The official website for Japan Anima(tor)'s Exhibition (Japan Animator Expo), the project of weekly anime shorts from Hideaki Anno's Studio Khara and the media company Dwango, revealed on Friday that the project's first short "The Dragon Dentist" is inspiring a feature-length version that will air next February on the NHK BS Premium channel. The two-part special will mark the first time Khara, the studio behind the new Evangelion films, is producing an anime for television.

Anno ( Shin Godzilla , new Evangelion films) is serving as executive producer and sound director, and Kazuya Tsurumaki (FLCL, Aim for the Top 2!, new Evangelion films) is returning from the short as the director. Otaro Maijo is credited with the original work and the script, and Yoji Enokido is also writing the script. Shuichi Iseki is the character designer.

The anime will consist of two episodes, each 45 minutes long.

The first short is available again for streaming until March 31, 2017. The project's website describes the story:

A girl comes there to become a dentist of a dragon.

She is with other new freshman applicants,

but there is no announcement from a senior as a guidance.

They are confused and taken along with the senior.

The only way is just to walk through freshman's path, which is dark and strange.

They do not know where they are.

Not knowing what to do, she is approaching […] the secret of the dragon,

but she does not realize yet.

The adventure has already begun



The theme of the story is "facing a life with an end, or death." The story is set in a country of dragons, where a dragon is the land's guardian deity. Nonoko is entrusted with being the dentist for the dragon, and while performing her duties, she encounters a boy named Bell from an enemy country in a state of war.

NHK had announced in March that one or more of the shorts from the Japan Anima(tor)'s Exhibition would inspire an anime special.

Source: Cinema Today via Otakomu