Planetarian: Hoshi no Hito (2016)

Interesting facts

• Based on: Planetarian: The Reverie of a Little Planet

Planetarian: Storyteller of the Stars is a 2016 Japanese animated post-apocalyptic film directed by Naokatsu Tsuda. The film is based on the Planetarian: The Reverie of a Little Planet visual novel by Key and the "Man of the Stars" short story from the Planetarian light novel written by Yūichi Suzumoto. The film was animated by David Production and distributed by Asmik Ace. It premiered in Japanese theaters on September 3, 2016. The story is set in a dystopian future where nuclear warfare has left a once prosperous civilization in complete ruin. The film tells the story of an old man traveling around with a mobile planetarium projector to show people the stars.

Production

Asmik Ace producer Hiroyuki Aoi approached David Production to produce the Planetarian original net animation (ONA) series and the Hoshi no Hito film. According to Aoi, David Production was chosen because of the large amount of respect the studio holds for the original work when they produce an adaptation.

Tsuda also co-wrote the screenplay with Shogo Yasukawa, in addition to drawing up the storyboard. Although Tsuda had once before written the script for an episode of the 2014 anime series JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders which he had also directed, he came to realize while handling the storyboard for Planetarian that he was able to become more immersed into the story compared to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

Although the film was planned to contain the content from the ONA series from the start with the addition of new material, Tsuda wanted to produce the ONA series and the film as separate entities. Tsuda was told at first to add about 10 to 15 minutes of new material to the content from the ONA series for the film, but Tsuda thought that would not be long enough to tell the story of Hoshi no Hito.

The main art and filming staff who worked on Hoshi no Hito were intentionally kept separate from the staff that worked on the ONA series. Since the film is set about 50 years after the ONA series, Tsuda wanted to clearly depict just how much the world had fallen to ruin in that intervening time.

The music in the film is composed by Shinji Orito, Donmaru and Tomohiro Takeshita; Magome Togoshi is credited for his work on the music of the original visual novel. Sound and music direction was headed by Tsuda and Takayuki Yamaguchi. Tsuda decided on what kind of music to order from the composers while discussing it with Yamaguchi, and Tsuda started to think about how to use the music in specific scenes when he was drawing up the storyboard.

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