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Coluboccoro Kickstarter Adds Stretch Goal for English Dub

The Kickstarter campaign to fund Kenji Studio, director Kenji Itoso's studio, and Awesome Japan's Coluboccoro fantasy anime film added a US$60,000 stretch goal for an English dub on Monday. A second stretch goal, at US$78,000, will add an English dub to Kenji Studio's Santa Company anime.

The campaign to release the film on Blu-ray and DVD with English subtitles met its goal of US$38,000 last week. The project's previously announced stretch goal of US$100,000 would add 30 minutes to the film's run time.

As of press time, the Kickstarter has earned US$41,264 with three days remaining.

The Kickstarter campaign describes the film:

It is a time not of the now. At the birthplace of culture and religion. Where science has evolved amongst a gathering of races and people both high and low. In a town, with a ruler. Like any other town, unlike any other ruler. Suzu, the girl's name is. Her parents lost to her at a young age, her days strict with an upbringing befitting of the now and future sovereign. But doubt had crept in for the life she lived. So out she stole one day, to that place one must never set foot, to the Forbidden Grounds. Far above the town the Forbidden Grounds lay. And there, Suzu finds a seed, the likes of which she has never seen before. What kind of seed could it be? Wondering, she wanders back and waters the seed… And there, it sprouts right before her eyes, a mysterious creature popping up from the dirt!

A startled Suzu timidly speaks, “…and you are?”

“Colu!” it peeped.

Suzu returns to the Forbidden Grounds, to find out just what the creature is. Beyond lays a world she has never seen, the secret of the town waiting hidden. And just like that, destinies are laid bare. All possibilities become one thread, spinning the ultimate truth. Will Suzu take hold and lead it to the end?

Coluboccoro was originally a fantasy short that Itoso produced with Anime Innovation Tokyo, and it won the grand prize in the Creative Market Tokyo 2011 event. (Itoso was the unit director on the late Satoshi Kon's dormant Yume-Miru Kikai film.)

Itoso conceived, planned, wrote, storyboarded, and directed the "Coluboccoro" short himself. Its grand prize led to Itoso receiving a go-ahead to make the Santa Company film. Norihiko Tsuru composed the music, Hanami performed the theme song, and the voice cast starred Emiri Kato.

Kenji Studio had already run a Kickstarter campaign for Santa Company in 2013, and it completed the film last year after meeting its fundraising goal. Itoso stated on the Coluboccoro Kickstarter page that Coluboccoro and Santa Company "are part of a larger work," and a third anime fantasy is planned to make a trilogy.

Thanks to Blair Mueller for the news tip.