Main Feature: Appleseed XIII / Creator's interview: Yuichi Ito, Japanese Animation Director

Main Feature: "Appleseed XIII"
Masamune Shirow, widely respected by fellow creators at home and abroad, made his major debut with the science fiction manga Appleseed which, unusually for a Japanese cartoon strip, went directly into paperback without prior magazine serialization. It isn't only the content which surprises. A new TV cartoon series, Appleseed XIII (read Appleseed Thirteen), starting in June 2011, is being broadcast in 3D computer graphics! The full media mix is being launched simultaneously with Blu-ray and DVD sales, net distribution, cinema release and more. Appleseed XIII is not a sequel to the first two films but a series of thirteen completely new stories. The biggest, most unprecedented surprise of all for both people in the business and fans is that all thirteen stories were made, one at each, in thirteen different computer graphic studios. Each studio company has its own flavor and it was quite a challenge to bring it altogether as a coherent work! We spent a long time on site before the official release and this is the behind the scenes look you simply have to see.

Creator's interview: Yuichi Ito, Japanese Animation Director
An animator who mainly works in clay or computer graphics, Ito was the man behind such TV works as the Knyacki clay animation broadcast from 1995 and has made music videos for such leading Japanese singers as Utada Hikaru and Ken Hirai. His clay characters are a familiar sight on TV commercials as well. His characters are warm and the works sparkle with originality. We introduce a first-rank animator.