The first promotional video and the official website for the Sakamichi no Apollon television anime confirmed on Friday that the project is reuniting Cowboy Bebop's director Shinichiro Watanabe (Macross Plus, The Animatrix's "Kid's Story," Samurai Champloo) and composer Yoko Kanno (Macross Plus/Frontier, Escaflowne, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex) . Nobuteru Yuki (Record of Lodoss War, Escaflowne, Space Battleship Yamato 2199) is designing the characters, and Yoshimitsu Yamashita (Hyouge Mono, Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~) is the chief animation director at the studios MAPPA/Tezuka Productions.

The promotional video is now streaming on the website:





In this coming-of-age story of "love, friendship, and music," a naive boy and a scruffy boy share a passion for jazz in a provincial town in the late 1960s. Yuki Kodama's original manga is being adapted into a television anime on Fuji TV's Noitamina this April. The manga won the General Category in this year's Shogakukan Manga Awards.



Source: Saishin Anime Jōhō

Image © Yuki Kodama, Shogakukan/Sakamichi no Apollon Production Committee

Update: More background information added. Ayako Katoh (Stitch!: Itazura Alien no Daibōken, Chihayafuru) and Yuuko Kakihara (Heaven's Lost Property, Persona 4: The Animation) are co-writing the scripts.