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Gigantor Dressed Up In Brand New Pixels

The Japanese giant robot Tetsujin 28 has had many incarnations. Created in manga form in 1956 (written and illustrated by Mitsuteru Yokoyama), it spawned several anime series, was renamed as “Gigantor” for US TV, and appeared in a recent live-action movie — Tetsujin niju-hachigo [aka Tetsujin 28] (Japan-2005; dir. Shin Togashi):

Not only that, Tetsujin 28’s popularity was recently confirmed when a full-size statue of him was unveiled at Wakamatsu Park in Kobe, Japan:

Now, the much-anticipated CG remake of Gigantor (as the giant robot is named in the US) — or Tetsujin-28 according to its Japanese origins (see Robot War Espresso article) — has finally been given the green light.

Due for release in 2011, the film is being made by Hakari Productions and Imagi Studios, despite the less-than-stellar box-office performance of their CG remake of Astroboy. It has previously been referred to as “Tetsujin 28″ or “T28″ (which is still the title that appears on the website), and it is the name that appeared on the teaser “test” trailer that was released earlier in the year:

However, more recently its primary title is being given as the Americanised Gigantor on IMDb. No director is named either here or on the website, but the film is listed as “Filming”.

This appears to be a very promising project and may help Imagi out of some of their apparent financial difficulties. Let’s hope it’s worthy.

Images:

Vote now!

On the website, they’re asking visitors to indicate whether or not they are interested in seeing this film, obviously to gauge the film’s drawing power and perhaps as part of their strategy to encourage funding. So when you go to check out the website, if you want to see the film, go on and tell them so! When you visit the website, the “Vote” panel comes up after the teaser trailer runs.

• Source: Official website via Avery

Addendum:

Kaiju Search-Robot Avery has discovered the following advertisement, which features Tetsujin 28 himself: