MAPPA shares new key visual for a new film directed by Cowboy Bebop's Shinichiro Watanabe

Cowboy Bebop director Shiniciro Watanabe is reportedly set to direct MAPPA Studio’s next anime film, titled A Girl Meets a Boy and a Robot. Twitter user @AniNewsAndFacts (AniNews) recently posted a key visual for the upcoming film, seemingly being a legitimate promotional material.

While Watanabe has several credits to his name in the anime industry, including the widely-beloved Samurai Champloo, his work on Cowboy Bebop is undoubtedly what he’s best known for. As such, fans are expecting his upcoming project with MAPPA Studios to be an exceptional piece of art.

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MAPPA Studios’ first foray with Shinichiro Watanabe appears to be slice-of-life sci-fi series set in alternate Earth

The aforementioned key visual seemingly provides a beautiful, oil-painting-esque illustration of what the upcoming MAPPA and Watanabe film will look like. In the foreground, fans can presumably see the girl and robot mentioned in the project’s title of the film. The two are seen walking through a rocky, mountain-like area and towards the direction of a town.

The town has several different buildings of varying heights, ranging from one-floor builds to skyscrapers of such height that their tops aren’t seen in the key visual. Given the industrial look of the town, the stark division in building heights may be one founded in films or series dealing with class or wealth inequality.

Apart from that, the commonplace existence of robots in this world would further imply the setting of a post-industrialized and starkly divisive society. Various clouds of smoke can also be seen billowing out of some of the buildings, further suggesting this. Unfortunately, there’s not much more that can be gleaned from the key visual, which is the only piece of promotional material for the film thus far.

While the film will be MAPPA’s latest production for the silver screen, it’s far from their first. The studio's venture into filmmaking production started with the 2016 movie Garo: Divine Flame. Also premiering in 2016 was In This Corner of the World, followed by In This Corner (and Other Corners) of the World (2019).

This was next followed by the production of Jujutsu Kaisen 0 in 2022. Currently in production is their Yuri!!! On Ice the Movie: Ice Adolescence, Alice and Therese’s Illusion Factory, and Zombie Land Saga the Movie films.

Meanwhile, Watanabe’s latest film credits consist of the 2017 film Blade Runner Black Out 2022, which was preceded by the Baby Blue story found within the Genius Party anthology film. Watanabe served as director on both projects, with his latest television anime credit being as the chief director on 2019’s Carole & Tuesday anime series.

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