EA has announced that Bioware will be teaming up with FUNimation Entertainment to bring an anime feature film based on the Mass Effect franchise to the general public in 2012. Casey Hudson, the executive producer of the Mass Effect series, will also act as the executive producer of the film.
Hudson has stated that “over the last few years, [BioWare has] revealed different pieces of the Mass Effect world through different media. Extending the story through an anime medium is another amazing opportunity for us [the company]. BioWare is also cooperating with FUNimation on the development of an anime feature film based on the Dragon Age series.
No information is currently available regarding the possible plot, characters, or relation to the games.
EA AND FUNIMATION ENTERTAINMENT ANNOUNCE MASS EFFECT ANIME MOVIE DEALHome Video Adaptation of Award-Winning Sci-Fi Game Scheduled for Release in 2012Guildford, UK.- April 7, 2011 – BioWare™, a division of leading video game publisher Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) and FUNimation® Entertainment, the leading distributor of Japanese animation in North America, announced today an agreement to create an anime feature film adapted from one of the video game industry’s most revered franchises,Mass Effec t™. Tokyo-based anime and international feature film production company T.O Entertainment, Inc. has signed on as a co-producer on the video. Based on the Mass Effect universe, the anime video will tell the tale of an epic science fiction adventure set in a vast universe filled with dangerous alien life and mysterious, uncharted planets.Casey Hudson of BioWare, executive producer of the Mass Effect series, will serve as executive producer on the film, along with FUNimation President and CEO Gen Fukunaga and Director of Original Entertainment Chris Moujaes and T.O Entertainment’s CEO Takeichi Honda and Yui Shibata.
This I like, at least in concept. The design and alien characters of Mass Effect could transfer very well into an anime style, they just need to make sure a decent story ties it all together.
I agree, this COULD turn out to be pretty great… but I’m not getting my hopes up until I’ve actually seen it.
I myself would have gone with Production I.G. myself for the animators and story writers as they did the Ghost in the Shell movies and TV series’.
Well I will see how this woks in the end. Animated movies are always good. I can’t wait for details to come out about when in the timeline this story will take place.