During the Crunchyroll Expo on Friday, fans were given a 4-minute long exclusive preview of the upcoming summer series “Fena: Pirate Princess”. Fans also received new shots of background art of the series that are downright beautiful. The series is a collab between Crunchyroll and Adult Swim that will be animated by Production I.G.
You can watch the four-minute exclusive video below:
Rui Kuroki (producer, Production I.G), Kazuto Nakazawa (director, Production I.G), and Yusuke Takeda were interviewed for the panel at the expo. During the interview, they dived into how “Fena: Pirate Princess” came together. One topic of discussion was the background artwork.
Takeda, who also worked on the Wit Studio gem of a series, “Great Pretender”, goes on to talk about his work in “Fena: Pirate Princess”.
“Artistically, since this is an adventure story, the background keeps changing,” said Takeda. “Kind of like a rollercoaster. Every tun you make, you encounter various situations. When you get to the next destination, the background changes again. It’s a lot of fun.”
Director Nakazawa personally requested for Takeda to work on the series with him and Kuroki. “The whole industry chooses to work with Takeda,” said Nakazawa. “‘Takeda’ – is the first [person] they all ask for. We just got lucky that he agreed to work with us.”
Many fans may have known, but Takeda is also the Art Director for the upcoming anticipated series Chainsaw Man. Other noticeable works by Takeda include Ghost in The Shell, Eden of the East, Initial D, and both of the opening themes for Jujutsu Kaisen.
The background artwork in “Fena: Pirate Princess” is apparently so mind-blowing that Director Nakazawa even goes onto talk about it. He hopes that the beautiful settings of “Fena: Pirate Princess” will give fans a sense of adventure that they haven’t been able to feel over the past year due to COVID-19.
“The background colors, as well as the character colors, are simply stunning,” said Nakazawa. “Especially now with the pandemic, we aren’t able to go anywhere. It would be great if viewers can feel as if they’re traveling around when they watch this show.”
Another thing to take note of is that this series will not involve CG, so that’s always a plus many anime fans will look forward to. And, as shown during the preview video above, action scenes look crisp as can be.
Fena: Pirate Princess, a Crunchyroll and Adult Swim Original, follows the adventures of Fena Houtman as she runs from pirates and the English Navy, relying on a crew of Japanese samurai to unlock her family secrets—and an unimaginable treasure!
With a stacked cast bringing us this original anime series, we are looking forward to this Summer 2021 series.
Fena: Pirate Princess will air exclusively on Crunchyroll and Adult Swim on August 14, 2021.
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