Announced in 2019, The Deer King was recently shown at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival after several Covid-induced postponements, and will debut in Japanese theaters on September 10th. Confirmation came a few moments ago from the official website, which also promoted the film with a brand new trailer.
The stag king is a feature film based on the author’s series of novels of the same name Nahoko Uehashi, published from September 2014 to July 2017. Masashi Ando, formerly the character designer of Studio Ghibli’s major films, is contributing to the film Production IG (Psycho-Pass, Haikyu !!) while Taku Kishimoto (Erased, Fruits Basket) is curating the script. The film was due to hit theaters on September 18, 2020, but production has decided to postpone its cinema debut several times due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Today Production IG finally decided to release a new trailer in which it is also possible to hear the original song “One Reason” by the young singer Miletus. Below is the first poster, designed by Masashi Ando.
The Stag King tells the story of Van, a villager who is about to be conquered by a great empire. Van leads a group of soldiers to defend his country, however the empire turns out to be too strong and kills all soldiers except himselfbeing captured. Van has to work as a slave in a salt mine and escapes taking advantage of the attack of some stray dogs who appear to have a strange disease. After his escape, the protagonist meets a little girl and saves her, but in the meantime, with rumors spreading, everyone is afraid of these “migrants carrying a mysterious disease” and the path to salvation becomes wider and more tortuous.
What do you think about it? Are you interested in this film? Tell us in the comments! In the meantime, we remind you that Studio Ghibli will soon be returning to theaters with a new feature film, the highly anticipated How Do You Live ?.
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