The official website of Kyoto Animation’s Violet Evergarden franchise has announced on Saturday that they will move the upcoming anime film’s opening date to April next year.
The upcoming film is now set to be released in Japanese cinema on Friday, April 24, 2020.
In a statement, the production committee has thank the fans for their support, adding that staff members are working with all their heart and strength to produce the upcoming film.
The anime film was originally scheduled to be released in Japanese cinemas this January 10, 2020, but the franchise’s production committee decided last September to delay its opening.
The announcement comes almost four months after the arson attack at Kyoto Animation’s Studio 1 building last July 18, which killed 36 people and severely injured 33 more.
Violet Evergarden: Eternity and the Auto Memories Doll, which serves as a “side-story” of the franchise had opened the film in Japanese cinemas on September 6.
The anime film was initially scheduled to screen for two weeks, but has now been extended multiple times, due to public demand.
The film made its world premiere during the AnimagiC convention in Mannheim, Germany, which happened last August 2-4, just two weeks after the attack. The organizers had said that the premiere screening had pushed through “at the express request of the studio.”
Violet Evergarden is an anime series based on a Japanese light novel series, written by Kana Akatsuki and illustrated by Akiko Takase.
The novel has won the grand prize in the fifth Kyoto Animation Award competition in 2014, marking the first time that any submitted work has earned the grand prize on any of its three categories, which are the novel, scenario and manga.
KA Esuma Bunko, which is the light novel imprint of the anime studio, had published two volumes of the novel in December 2015 and December 2016.
The anime adaptation was aired on Japanese television during the Winter 2020 season, which was streamed by Netflix on a simulcast basis in select countries, including the Philippines.
