Crunchyroll, WOWOW, and Sony Pictures announced that they will produce an anime adaptation of Tow Ubukata’s novel Bye Bye, Earth. While no release date for the anime has been announced, the companies revealed that it will air on WOWOW subscription TV channel in Japan and on Crunchyroll “in more than 200 countries and territories.”
The novel’s plot takes place on an Earth where everyone takes on the form of an animal. Bell is the only girl in the world who does not have animal characteristics. She journeys to find out if there are other beings like her. Bell wields a sword and becomes involved in the conflicts between cities and the outside world.
Ubukata’s fantasy novel Bye Bye, Earth was first published in two volumes in December 2000, with art by Yoshitaka Amano (Vampire Hunter D, Final Fantasy II to X-2 image illustrator). From 2007 to 2008, the work was reissued in four volumes with illustrations by Hyung-Tae Kim (Blade & Soul, Destiny Child).
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Ryū Asahi published a manga adaptation of the novels in Shonengohasha’s Young King Ours magazine in January 2020, and it only recently ended on July 29. On September 30, Shonengahohsha published the manga’s fourth volume and final compiled volume.
The Mardock Scramble novels by Ubukata have inspired anime films and manga adaptations. Ubukata has also scripted anime such as Ghost in the Shell Arise, Heroic Age, Fafner, Psycho-Pass 2, and Human Lost. The Moonrise (working title) project was announced by Wit Studio and Ubukata in December 2018, and an English prologue novel for the project was released in the same month.
Kuroi Kisetsu (The Black Season), Ubukata’s first work, won the firs Sneaker Taisho Gold Prize in 1996. In 2003, his novel Mardock Scramble won the Nihon SF Taisho Award. His 2009 historical novel The Universe Revealed won the Booksellers Award, the Yoshikawa Eiji Prize for New Writers, and a Naoki Award.
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