Picture this: K2 Pictures just dropped some exciting news at the Cannes International Film Festival! Their “K2P Film Fund I” is backing a couple of fascinating projects. First up? A theatrical anime take on Hiroya Oku‘s GIGANT manga. And get this—they’re also cooking up a musical film version of Osamu Tezuka‘s mind-bending The Book of Human Insects manga.
The GIGANT anime? That’s actually K2 Pictures’ very first stab at an animated feature—pretty cool, right?
Seven Seas Entertainment licensed the manga, and here’s how they sum it up:
Rei Yokoyamada, a high schooler whose dad works in film production, gets inspired to make his own short movie with friends. While scouting for actors, he spots those tabloid-style flyers saying adult film star Papico lives nearby. He grabs them to keep her out of the spotlight… and literally runs into her. What he doesn’t see coming? Papico’s about to get swept up in something totally supernatural… where she suddenly starts growing to giant size!
Oku launched this series in Shogakukan‘s Big Comic Superior magazine back in December 2017. It wrapped up in September 2021, with the final tenth volume hitting Japanese shelves that December.
Now, for the Tezuka project: Ken Ninomiya’s directing the Osamu Tezuka 100th Anniversary Project The Book of Human Insects musical film—which was actually pitched earlier this year at Berlin’s European Film Market during their “Spotlight on Japan” event.
Vertical puts out the English version, and here’s their take on the story:
Toshiko Tomura’s barely out of her teens (born 1947), yet she’s already snagged the prestigious Akutagawa Prize for her story “The Book of Human Insects.” And hey, that’s not her first win—she previously took home the New York Design Academy Award, and before that? She was the leading lady of a well-known theater troupe. But while the media’s having a field day with her, she quietly vanishes from the city. The lone paparazzo stubborn enough to follow her to a deserted country house finds something surreal: an unmoving elderly figure… and Toshiko herself, stark naked, lost in a dream that’s equal parts strange and sensual…
Think jaded reporters, anarchist assassins, right-wing power players, ruthless execs, and burnt-out artists—The Book of Human Insects follows a brilliant young woman who can absolutely hold her own against all of them… though she’s definitely not what you’d call a feminist icon. With a heroine who’s just as fiercely self-driven, the typically “humanist” Tezuka serves up, with a Wellesian wink, a chilling portrait of a world where heroes simply don’t exist.
Fun fact: this very story inspired a live-action TV drama back in 2011.
The official Tezuka website shared on May 12 that NHK is crafting a live-action TV special based on his autobiographical manga short “Paper Fortress” (“Kami no Toride”), set to air in August.
Sources: K2 Pictures, Deadline (Liz Shackleton)
