Director, designer, composer to reunite for musical anime about "magical boys"

Anime producer Shouji Murahama ( Basilisk , Speed Grapher , Shangri-La ) launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign on Wednesday for a new original anime project titled Mahō Shōnen ( The Magic Boy ). The campaign seeks to raise 4 million yen (about US$36,000) to fund a pilot film for the project. The campaign will run until April 30.

The staff intends to make the story as a "magical boy" counterpart to the "magical girl" genre of anime and manga. The staff also intend to make the anime as a musical. The campaign page describes the story:

Those who have the red eyes are considered anathema in this world - The protagonist named Riel lost his mother and elder brother by his red eyes and felt no hope. Then a masked gentleman showed up suddenly in front of his eyes. "Do you want to change the world?" Riel enters a magic school, reaches out his heart to a masked gentleman, gradually overcomes discrimination, gets along with his schoolmates. But, the eyes of a masked gentleman are burning with dark fire for some reason... This is a story of love and forgiveness, weaved by "songs".

The staff includes Katsuya Kikuchi ( The Royal Tutor , Idol Memories ) as original creator and director, Michiko Yokote ( Shirobako , Tsurune ) as the scenario writer, Rena Okuyama ( The Royal Tutor ) as the character designer and chief animation director, Chinami Sekine ( Idol Memories , The Royal Tutor , Children of the Whales ) as animation director, Kaie Tada as costume designer, BABI as "supervisor of magic," and Keiji Inai ( The Royal Tutor ) as the composer.