Anime was put on hold after director Nakamura passed away

Manga creator and character designer Yoshitoshi ABe ( Serial Experiments Lain , Haibane Renmei ) mentioned at a live drawing session at Auckland, New Zealand's Overload Comic Convention in October that his Despera anime project is continuing with a new director. The project was put on hold after director Ryutaro Nakamura passed away in 2013.

ABe unveiled the project at Seattle's Sakura-Con in 2009. ABe was heading the project and designing the characters and Chiaki J. Konaka , the series script supervisor of Serial Experiments Lain , Texhnolyze , and Hellsing , was writing the script.

The title is derived from a poem from the Dadaist poet Jun Tsuji (1884-1944). The story centers around Ain , a 14-year-old girl who builds devices despite the lack of the scientific background required for them. The science-fiction story is set in Japan's Taishō era in 1922 — one year before the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake in the Tokyo area.

Thanks to John Titor for the news tip.