Following its live debut via digital billboard to a live audience in Tokyo’s Shibuya District, Porter Robinson reveals SHELTER, an animated short film written and executive produced by Porter Robinson, created in association with A-1 Pictures and Crunchyroll, the leading global destination for streaming Japanese anime.
A visually stunning and emotionally moving work of art, SHELTER (now on multiple platforms), tells the story of Rin, a 17-year-old girl who lives her life inside of a futuristic simulation completely by herself in infinite, beautiful loneliness. Each day, Rin awakens in virtual reality and uses a tablet which controls the simulation to create a new, different, beautiful world for herself. But all is not as it seems…
A unique musical collaboration between Porter Robinson and Madeon, the single was dubbed "silky electro pop" by Rolling Stone and hit #1 on Spotify’s Global Viral Chart (Global & US) and #1 HypeM when the duo surprised released it this past August. It has since been streamed more than 16 Million times. Both Robinson and Madeon are currently performing together on the SHELTER Live Tour throughout North America
Featuring an original story and characters created by Robinson, SHELTER is the next step in his artistic evolution and the product of a lifelong fascination with Japanese animation.
“Japanese pop culture and anime have been a huge influence on my music, so getting the chance to make my own anime is very much a dream come true. To actually collaborate on creating anime is just unbelievable,” Robinson explains. “The video for SHELTER is the most concrete distillation of being immersed into fantasy and it’s connection to reality. Most of our life experience is now in some way connected to technology. The world of SHELTER, this virtual reality universe that she’s stuck in where she has this superpower to create environments and go around and play in them and explore them everyday. It’s a beautiful notion and something that’s relevant to my own sensibility as an artist”.
Themes of immersive digital universes recur throughout Robinson’s body of work, most notably with his debut album Worlds (August 2014) and its subsequent live show; both explored the idea of shared fantasy and created fictional realities experienced in real time. The animated film for SHELTER is the ultimate realization of this passion. To create it, Robinson worked alongside the animation and production team throughout the process.
The visuals in SHELTER were produced by A-1 Pictures, one of Japan’s leading animation studios, who have been responsible for such globally successful anime hits as Sword Art Online, Blue Exorcist, and Fairy Tail. SHELTER features direction by Toshifumi Akai and character design by Megumi Kouno, both veterans of Japan’s wildly successful series THE IDOLM@STER and more. Says Tomonori Ochikoshi, President of A-1 Pictures, “Porter is extremely knowledgeable about Japanese animation and he inspired us with his expectations for what he could create with us. The resulting collaboration is a work that A-1 can be proud of.”
Vince Shortino, Executive Vice President of Crunchyroll, worked behind the scenes with his team to make the SHELTER anime a reality. A veteran of several global anime music videos (including collaborations between Japanese creators and musicians like Sade, David Byrne, and Sigur Rós for the Zapuni 3.11 charity), Shortino leads Crunchyroll’s Tokyo office, which has licensed more than 1,000 anime titles for world digital distribution. “Crunchyroll has always been committed to growing the global reach of anime and facilitating a deeper relationship between anime fans and the content they love,” says Shortino. “Combining Porter’s music, storytelling and direction with amazing anime creators, the SHELTER film is a showcase for the power and potential of collaboration between global artists and the Japanese anime community."
Check out the video HERE.
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