Submission 1,272

Trailer

Production

The film was originally planned to be produced in 2013 but because of low budget and also technology, it was delayed until it was officially announced for production in May 2016. According to the director's press conference in March 2017:

That’s right. Well, since the main characters are the two brothers, where there is Ed, there will always be Al. Even just based on that, the amount of CG used becomes enormous. In this work, I’m using a technology that was used in Hollywood movies such as The Avengers. We’re using a lot new techniques that were never used in Japanese movies before, I would like to boost Japan’s CG level with this movie." Since the original story consists of 27 volumes, I cut it down in to two hours, but we will stay faithful to the manga. I can’t tell you much details yet, but I think that you can guess what will be the main story based from the cast that was already announced. Since I’m a big fan of the original myself, I don’t plan to change the setting, the world view, and make a different story, so please don’t worry about that. Of course we will have the philosopher's stone coming out [somewhere in the story].

Development

On adapting the source material, Fumihiko Sori said, "I want to create a style that follows the original manga as much as possible. The cast is entirely Japanese, but the cultural background is Europe. However, it's a style that doesn't represent a specific race or country." Regarding the faithfulness of the adaptation, which has characters of non-Japanese ethnicity, the director said, "There will never be a scene in which a character says something that would identify him/her as Japanese."

Sori told Oricon he has a deep affection for the story that tells the "truth of living," and said, "It is my dearest wish to turn this wonderful story into a film, and it is not an exaggeration to say that I am living for this reason." He added that he "wants to create a wonderful film that uses techniques that challenge Hollywood," and noted that nowadays Japanese filmmaking techniques have progressed greatly. It was announced that the film will make its Western debut on February 19 as a Netflix original.