Description

When a gigantic, unearthly monster suddenly looms on the skyline of a Japanese city, the expected occurs—the Japan Self-Defense Forces roll out the tanks while the public panics. Nobody knows what it is or where it came from, but Yuki, a bold and inquisitive teenage girl, has a secret but might be a useful clue. Her friend Tetsu has been clandestinely caring for a bizarre creature called Cenco, which will soon prove itself to have some remarkable, even impossible characteristics. Another teenage boy, a stranger with some mysterious link to the monstrosity attacking the city, shows up, and his unwelcome interest in Tetsu’s pet snuffs out any doubt of a connection—and lights the fuse for the coming battle.

The first project to be sponsored by Anime Innovation Tokyo, an initiative to boost projects by independent, under-the-radar animators and studios, CENCOROLL is the anime adaptation of the one-shot 2005 manga AMON GAME by Atsuya Uki, which snagged the Grand Prix Award in heavyweight manga publisher Kodansha's AFTERNOON SHIKI—one of the most respected comic competitions in Japan. In 2007, Uki got the green light from Anime Innovation Tokyo to begin work on a screen version of his manga, and he did just that, all right—Uki pretty much wrote, designed and animated the whole thing himself. The premise may seem run-of-the-mill for an anime, but this is in fact one artist’s prize-winning vision, transposed to the moving image without compromise, crafted with care, taste and amazing imagination.

—Rupert Bottenberg