Mamoru Oshii Introduces 'Vladlove' Girl-Meets-Girl Vampire Love Comedy

Mamoru Oshii is a towering figure in Japanese animation. Director of the original Ghost In The Shell and Patlabor movies, he is associated with thoughtful, existential science-fiction. Since his last animated feature 2008's Sky Crawlers he's mainly been working in live-action. After more than a decade he is now returning to anime- but it's not exactly what you might expect.

Oshii has created Vladlove, which is a vampire girl-meets-girl love comedy. This might seem like its coming completely out of left-field but in a way he's returning to his roots. before he became known for philosophical sci-fi, he cut his teeth directing episodes of Rumiko Takahashi's knockabout sci-fi rom-com Urusei Yatsura and its first two movies. Oshii revealed details of the new series in a recent press conference.

Vladlove will feature the meeting of a vampire named Mai (who Oshii compares to Urusei Yatsura's Lum) and a high school girl. There will be five girls in the main cast. If this follows in Yastura's footsteps, expect there to be at least a love triangle, if not a square- or even a pentagon. Oshii is the creator and chief director of the series, which will be animated by Drive. Production IG, the company Oshii is most closely associated with, is on board as "production cooperation."

We've been missing Oshii from the anime world while he's been off exploring other avenues. It's interesting to see him get back into TV too- but this is the last thing we were expecting! The girl-meets-girl angle will help distinguish it from other rom-coms- let's just hope it's well handled!

Vladlove will air for 12 episodes in Spring 2020.

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