by Kambole Campbell

The summer anime season is upon us, the hottest new shows arriving in waves – all rather intense on the back of Annecy Festival, in which a number of upcoming titles screened as part of the competition. Having to weave between embargoes a little here, we at Re:Frame thought we'd give a rundown of the titles we're looking forward to the most (a couple of them won't surprise you in the least).

The Ghost in the Shell

It's likely that you don't need us to tell you this, but the biggest anime of the upcoming season is without a doubt The Ghost in the Shell, the latest adaptation of the manga by Masamune Shirow. "Biggest" doesn't typically correlate to "good," so I'll just say that The Ghost in the Shell is very, very good. Produced at Science Saru and directed by Mokochan (Scott Pilgrim Takes Off), the series sets itself apart rather deliberately by embracing the look of the source material, defining its look by the technology and fashion which existed at the time of the manga's publishing (there was a hell of a lot of work which went into this – according to Mokochan there were 48 design elements just for Makoto's outfits).

The first two episodes – screened in a premiere at Annecy – are immediately a lot lighter and goofier, more playful in tone than Mamoru Oshii's famously moody reflective take. It's rich with brighter colors, bigger and broader expressions, and more emphatic angles in the layouts. Makoto herself is emblematic of the difference — she's sillier, cheekier, more human than before.

That's also reflected in the aforementioned character designs, ones which feel like they leapt out of a design sheet from the '80s (big hair!!) — right down to the costumes and Major's giant shoulder pads, these details make the world feel a little warmer and more personable. Better yet is the inventive and kinetic manner in how Mokochan and the staff communicate invisible digital links between the characters, through superimposed images and other creative edits.

Even with this lively energy and embrace of a more lighthearted tone, the cyberpunk corporate dystopia persists – human heads still explode the same, its fights get surprisingly violent rather quick, and the conspiratorial stories dive headfirst into subjects like child slave labor and, of course, politicians selling their countries down the river to make a quick buck. It's a promising start, one I hope Mokochan and Saru can sustain.

Jaadugar: A Witch in Mongolia

My other most anticipated show of the incoming season is another Saru production, with Jaadugar: A Witch in Mongolia. The historical drama, based on the manga written and illustrated by Tomato Soup, has an impressive team behind the wheel, with Abel Gongora (Dan Da Dan) as director and Naoko Yamada as chief director; the latter's frequent collaborate Kenichi Yoshida (The Colors Within, The Heike Story) is character designer and animation lead.

The story is set in the early 13th century, the young girl Sitara having journeyed from her homeland which was destroyed by the Mongol Empire, her mother also killed. Sitara, sold into slavery, meets the similarly vengeful Töregene, and together they plot the downfall of the Mongol Empire from within. The marquee names of Yamada and Gongora and the involvement of their studio Science Saru makes this of immediate interest, even as someone with no real knowledge of Tomato Soup's manga.

But what's clear regardless is that its character design philosophy feels unique, in a landscape where a lot of high profile anime trends towards a mean. The silhouettes remind a little bit of classic work by Osamu Tezuka and perhaps a little bit of the proportions of Masaaki Yuasa's Kaiba. While I can't say more under embargo, what's visible in the trailer is a sense of beautiful art direction, like sister Saru project The Ghost in the Shell, which is both pleasing to the eye and belies a rather dark world being built.

Goodbye Lara

There have been anime spins on The Little Mermaid before, and the shoujo romance Goodbye Lara looks to pick up that ball and run with it. Lara is a mermaid princess, she falls in love with a human, takes a potion to become human too but (for reasons not yet disclosed) misses her shot. The potion has consequences, that she must find true love or perish, but now she has to do it 200 years after this first attempt, integrating with contemporary Japanese society. The Kinema Citrus-produced anime is rather well placed in a season full of similarly old school-looking animation, this also feeling like it was brought forward in time with the hand-crafted feel of its production – from the pop of primary colors, the almost matte textures, to its classical character designs. Definitely one to keep an eye on.

The World is Dancing

One thing I quickly thought of when gazing upon Toshimasa Kuroyanagi's adaptation of The World Is Dancing is Isao Takahata's The Tale of the Princess Kaguya. Before you boo me for making yet another Ghibli comparison, it feels apt for the boundary-breaking, expressive mania of a sequence late in the first episode, where the young Noh theater prodigy Oniyasha (the young Zeami Motokiyo, a real figure) witnesses what dance performance could be. The art of the rest of the episode to this point flirts with different styles of drawing: some faded backgrounds and sketchy pencil drawings here, some heavier linework there. This last sequence feels like gazing into another world entirely, seen through a small gap in a rickety wooden door.

What follows reminded me of the famous "escape" sequence from Takahata's Kaguya as the structure and model of the drawings completely collapses into pure expression, the background scrawling paint and erratic pencil lines dance across the screen in a total ecstatic blur, an almost ghostly human form contorts and stretches impossibly as the animation conveys the feeling of seeing beauty which words can't capture, and the art of dance almost can. The animation completes that emotional gap, as it explodes a pretty but otherwise conventional look into something almost avant garde. (The way the body of the dancer melts and the lines wobble in this process also reminds me a little of the stylings of Shinya Ohira.) If The World is Dancing can get even one more sequence that looks like this out of its season, it'll be one of the greatest of the next few months.

And a few more

There's even more coming down the line, such as the second season of the frequently breathtaking The Elusive Samurai which begins from July 17. I for one am keen to tune into its eccentric take on feudal history and cast of murderous oddballs. Star Wars Visions Presents: The Ninth Jedi takes one of the more beloved stories/characters from the Star Wars Visions anthology and expands it into a full series with Kenji Kamiyama, with a new trailer released today. The wheel continues to turn!

/out of frame

⚽ Kambole: After spending a week covering Annecy, I am now writing to you from Rimini (Fellini's hometown!) in Italy where I'll be doing some coverage of the television festival, Italian Global Series fest. I think PlayStation's determination to kill physical media (and therefore the price competition of the pre-owned market) sucks, and I'm frustrated by Senegal being knocked out of the World Cup, but we move.

🤱🏾 Toussaint: The Forever Winter just received a new update, the latest in its continued march towards 1.0. In addition, Fun Dog Studios released a new animated short following the "lifecycle" of one of FW's most terrifying (and popular) adversaries: the Eurasian "Mother Courage." The short is fantastic, offering a glimpse into a yet unexplored corner of the world that I can't wait to learn more about in the months ahead.

🚢 Rollin: I've been so busy that most of my non-work activities have been mindless. Y'all ever see The Last Ship? It's on Netflix and is a show. That said, I did watch and enjoy every last minute of Marriagetoxin.