Frogman characters help promote “Heaven’s Door”

By kevin on February 06, 2009 at 3:47am EST

Update: The entire Japanese apple trailer site is now dead, so the clip is no longer available. Leaving the post up for posterity.

Well this is something. With American anime director Michael Arias’s live-action debut, Heaven’s Door due out in mere hours, the Japanese Apple trailers site just uploaded a unique trailer with the two main characters from Frogman’s “The Frogman Show” and “Eagle Talon”, Soutou and Yoshida, interviewing cartoon versions of the film’s stars, Tomoya Nagase and Mayuko Fukuda. Arias himself even stops by for a few seconds near the end but doesn’t get a chance to say much.

Frogman (real name: Ryo Ono) got his start making little flash animations that became wildly popular and got him a deal to create a TV show and a string of quirky movies. Two of his most popular characters, Soutou (literally “Supreme Ruler”) and Yoshida consider themselves a diabolically evil secret society hellbent on taking over the world, but they’re generally harmless and easily-distracted. For those that are interested, Natsuko Fukue of The Japan Times wrote a nice article on Frogman a few weeks ago (clicky!).

Michael Arias is best known for breaking through as a foreigner in Japanese anime with his debut film, Tekkon Kinkreet. His next film, “Heaven’s Door” tells the story of two terminally-ill patients, 28-year-old Masato (Nagase) and 14-year-old Harumi (Fukuda), who decide to escape from the hospital, steal a nice convertible from the parking lot, and go for a joyride. It will be released in Japan this Saturday.

To watch the new Frogman / Heaven’s Door clip, go here.

Here’s the original trailer: