One of the most acclaimed world film directors is now turning to one of the most popular global forms of entertainment. At the Anime Awards hosted by Crunchyroll this past weekend, South Korean film auteur Bong Joon-ho took the stage as a featured guest to announce the Anime of the Year award, an accolade given to Jujutsu Kaisen as part of its incredibly impressive 11-award haul at the event. While there was already more than enough anticipation in the room, the director of Parasite made an announcement of his own—active development on a Japanese anime feature film project.

Bong Joon-ho is one of the most popular directors working in the media today, and four years ago, the director’s live-action black comedy thriller Parasite was one of the most lauded films of the 2010s, being the first Asian film and first foreign-language film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Joon-ho has garnered a reputation for being a multidisciplinary genre director, from the CGI-heavy sci-fi of 2013's Snowpiercer and 2017’s Okja to the comedic social-minded thriller of 2019’s Parasite, the director has a dynamic style that will be allowed to really go wild in the unrestrained world of animation.

Related

Best Anime On Crunchyroll (July 2024)

From currently airing romance series to shonen classics and isekai masterpieces, here are the best anime that can be streamed on Crunchyroll.

While the announcement made by Joon-ho was a major reveal at the ceremony, the director has previously alluded to his interest in an animated project. The news of his development of a CGI-animated feature concept was first announced in Korean media in 2021, and it’s been confirmed that full production of the film is set to begin later this year.

It’s not immediately clear if this animated film is the “anime film” alluded to during the Anime Awards, but this project is confirmed to be animated in part with VFX studio 4th Creative Party. 4th Creative Party has been a longtime collaborator with Joon-ho, in addition to being involved with anime-adjacent work in the past such as the 2013 CGI-animated film adaptation of Space Pirate Captain Harlock, the 1970s legendary space opera manga from Leiji Matsumoto.

It's unclear whether Joon-ho was referring to this project as an international co-production, or if he’s working on a different Japanese project further down the line. Anyone who knows the anime industry knows that studio culture and house style are of major importance for a project’s creative vision, and the kind of content that would come from a Joon-ho x MAPPA collaboration is different from what you’d get from, say, a collaboration with Science Saru.

One certain thing, though, is that this announcement speaks to the international rise in popularity of animation and anime in particular as an area of interest for A-list live-action creatives. And there’s no better stage on which to announce such a project than the Anime Awards. For a full roster of the Anime Awards’ nominations and winners, see Crunchyroll’s website.

Source: Crunchyroll

More

What Does the Crunchyroll-Funimation Merge Mean For The Industry?

Crunchyroll's merge with Funimation has had major consequences for fans, eliciting a conversation about the ownership of media.