The upcoming 3DCG animated film Gamba: Gamba and his Fellows has a big, full-on piece of promotion via the Toei movie channel that gives us a five-minute look at the film just a couple of weeks before its theatrical debut. The promo is set to the theme song from Chieko Baisho that’s done in full, which will certainly help it to spread around quite a bit on the social media side. Basho previously performed the theme song to Howl’s moving Castle as well as the insert song for Only Yesterday. She’s done some very, very minor voice acting in general, though she played the lad in Howl’s Moving Castle with Sophie.
The film is set for a Japanese October 10th, 2015 debut. Considering the popularity and sales of the 3DCG Doraemon feature, this really isn’t a surprise. The new film is based n the original 1972 novel and will be called Gamba and His Fellows and has a 2 billion yen budget to it. The film will also be getting a North American release down the line as Avi Arad is on board as en executive producer.
The full cast so far includes Yuuki Kaji as Gamba, Sayaka Kanda as Shioji, Masako Nozawa as Tsuburi, Akio Ohtsuka as Yoisho, Wataru Takagi as Manpuku, Shuuichi Ikeda as Gakusha, Yasuhiro Takato as Boobo, Keiji Fujiwara as Ikasama, Akiko Yajima as Chuta and Mansai Nomura as Noroi.
The TV series is one of those quieter pieces of anime history that never gets attention overseas due to its limited distribution. The show came from Osamu Dezaki as the overall director while working with Yoshio Takeuchi and Hideo Takayashi on scripts and episode direction. Both have a wide range of credits over the years with Takeuchi being the chief animation director and an episode director on Space Adventure Cobra while Takayashi worked on scripts for Maison Ikkoku and Master Keaton and a lot of Onii-sama e… His later works included Rainbow, RideBack and Strawberry Panic among others.
Plot concept: An adventurous wild mouse called Gamba travels with his friends to see the ocean but he finds an injured mouse and hears about the violence of white ferret Noroi. Gamba decides to help the mice suffering under Noroi’s tyranny.
