GKIDS announces On-Gaku: Our Sound US release

Japan sees brilliant animated films throughout the year. Unfortunately, fans outside Japan are rarely privy to these releases. Some films slip past the cultural barriers and receive a version throughout the world.

GKIDS has recently acquired North American distribution rights for one such film. The animation distributor recently announced that it had licensed the Kenji Iwaisawa’s indie Japanese film “On-Gaku: Our Sound.” They have confirmed the release of the movie for later this year.

The English subtitled trailer has been streaming on their YouTube channel ever since.

ON-GAKU: OUR SOUND [Subtitled Trailer, GKIDS] - Coming Soon

GKIDS describes the film as :

“When you’re a bored teenager looking for thrills, sometimes the only thing you can turn to is rock ‘n roll. Having no skill, money, or even a full set of drums, a feared trio of high school delinquents nevertheless decide they are destined for musical glory in a quest to impress their only friend Aya, avoid a rival gang, and – most importantly – jam out.”

The film has had a long journey. It was first announced by Hiroyuki Ohashi back in 2012, which began its crowdfunding campaign on the Makuake website in July 2018. The campaign sought to raise 3.5 million yen by 2019 but ended in September 2018 after raising 4,129,000 yen.

Kenji Iwaisawa, also known for Man in the Tunnel Alley, came on board to direct the project with Hiroyuki Ohashi, who was responsible for character designs and overall supervision of the series.

Due to a restricted budget, Iwaisawa had to work with inexperienced animators.

When asked about the situation, he stated:

“I’m a director with absolutely no career experience in anime and cinema, and the manga wasn’t a big seller, so I figured that it would be tricky to find the budget.But because we had no budget to speak of, we couldn’t get professional animators or anyone on board, so we found our staff through social networking services. In the first year or two of production, we found around 20 people through online call-outs, but almost none of them had experience making animation. At the beginning, we forged ahead with production through trial and error, myself included.”

The movie has received rave reviews and won multiple awards at film festivals.

The film ranked third in mini theatre rankings in its opening weekend, received the grand prize for Feature Animation award at the Ottawa International Animation Festival last September, and competed in the sixth annual New Chitose Airport International Animation Festival in the festival’s Featured Animation Competition category in November.

About On-Gaku: Our Sound

The film is inspired by a self-published manga by Hiroyuki Ohashi in 2005. It captures the story of young delinquents who decide to form a rock band even thought they have no experience playing any instruments.

Source: Cartoon Brew