Many things can doom a promising anime project. From a lack of funding to creative differences, the history of anime is full of amazing projects that, for whatever reason, never get realized, ending up stuck in development hell or consigned to the footnotes of history. Here are five of the most interesting anime movies that never got made.
Dreaming Machine
Satoshi Kon, the writer and director of classics such as Paprika, Paranoia Agent and Tokyo Godfathers, said that Dreaming Machine was going to be an action-adventure film about three robots. However, shortly after starting the film, Kon was diagnosed with terminal cancer and it became clear the film would not be finished within his lifetime. Kon entrusted the film to his friend, Masao Maruyama who promised to complete it.
However, once Kon passed, the film hit several roadblocks, most notably an inability to get the funding it needed. Maruyama put the film on hiatus in 2011 and moved onto other projects, saying that he was still planning to finish his friend's work. Later, in 2018, Maruyama said that the film would likely not be finished for the foreseeable future as he was simply unable to find someone who could match up to Kon's directorial ability. He went on to say that he was worried that putting someone else in the director's chair would make the film look like a cheap imitation of Kon's work as opposed to something that had come from the late director's mind.
Uru in Blue
Uru In Blue (also known as Uru Blue) was Gainax's planned sequel to its 1987 film Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise. The film was conceived in 1991, but a combination of budgetary issues and in-fighting within the studio meant that the project was put on indefinite hiatus in 1993.
However, in the years that followed, Gainax would periodically re-start work on the film. In 1998, Gainax released a CD-ROM called Aoki Uru Frozen Designs Collection. This CD-ROM contained art and storyboards from the failed project. Later that year, the studio would release Uru In Blue-themed content for Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator and rumors once again resurfaced that the studio was going to release the ill-fated project. However, nothing came of these rumors until the 2013 Tokyo International Anime Fair where Gainax unveiled a teaser poster for the movie. The project has been mentioned several times since, including at a 2015 FanimeCon panel where the studio showed off redesigns of the core characters.
During Gainax's restructuring in 2017, the studio Gaina announced that it now had the rights to Uru In Blue and that it planned on releasing it in 2022. However, due to the sheer number of production changes this film is a very different beast to the one that was originally conceived in the early 1990s.
Border 1939
Studio Ghibli co-founder and writer of the legendary Grave Of The Fireflies, Isao Takahata, announced Border 1939 in 1989. While Grave Of The Fireflies focused on the brutalities of World War II, Border 1939 was going to focus on Imperial Japan's invasion of continental Asia.
According to Takahata's synopsis of the film, it was to be set in Japanese-Occupied Seoul in 1939. University student Akio learns that his friend, who was said to have died in a military academy, is actually alive. Akio sets off to find the friend only to learn that they absconded from the military and joined the Anti-Japanese resistance. During the search for his friend, Akio was to be captured by the Japanese Police only to be freed by the resistance. And, in a bid to win their trust, Akio agrees to help a Mongolian return to her homeland.
Takahata said that the film was a discussion on the nature of national identity and that it aimed to inform Japanese viewers of the horrors of Japan's imperialistic past. However, the suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests made distributors think that a film set within China was far too risky and they halted before it entered production.
t.A.T.u Paragate
Set to be released in 2004, t.A.T.u Paragate was going to star pop duo t.A.T.u. It was an attempt to cash in on the success (and controversy) of their 2002 single, "All The Things She Said," which achieved worldwide infamy because of its implied homosexual themes. This theme was made all the more explicit in its video, depicting the duo engaged in what seemed to be a lesbian romance.
The movie was going to be animated by iMOVE (who would also work on Death Note among other things). However, the series was canceled when t.A.T.u distanced themselves from their manager Ivan Shapovalov, accusing him of being more focused on creating scandals than promoting the band's music. Only two promotional images were released for the film, both of which depicted the duo in outfits similar to those worn in the controversial music video. It is unknown if anything else was actually produced for the project before it imploded.
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Battle Tendency
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has become a media juggernaut in recent years with both the anime and manga selling millions of copies worldwide. In 2007, Studio A.P.P.P. released the movie, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood. This movie adapted the first act of the manga.
However, this film had a very limited run in cinemas and has never been released on home formats, leading to many considering it a piece of lost media. There is a persistent rumor that Hirohiko Araki was upset with the movie due to its removal of several important characters including Speedwagon. However, others say that the film was never widely released due to a combination of a low box-office revenue and Studio A.P.P.P.'s distribution deals falling through.
Studio A.P.P.P. allegedly started to work on a follow-up film that was going to adapt the manga's "Battle Tendency" arc. However, due to the first film's failure, production was halted. Several storyboards from this planned movie have leaked onto the internet, but it is believed that they are all that exists of this canceled project.