A new promotional video for an anime film based on novelist Project Itoh’s final novel Harmony started streaming on the official website for the series on Thursday. The PV announces the voice cast for the movie, as well as revealing the theme song to be “Ghost of a Smile” by EGOIST, also known for the openings for anime series Psycho-Pass and Guilty Crown, as well as the other two Project Itoh films based on The Empire of Corpses and Genocidal Organ. See the new trailer below.
Harmony is being animated by Studio 4°C, and is directed by Michael Arias. Each of the Project Itoh films has had a different animation studio and director, with The Empire of Corpses animated by Studio WIT and directed by Ryoutarou Makihara, and Genocidal Organ by Manglobe and Shukou Murase.
The PV also revealed the voice cast for the adaptation:
- Tuan Kirie: Miyuki Sawashiro
- Oscar Schtaufenberg: Yoshiko Sakakibara
- Elliya Vashirof: Shinichiro Miki
- Asaf: Akio Ohtsuka
- Cian Reikado: Aya Suzaki
- Keita Saeki: Cho
- Nuaza Kirie: Junpei Morita
- Minach Mihie: Reina Ueda
Viz Media’s Haikasoru imprint also has a description of Project Itoh’s original Harmony novel:
In the future, Utopia has finally been achieved thanks to medical nanotechnology and a powerful ethic of social welfare and mutual consideration. This perfect world isn’t that perfect though, and three young girls stand up to totalitarian kindness and super-medicine by attempting suicide via starvation. It doesn’t work, but one of the girls—Tuan Kirie—grows up to be a member of the World Health Organization. As a crisis threatens the Harmony of the new world, Tuan rediscovers another member of her suicide pact, and together they must help save the planet…from itself.
All three of the movies will hit theaters in Japan later this year, with The Empire of Corpses opening on October 2, Genocidal Organ premiering on November 13, and Harmony landing on December 4. In addition, Funimation has licensed the films and plans to release them in North America in 2016.
Project Itoh’s first novel was Genocidal Organ, originally written in 2007. Following that, he wrote the novelization of Metal Gear Solid: Guns of the Patriots in 2008, and Harmony, his final novel, in 2009, both while being treated for cancer, and ultimately passed away later that year. The Empire of Corpses, co-authored by Toh Enjoe, was released posthumously in 2012. Viz Media’s Haikasoru imprint has published three of these novels, excluding The Empire of Corpses, in English, releasing Harmony in 2010 and the other two in 2012.
