Another Car Maker gets "Animed" The new series by Toyota and Studio 4C is PES! Japanese auto giant Toyota Motor Corp. and a leading anime company are collaborating to stream web-based promotional anime series. A teaser trailer for "PES: Peace Eco Smile" is currently being streamed online at the special website, Studio 4C (pronounced “4 degrees C,” with the official name including a degree symbol). The theme of the anime is "to love people." It stems from Toyota’s ideal to pursue what it terms “people-friendly” automaking technologies. The first anime episode will be a romantic comedy about a man from space called PES who visits Earth and encounters a girl named Kurumi. Each episode will be about three or four minutes long, and subsequent episodes will be added later. Studio 4C is known at home and abroad for its high-quality and edgy imagery. Past works include Katsuhiro Otomo's "Memories," Masaaki Yuasa's "Mind Game" and Michael Arias' "Tekkonkinkreet." The Toyota anime series is directed by Yuichiro Hayashi, with voice actress Akiko Yajima, who plays mischievous kindergarten urchin "Crayon Shinchan," portraying a trio of mysterious creatures called NaSuBi. Halfby, Yuri Miyauchi, Hiroko Sebu, Seiichi Yamamoto and many other musicians are collaborating to provide music for each episode. In recent years, collaboration projects between automakers and anime companies have been on the rise. Nissan Motor Co. provided robot designs for "Lagrange: The Flower of Rin-ne" animated TV series that premiered in January. Honda Motor Co. is also supporting "Oneoff," an upcoming straight-to-video animated series. To view the “PES” trailer, visit (http://www.toytoyota.com/pes/). via Asahi (http://ajw.asahi.com/article/cool_japan/anime_news/AJ201204100076)
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