'Mecha Ude: Mechanical Arms' TV Series Gets A Trailer

Crowdfunding has the ability to democratise animation. By going directly to the would-be fans, projects that otherwise wouldn't see the light of day can be brought to life.  One particular Kickstarter project we covered all the way back in 2016, Mecha Ude; Mechanical Arms was originally brought to life as a pilot film, but now the series is being produced as a full-blown TV series.

The team behind the series, known as TriF Studio was in attendance at the Anime Expo Event earlier in July. The panel was held in the morning of July 3 (Japan time).

Firstly, the first episode of the Mecha Ude TV anime was screened as a world premiere. Director and original creator, Okamoto, animation producer Shuichi Aso, and producer Tetsuya Kinoshita appeared on stage, while the audience were absorbed in the beautiful visuals.

Mecha Ude started life as a campaign on an American crowdfunding site, to the crew spoke oh how grateful they were to be able to bring the premiere to an American audience. Director Okamoto, who is directing for the first time, spoke of the challenges and pleasures of producing the work.

It was then revealed that another never seen before video was about to be revealed. The official preview video was shown, and subsequently released to the public on YouTube. The trailer extensively uses scenes from beyond the first episode that had been screened earlier.

In the promotional video the staff and the cast were also revealed for the first time.

Yasuhiro Nakanishi is in charge of series composition, Terumi Nishi and Yoko Uchida are responsible for character design, and Nurikabe is doing the design and concept art . The music team includes Hiroyuki Sawano and Kohta Yamamoto,  (Attack on Titan and Gundam), . Hiroshi Matsuyama of CyberConnect2, known for the video games of .hack, "NARUTO: Ultimate Ninja" and Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure series, also participated as general supervisor.

The cast includes Toshiyuki Toyonaga as the hero, Hikaru, Tomokazu Sugita as Hikaru's Mecha-Ude, Alma, and Yu Shimamura as the heroine, Aki, all reprising their roles from the crowdfunded pilot. It was also announced that Romi Park will be reprising her role as Kagami, and Yuichi Nakamura will return as Fist.

Mecha-Ude is scheduled to air sometime in 2024