in that promo looks very sterile to me. More like a simulation than a stylish backdrop; especially that fly-by of the IIS. Epic music though, very James Horner...

2007-01-29, 04:09	Link #18
prince leon red knight Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: The Bahamas Age: 38	Tanaka Rie is all I needed to see. I'm already sold on the series just because of her. __________________ :: キタぜ陰謀! ::

2007-01-29, 07:35	Link #19
Sonhex Not dead. Yet. Graphic Designer Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: UK	Speaking of the gorgeous Miss.Rie Tanaka... Left to right - Hirata Hiroaki (Lostman), Rie Tanaka (Ryoko), Inoue Kazuhiko (Gurou). Picture from this article, an interview with the three of them talking about MM (and having a good giggle about some of the 'adult' scenes ).