The last staff talk event for the Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway’s Flash film was recently held at Shinjuku Piccadilly Cinema in Tokyo, attended by Sunrise Gundam producer Naohiro Ogata and Bright Noa actor Ken Narita.
At the event the two discussed the prospects and themes of the next installment in the Hathaway’s Flash film trilogy, as well as announcing its tentative title, Sun of Bright(also read as “Son”). Producer Ogata addressed there would be changes from the novel’s 2nd volume, Yoshiyuki Tomino previously expressed his reservations to Ogata about adapting it. As for the timing of the film’s release, he refrained from saying, but spoke “I won’t make you wait too long”. Bright Noa, Hathaway’s father, will appear in the second part and Narita was enthusiastic about returning saying, “I hope I can give it my all”.
First in a trilogy of anime films helmed by Shukou Murase, Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway’s Flash or Hathaway is the official sequel to the 1988 Mobile Suit Gundam Char’s Counterattack movie. The project was announced in November 2018 to celebrate the Gundam 40th anniversary, adapting the Yoshiyuki Tomino-penned novel series of the same name. The novels were originally released from 1989 to 1990, as a follow-up to Tomino’s Char’s Counterattack: Beltorchika’s Children novel, published by Kadokawa’s Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko imprint.
Opening to Japanese theaters June 11 the Hathaway film has earned record box office sales with 2,017,561,400 yen in revenue and 993,196 tickets sold. The film is nearing the 1982 Mobile Suit Gundam III: Encounters in Space as the highest earning film in the Gundam franchise, sitting at 2.3 billion yen in box office revenue.
While the film is screening in Japan, streaming giant Netflix is exclusively releasing the Hathaway film internationally. The film is dubbed with eight language options and thirty subtitled language options, available to 190 countries worldwide.
Story
The year is U.C. 0105. Twelve years have passed since the end of the second Neo Zeon War (Char’s Rebellion). The anti-Earth Federation Movement “Mafty,” has taken a stand against the corruption of the Earth Sphere. Mafty carries out fierce acts of terrorism, assassinating high officials of the Federation government one after another, but it gains a certain level of support from the populace who are growing more opposed to the Federation government. The movement is led by Hathaway Noa, under the name “Mafty Navue Erin”, the son of Bright Noa, a famous officer of the Earth Federation Forces who once participated in the One Year War. With firsthand knowledge of the ideals and ideologies of Amuro Ray and Char Aznable, he has become a warrior following in their footsteps. His destiny, however, is drastically altered as he encounters the Federation Forces officer Kenneth Sleg and a mysterious young beauty named Gigi Andalucia.
Source: Gundam-Hathaway, Man-Tan
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