Kud Wafter Anime Film's Trailer Reveals May 14 Debut in Theaters

Visual Arts and its Key brand began streaming a long promotional video on Monday for the crowdfunded anime film based on the Little Busters! spinoff visual novel Kud Wafter. The video reveals that the film will open in theaters in Japan on May 14.

The anime is planned as the first part of a celebration to mark the 10th anniversary of the release of Visual Arts' Little Busters! PC software.

Key had revealed in March 2019 that Kentarō Suzuki (Little Busters! franchise episode director) had replaced Yoshiki Yamakawa as the film's director. J.C. Staff is animating the film, and Key has complete supervision over the anime. Suzuyu is performing the opening theme song "Light a Way" and Naomi Wakabayashi is performing the ending theme song "Over The Summer." KAI is writing the scripts, Haruko Iizuka is designing the characters, and Key and Visual Arts are composing the music.

The Japanese crowdfunding campaign launched on July 19, 2017 and ended successfully that September. The campaign reached its initial goal in three days and its first stretch goal in six days. The campaign was initially seeking to raise 30 million yen (about US$267,500) to fund a 20-minute original video anime (OVA). The campaign eventually reached its 60 million yen (about US$535,000) stretch goal to fund a theatrical anime four days before the campaign ended. Tokyo Otaku Mode then ran an international crowdfunding campaign for English subtitling and worldwide distribution.

Tokyo Otaku Mode announced on January 8 that it would start shipping rewards on January 15.

Kud Wafter was Key's eighth adult visual novel and Key originally released the game in Japan in 2010 for Windows PC. The visual novel received a PlayStation Portable port in May 2013 and a PS Vita port in December 2013. The visual novel's story revolves around high school students Riki Naoe and Kudryavka Noumi ("Kud" for short) as their friendship evolves into a romantic relationship.

The 2007 PC software Little Busters! inspired a television anime that aired in Japan in 2012, followed by the Little Busters! Refrain television anime in 2013 and the Little Busters! EX original video anime project in 2014. Crunchyroll streamed the two television anime, and Sentai Filmworks released both and the OVA on home video in North America. A bilingual Japanese/English version of the original software is available for PC on the Steam platform.

Sources: Visual Arts' YouTube channel, Anime Hack