{"id":123398,"date":"2025-06-03T21:15:26","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T04:15:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anitrendz.net\/news\/?p=123398"},"modified":"2025-06-05T23:43:56","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T06:43:56","slug":"gkids-to-bring-chao-mermaid-romance-film-to-north-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anitrendz.net\/news\/2025\/06\/03\/gkids-to-bring-chao-mermaid-romance-film-to-north-america\/","title":{"rendered":"GKIDS To Bring ChaO Mermaid Romance Film to North America"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">GKIDS has obtained the North American rights for <a href=\"https:\/\/anitrendz.net\/news\/2025\/05\/25\/chao-anime-movie-drops-multiple-character-trailers\/\"><em>ChaO<\/em><\/a>, the upcoming <strong>STUDIO4\u2103<\/strong>-produced anime film about a human who receives a proposal from a mermaid princess.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">The announcement comes before ChaO&#8217;s debut at this year&#8217;s Annecy International Animation Film Festival, where it is part of the feature film official selection.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">GKIDS is proud to announce the acquisition of North American rights to ChaO from Studio 4\u00b0C. \ud83d\udc20<br><br>A genre-defying fish-out-of-water romance from veteran animator Yasuhiro Aoki, ChaO will premiere at <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/annecyfestival?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@annecyfestival<\/a> next week!<br><br>Coming soon to theatres.<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/y5rFHlMEvh\">https:\/\/t.co\/y5rFHlMEvh<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/mjxepDWpNI\">pic.twitter.com\/mjxepDWpNI<\/a><\/p>&mdash; GKIDS Films (@GKIDSfilms) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GKIDSfilms\/status\/1929991627306684892?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">June 3, 2025<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<section id=\"synopsis\" class=\"content-grid section--synopsis \">\n<div class=\"section__body\">\n<div class=\"content-grid__row\">\n<div class=\"content\">\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">GKIDS describes <em>ChaO<\/em> as:<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px\"><em><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">From acclaimed Japanese animation production house Studio&nbsp;4\u00b0C comes a wild romantic comedy and true \u201cfish out of water\u201d story.&nbsp;In a futuristic world where humans and mermaids coexist,&nbsp;ChaO follows Stephan, a mild-mannered office worker at a shipbuilding company, whose life is upended when he is suddenly proposed to by Chao \u2014 a princess from the mermaid kingdom. With no time to make sense of what\u2019s happening, Stephan soon finds himself living with the unpredictable, wholehearted Chao. As her sincere love begins to break down his emotional barriers, an unexpected and touching romance begins to unfold.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">The movie will premiere in Japan on August 15 JST. It was announced in January.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;font-size: 12pt\">Staff<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">\u2022 Director:\u00a0<strong>Yasuhiro Aoki<\/strong>\u00a0(<em>Psycho-Pass: The Movie<\/em>\u00a0co-character designer, SAMURAI NOODLES \u201cTHE ORIGINATOR\u201d unit director et al.)<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">\u2022 Character designer and animation director:\u00a0<strong>Hirokazu Kojima<\/strong>\u00a0(<em>Shoka<\/em>,\u00a0<em>More Than a Married Couple, But Not Lovers<\/em>\u00a0ending design and animation)<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">\u2022 Background art director:<strong>\u00a0Hiroshi Takiguchi<\/strong>\u00a0(<em>Weathering With You<\/em>)<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">\u2022 Animation production:\u00a0<strong>STUDIO4\u2103<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;font-size: 12pt\">Cast<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">\u2022\u00a0<strong>Oji Suzuka<\/strong> as Stephan<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">\u2022\u00a0<strong>Anna Yamada<\/strong>\u00a0as Chao<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">\u2022\u00a0<strong>Yuichiro Umehara\u00a0<\/strong>as Roberta<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\">\u2022\u00a0<strong>Kavka Shishido\u00a0<\/strong>as Mai Bei\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt\"><strong>Source:<\/strong> <span class=\"css-1jxf684 r-bcqeeo r-1ttztb7 r-qvutc0 r-poiln3\">@GKIDSfilms (via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-news\/gkids-buys-japanese-anime-chao-for-north-america-1236235964\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Hollywood Reporter<\/a>)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>GKIDS has obtained the North American rights for ChaO, the upcoming STUDIO4\u2103-produced anime film about a human who receives a proposal from a mermaid princess. The announcement comes before ChaO&#8217;s debut at this year&#8217;s Annecy International Animation Film Festival, where it is part of the feature film official selection. GKIDS describes ChaO as: From acclaimed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":123400,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[14,97,10727,686,10726],"class_list":["post-123398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anime","tag-anime","tag-anime-movie","tag-chao","tag-gkids","tag-studio4"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/anitrendz.net\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/ChaO-GKIDS-1-e1749010521198.jpeg?fit=1210%2C680&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8n4QV-w6i","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anitrendz.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123398"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anitrendz.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anitrendz.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anitrendz.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anitrendz.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123398"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/anitrendz.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123782,"href":"https:\/\/anitrendz.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123398\/revisions\/123782"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anitrendz.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anitrendz.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anitrendz.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anitrendz.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}