Company to donate videos’ revenues for 2024 quake-hit area’s reconstruction efforts
Anime planning and production company Infinite started streaming on its YouTube channel on Thursday two short animated videos titled the “Noto Peninsula Reconstruction Support Project,” hoping for a speedy recovery of the Noto Peninsula from an earthquake that occurred on January 1, 2024. The company plans to donate all the videos’ revenues to reconstruction efforts by June and December this year. The first video is the “Wajima Edition” and the second video is the “Nanao Edition.” (Note: Both below videos do not have English subtitles.)
Noto Peninsula Reconstruction Support Project -Wajima Edition-
The Wajima Edition video shows Yuki Wakura — a high school student who left her hometown of Wajima to live in Nanao after the 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake — go back to her hometown to see her friend Tsumugi Kashima. The scars of the disaster are still visible everywhere, and while Yuki feels sad to see her hometown changing, she finds comfort in knowing that the people living in Wajima continue to look forward, just as they did before the earthquake.
Noto Peninsula Reconstruction Support Project -Nanao Edition-
The Nanao Edition video shows Yuki and her mother Yōko on their way to meet Tsumugi, who is visiting Nanao for the Seihaku festival. On the way, they pass through Komaruyama Castle Ruins Park, where they can see the city’s steady progress toward recovery. When Yuki and Tsumugi meet, they go to see the festival highlight, the Dekayama (big mountain) floats, and see the people full of energy and enjoying themselves at the festival. Seeing this gives Yuki and Tsumugi hope for the future.
Reina Ueda voices the character Yuki Wakura, Marika Kōno voices Tsumugi Kashima, and Mamiko Noto voices Yōko Wakura.
Kyōhei Yamamoto (The Apothecary Diaries episode director, Joshi Kausei character design) directed the videos at ROLL2×EVOLROAR, drew the storyboard, and designed the characters. Fly drew the original character designs and Tohru Fujimoto wrote the script. Infinite‘s Takayuki Nagatani is the producer and Kazuaki Ouchi (Love Is Indivisible by Twins) is the animation producer. Music duo nano.RIPE composed the music and also performed the song “Peridot” for the videos.
Other staff includes:
An earthquake of magnitude 7.6 struck the western coast of Japan, specifically the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture, on January 1, 2024 at 4:10 p.m. JST. Buildings shook as far away as Tokyo and Osaka on the opposite coast of Japan. In Wajima, a fire sparked by the quake burned an estimated 50,000 square meters, and destroyed more than 200 buildings including the Gō Nagai Wonderland Museum, which features many of Nagai’s original art for such classic manga as Mazinger Z, Cutey Honey, Devilman, and Getter Robo, as well as a 1/9-scale statue of Mazinger Z‘s titular robot. Nagai’s studio Dynamic Production confirmed that the original paintings and figurines survived the fire.
Wajima, which is Nagai’s birthplace, announced plans for a museum in 2005, and the museum opened at the city’s historic Asaichi Street in 2009.
Sources: Infinite‘s YouTube channel (link 2), Comic Natalie
