The 53rd annual Stiges Film Festival saw the anime movie Seven Days War win the Best Animated Feature Film.
The 2019 feature film managed to beat out nominees Lupin III: The First and Hello World in the same categories. Other previous films that have won the same Stiges award include Ride Your Wave, Mirai and Your Name.
Seven Days War anime film receives critical acclaim
Seven Days War has met critical acclaim since it’s premier in Japan in December of 2019. The anime film adaptation of Osamu Soda’s novel also competed in the Best Features category at the Annecy International Film Festival this year.
The original novel published in Japan back in April 1985. Its first adaptation for big screen audiences was in a 1988 live action film. The Seven Days War novel was highly popular and had many reprints, sequels and spinoffs. The last volume released as recently as 2019. Over the years these have amounted to a whopping 170 million copies sold around the world. The 2019 film features the reprisal of the role of Hitomi Nakayama by actress Rie Miyazawa who played Nakayama as her major debut role in the 1988 live action film.
The premise of Seven Days War is as follows:
“The mystery story and social satire begins on the day before summer vacation, when every boy in a first-year class of a downtown Tokyo middle school disappears. Was it some accident? A mass kidnapping? Actually, the boys holed themselves up in an abandoned factory on the riverbed. With support from the schoolgirls, the boys start a revolution against the adults from this ‘liberation zone.'” (Anime News Network)
Seven Days War was directed by Yuma Murano (How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord) at Ajia-do. Head of writing for the script was Ichiro Okouchi (Code Geass). Additionally Keishin designed the original characters while Hiroshi Shimizu (Michiko & Hatchin, Megalobox) adapted those designs for the movie.
Seven Days War released on Blu-ray early this June and is available to watch for worldwide audiences.
