Shirobako Producers Discuss Possibility of Sequel

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During the Tokyo Anime Award Festival on March 20, P.A. Works CEO Kenji Horikawa, voice actress Juri Kimura (Aoi Miyamori in Shirobako), Kohei Kawase of Warner Entertainment Japan, and Takayuki Nagatani of Infinite discussed the potential of a sequel to the Shirobako anime.

When asked about what episode they would like to see if there were a sequel, Horikawa responded with:

We’ve got plenty of material to work off of, and I want to see a story about Aoi going back to her hometown and teaching an anime class for children.

When asked about the possibility for a sequel, Nagatani stated:

We wanted people who watched Shirobako to get a lot out of the show. If we could decide on a theme, there might be a chance [for a sequel].

Kawase also hinted that:

The show was made by sampling what we could from the current age, but there are many things we haven’t sampled yet.

Last June in the 6th issue of Anime Style, P.A Works founder, president, and Shirobako‘s producer Horikawa Kenji was interviewed. During the interview he revealed that there is enough material to work with for a sequel but director Tsutomu Mizushima is currently busy for the next few years with other series. He also mentioned that even producing an OVA would be tough.

Anime visual:

Megami MAGAZINE March 2015 anime posters Haruhichan.com shirobako poster

Shirobako is an anime television series produced by Warner Entertainment Japan and studio P.A.Works, which handled the animation. The series was directed by Tsutomu Mizushima and aired in Japan between October 9, 2014 and March 26, 2015. A manga adaptation began serialization in ASCII Media Works’s Dengeki Daioh magazine in September 2014, and a novel was published by Shueisha in January 2015.

The title Shirobako refers to videos that are distributed to the production staff members prior to its release. These videos were at a time distributed as VHS tapes enclosed in white boxes and are still referred to as “white boxes” (thus the meaning of shirobako) despite the fact that the white enclosures are no longer in use.

Shirobako sysnopsis from Haruhichan:

Aoi will never forget how she felt the day her high school animation club’s labor of love was shown at the cultural festival. The sense of awe and the feeling of accomplishment that came with completing their very first project are exactly what encouraged Aoi and her club mates to enter the animation industry in the first place. But two years later Aoi has graduated, and now that she works as a production assistant for a big-name animation studio, the daunting reality of her job has somewhat diminished her enthusiasm. Despite the long hours and the punishing schedule, Aoi still hopes to fulfill the promise she and her club friends Ema, Shizuka, Misa, and Midori made: to one day reunite and make a real animated feature of their own as professionals!

Source: ANN