Production I.G announced today the production of a new animated feature film, 009 Re: Cyborg, based on the Cyborg 009 characters created by Shotaro Ishinomori and directed by Kenji Kamiyama, the acclaimed director of the "Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex" series and "Eden of the East." The 3D CG-animated movie will be theatrically distributed in Japan in fall 2012 by Production I.G and T-Joy.
Kenji Kamiyama himself is writing the script for the new film, that is going to be set in the present day. The crew includes some of Japan's top creators who have already collaborated with Kamiyama in his previous works. Gato Aso ("Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit") is in charge of character design duties, the score will be composed by Kenji Kawai ("Eden of the East"), while the background art will be by Yusuke Takeda ("Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex," "Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit"). The animation is produced in collaboration with Sanzigen, one of Japan's up-and-coming CG studios.
In the original comic, nine regular humans from different parts of the world are kidnapped by the evil Black Ghost organization, and transformed into cyborgs with great powers for the purpose of being used as weapons. The nine cyborgs rebel and start to fight against their creators, while struggling for their own self redemption. Ishinomori continued to write Cyborg 009 until 1985 in eight different story arcs. As the first superpowered hero team ever created in Japanese comics, Cyborg 009 proved to be a greatly influential forerunner for the generations to come, receiving three animated TV series and three movie adaptations, distributed in many countries of the world.
You can watch a trailer for the film using the player below.
