Interest
Next Paralympic Anime Short Focuses on Visually Impaired Judo
posted on by Lynzee Loveridge
Broadcaster NHK held a press conference in Shibuya on Wednesday to discuss its "Anime x Para: Who is Your Hero?", an animated project highlighting athletes in the Paralympic Games. Actress Mone Kamishiraishi (Chihayafuru, your name.) attended the event with Katsutoshi Kawai (Monkey Turn (manga), NHK's Kazuma Ueda, and production director Kohei Maeda. Kamishiraishi voices the anime's heroine, a visually impaired judo competitor.
Kamishiraishi said that she first became aware of judo for the visually impaired while working on the project. She found the voice acting to be very difficult but tried to convey the "power of the soul" in the work.
"Anime x Para: Who is Your Hero?" is an animated series aiming to increase interest parasports ahead of the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. Kawai is responsible for the original story of the upcoming episode. He said he wrote to Rio de Janeiro Paralympic Games bronze medalist in judo Junko Hirose. Hirose won Japan's first ever women's paralympic medal in the sport. Junko trained in the sport beginning in fifth grade and eventually lost her vision due to adult onset Still's disease.
The episode will premiere on the BS1 channel on March 3. A 30-second trailer is currently streaming on the series' official site. Previous episodes have focuses on vision-impaired soccer, wheelchair tennis, goalball, and wheelchair rugby.
Source: Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web, AnixPara's official site
