Expectations and Statements Given at the Premiere Screening of "THE REFLECTION's" 1st Episode

The latest superhero-themed anime series, “THE REFLECTION” has just held a premiere screening of its first episode on July 5 at NHK Broadcasting Center in Tokyo and now a report has been released giving details on the cast and staff’s expectations of the series when they made their appearance at the event.

Included among them were director Hiroshi Nagahama, and six voice cast members, with two cast members being confirmed to be Shinichiro Miki the voice of Xon and Mariya Ise the voice of Eleanor Evarts.

“THE REFLECTION” is action series that tells the tale of a world wherein the people for an unknown reason,began gaining super powers following the unexplained appearance of a black smoke. A main highlight to note on this film is that it falls under the co-directing hands of Marvel’s Stan Lee and Hiroshi Nagahama, who also worked as a director for the “Detroit Metal City” OAV.

At the premiere when the screening ended, the cast and staff went on stage to, as stated, express their expectations with Nagahama going first and stating: “This series may be difficult to approach in the beginning, but if you watch it a little bit further, you will come to find an unexpected side of it. So please look forward to it.”

When he was questioned in regards to how he conducted the creation of the anime’s visuals with the staff, Nagahama responded, “In the beginning, I actually showed them American comics. But I also asked them not to dig into its details too much. We made it as simple as possible and recreated images with our own visions.” And he explained, “In order to make them look like a printed color comic, we didn’t add any digital effects.”

Ise, who previously worked with in Nagahama’s 2013 series, “The Flower of Evil” and having expressed how he always wanted to do his best for all of Nagahama’s works, gave an impression onto the anime’s visuals stating that, “It looked like a papercut art using Japanese papers, so I felt Japanese taste from this anime.”

As for the rest of the staff and their statements at the premiere, Miki, rather than give his impressions, elaborated to those who attended that,“Actually, I received a love letter from the director before the first episode’s voice recording session. He told so many things about my role.”

More than the cited cast and staff, four members of the the group 9nine who perfrom the ED song “SunSunSunrise” also made an appearance and expressed their own thoughts in voicing characters that were inspired by them.

For 24-year-old Kanae Yoshii she expressed her earnestness by saying, “I’ll do the best I can in order to fit into the team and to play the active part.” Showing some nervousness for her part is 20-year-old Hirona Murata, who confessed, “I was almost choked because I never thought about being an anime character.”

25-year-old Uki Satake simply stated,“This anime is director Nagahama’s dream, my dream, and also the dream of the fans of co-creator Stan Lee.” As for 24-year-old Sayaka Nishiwaki, she simply expressed how she couldn’t believe that she had gained the opportunity and that Nagahama is a “great man” of the anime community.

The anime will be making its debut on July 22 on the NHK network and is set to have 12 episodes.

It took 10 years of collaboration between Nagahama and Stan Lee before the work took off and now Nagahama, who looked back on it, stated, “It was very worthwhile experience for me to exchange opinions with Stan many times. I had kept saying that I was a big fan of American comics for years, so people around me set up an opportunity to meet with Stan. I expressed my passion directly to him, then he said, ‘Shall we work together?’ That’s how the project was launched.”

Source: Crunchyroll News