Mamoru Oshii and Mizuho Nishikubo's theatrical
movie due out this summer
Production I.G has provided Anime News Network with an English Language trailer for Mamoru Oshii and Mizuho Nishikubo's Musashi: The Dream of the Last
Samurai. Oshii developed and wrote this story about Musashi, the real-life swordsmen who pioneered the Hyōhō Niten
Ichi-ryū style of two-sword fighting and wrote The Book of Five Rings classic on military strategy. The movie is planned
theatrical release in Japan in early summer. Mizuho Nishikubo, an animation director for Oshii's Ghost in the Shell films,
Patlabor 2: The Movie, The Sky Crawlers, and the anime sequence in Kill Bill: Volume 1, is in charge of the actual direction
of the film. Oshii had similarly created the Blood: The Last Vampire and Jin-Roh - The Wolf Brigade films for others —
Hiroyuki Kitakubo and Hiroyuki Okiura, respectively — to actually direct. Samurai Champloo and Kill Bill: Volume 1 animation
director Kazuto Nakazawa, will design the characters, while Kazuchika Kise (Blood+, Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone, Ghost
in the Shell films) will supervise the animation process.
The historical Miyamoto figure has directly or indirectly inspired several earlier manga and anime
stories. Those stories include Toei Animation Wanpaku Nitouryou - Shounen Miyamoto Musashi television special (1982), Gosho
Aoyama Yaiba manga and television series (1988-1993), Phoenix Animation Ninja Resurrection video (1988), Studio Comet's Shura
no Toki television series (2004), and Monkey Punch's Musashi television series (2006). Takehiko Inoue's ongoing epic samurai
series, Vagabond, is also based on Miyamoto's story.