Following February’s announcement that anime director Masaaki Yuasa (Inu-Oh, Devilman Crybaby, Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, Ping-Pong the Animation) had established the anime studio ame pippin, Variety now reports that the studio’s first production is the movie Daisy’s Life, set to be released in 2026.
Daisy’s Life is based on a 2000 novel by Banana Yoshimoto, titled Hinagiku no Jinsei in Japanese and illustrated by Yoshitomo Nara. Karen Lee, who translated the novel for their honors thesis, describes it as “the story of a young woman named Daisy (Hinagiku) who cooks at an okonomiyaki and yakisoba shop. Narrated in the first-person voice, the novel explores themes of death and loss through Daisy’s relationships with her mother and childhood best friend, Dahlia.”
The film will apparently be a little different; as per Variety, the anime’s Daisy is a six-year-old who encounters “a mysterious girl named Dahlia at her window. Their days together begin to transcend time and space, bringing a cosmic perspective to Daisy’s modest life in a downtown yakisoba restaurant.”
In a statement provided to Variety, Yuasa said, “Even among the works of Ms. Banana Yoshimoto, this is a novel that evokes visual images throughout, and while there are parts that are vividly scary, the final passage is very happy, like something I had dreamed of in the past. I would like to depict the life of the protagonist who works for a yakisoba restaurant in a downtown area with a 100-meter radius on a cosmic scale.”
The Daisy’s Life film will be written by Sachiko Tanaka (Sue, Mai & Sawa: Righting the Girl Ship, Asako I & II co-writer). Variety also reports that Nara “will lend his distinct artistic style to the childhood character designs, adding a touch of emotional realism to the film’s dreamlike tone.”
Also involved with the film’s production are Asmik Ace, Inc. and France’s Miyu Productions. Miyu Productions has previously collaborated with Japanese partners on titles like Ghost Cat Anzu, Yamanaka Sadao ni Sasageru Manga Eiga “Nezumi Kozou Jirokichi,” and the upcoming A New Dawn. The latter also features a collaboration between the Asmik Ace and Miyu Productions, who are listed in the animation production credits with Studio Outrigger. It is unknown if their production credits on Daisy’s Life are similar or of the non-animation production kind.
Asmik Ace, which is involved with the investment and distribution of motion pictures, has ties with ame pippin as one of the entities involved with its founding, the others being Aniplex and CoMix Wave Films.
Source: Variety
