Japan’s leading private broadcaster TV Asahi and Shin-ei Animation, TV Asahi’s wholly owned subsidiary and its production arm for animation, have collaborated with Reliance MediaWorks, India’s fastest growing film and entertainment services company and a member of the Reliance group, to create all new episodes of Ninja Hattori, the comedy action animation franchise that has garnered a strong following in India and many other Asian countries.
Shin-ei’s experienced team of writers and directors, in collaboration with the team of 100 animators at the Reliance MediaWorks’ animation studio, is creating the new Ninja Hattori episodes in 2D-HD through a digitally mastered process. Reliance MediaWorks has also done the post production and Sound Effects for the series.
Commenting on the collaboration, Naresh Malik, COO – Creative Services of Reliance MediaWorks said, “Being an end to end service provider helps us offer our clients with a one stop solution for their creative requirements and Ninja Hattori is an excellent showcase of our talent. Being associated with some of the top Japanese talent through Shin-Ei and TV Asahi for such a legendary show and bringing it back through digital technology has been an immensely challenging and great working experience for our Animation team.”
Satoshi Kaisho, producer at Shin-ei Animation comments, “It is our first collaboration with any Indian companies, and also very first challenge for us to make the classic show transformed into all new digitally mastered show without losing look and feel of the original episodes. Our hope is to get Ninja Hattori out to more children all over the world.
Takahiro Kishimoto, producer at Programming and Entertainment Division for TV Asahi, comments “Being one of the first Japanese companies who started marketing animation shows to India, we are glad to announce this project with the aim to explore new possibilities. We TV Asahi, together with Shin-ei Animation, are thrilled to work with Reliance MediaWorks and hope this collaboration would lead to greater things”.
Being produced by Shin-ei Animation, original episodes of Ninja Hattori had been broadcasted on TV Asahi in the 80’s with the very strong fan basis. In India, it has been one of the top-rated kids shows since its launch on Nick India in August 2006, and the new episodes will premier on air on Nick India from May 2012. Commenting on the new episodes, Anu Sikka, VP-Programming, Nick India said “Ninja Hattori has been a runaway success in India and we are sure that the new episodes will take Ninja Hattori’s popularity to newer heights in India”.
TV Asahi is responsible for international sales of the show and has pitched it across other territories and has recieved strong interests from some of the key countries.