What has Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse co-director Peter Ramsey been up to recently? Well, he directed episodes for both Ahsoka and The Mandalorian season three, and has been serving as assistant director and producer on a number of high and medium-profile projects, both animated and live-action. Up next, he’s embarking on something entirely different alongside Afro Samurai studio Gonzo K.K.
The news arrived via Variety, which shared all the details on the projects they’re cooking alongside some surprising names.
First up, Ramsey will exec. produce and co-write the screenplay for Ripper, “a live-action/anime hybrid feature set in post-WWII Japan” which “tells the story of two detectives hunting down a serial killer who took the lives of the women that each of them loved.” The project was created by N Lite’s Head of Production Samantha Inoue Harte and co-writers Paul Alvarado-Dykstra and Rafael Antonio Ruiz. On top of those names, Viola Davis and husband Julius Tennon’s JuVee Productions is attached to produce alongside N Lite and Gonzo K.K.
The second project is Hotaru, a “swashbuckling sci-fi/fantasy adventure series about two star-crossed magic-wielding warriors bound by love and grief,” according to N Lite. Ramsey will executive produce, with Inoue Harte, Alvarado-Dykstra, and CEO Christiano Terry credited as creators.
“I’m excited to collaborate with N Lite on a project that is deeply personal. The shared experiences of Black and Japanese people in Japan during WWII is a historical and cultural intersection that we’ve not yet seen on screen. It’s also an incredible time for anime as a whole, and as a true lover of the medium, I’m eager to create something that has never been done before,” teased Ramsey. The talent involved also cited a handful of Gonzo’s past work, such as Afro Samurai, Hellsing, and Full Metal Panic! as inspiration. While both Ripper and Hotaru are still in the very early stages, it seems that anime fanatics should expect tons of DNA from Gonzo’s “legacy titles.”
N Lite is a Black-owned multimedia company “led by a diverse veteran team of executives from HBO, NEXTEL, Boeing, and McKinsey & Co.” that handles the production and distribution of properties across film, TV, merchandising, publishing, and consumer goods. The company is now ramping up partnerships and internal projects while also operating a studio in Tokyo.
The exciting announcement comes at a time when anime’s role in mainstream pop culture is only getting bigger in the Western world, so seeing collaborations such as this one develop into something tangible that could be influenced by artists from all over the world is great to see. More like this, please!
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