Disney+ added the television anime of Tomihiko Morimi‘s Tatami Time Machine Blues (Yojō-Han Time Machine Blues) novel to its U.S. program listings. The anime’s complete first season will start streaming on November 9.
The anime launched on Disney+ in Japan on September 14. Disney+ Hotstar also began streaming the anime in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia Singapore and Thailand in September.
The anime series have a total of five episodes, and an original sixth episode streamed exclusively on Disney+. The sixth episode features an original story not in the novel, and footage that is not included in the anime’s theatrical compilation film version.
The Walt Disney Company exclusively streamed the anime globally, and the theatrical compilation film version started its limited three-week run on September 30.
Tatami Time Machine Blues is a sequel to Morimi’s earlier The Tatami Galaxy (Yojō-Han Shinwa Taikei) novel. It shipped in July 2020, 16 years after the original novel. The novel is inspired by Makoto Ueda‘s Summer Time Machine Blues stage play. Morimi wrote the novel, and Ueda, Morimi’s friend, is credited with the original concept. The sequel novel combines elements of the stage play’s story with the characters from Morimi’s novel. Nakamura returned to illustrate the cover.
In the sequel novel’s story, The Tatami Galaxy protagonist’s trouble-making friend Ozu gets the student apartments’ only air conditioner remote control wet, breaking it on a certain midsummer day. The students wonder what to do about the situation for the remainder of the summer and make a plan with Akashi. An unstylish male student from 25 years in the future arrives in a time machine. The protagonist travels back in time to try to retrieve the remote control before it is broken.
Shingo Natsume (One-Punch Man, Space Dandy, Sonny Boy) directed the anime at Science SARU, and Makoto Ueda returned as scriptwriter from The Tatami Galaxy. Yūsuke Nakamura also returned as character designer.
Ohta Publishing released Morimi’s The Tatami Galaxy novel in 2005, with Nakamura illustrating the cover. The novel inspired an 11-episode anime by Masaaki Yuasa in April 2010.
HarperCollins’ HarperVia imprint will publish The Tatami Galaxy novel on December 6. The release will be followed with the sequel novel Tatami Time Machine Blues in summer of 2023. Emily Balistrieri is translating both novels. Balistrieri previously translated Morimi’s The Night is Young, Walk on Girl novel, which inspired a 2017 anime film also directed by Masaaki Yuasa off a screenplay by Ueda.
Sources: Press release, Disney+ website
