Gunota Headlines report that Seiji Mizushima (Fullmetal Alchemist) is the director as rumoured. So that’s good news. And Yun Kouga (Loveless) is doing character designs.
I recently caught the first episode of Mizushima’s current series Oh! Edo Rocket, and was quite impressed.
And also I felt slightly stupid and had to look a load of things up. It draws on a specific time period of 19th century Japanese history you see. No coasting by on anachronisms like Champloo did. It seems to be shaping up to be a Verne-esque sci-fi story transplanted to the period of 1800s Edo during which luxuries and the arts were banned. As the heroes are mostly made up of artists, artisans and entertainers, and otaku culture is often claimed to be in the tradition of Edo culture, there may be a cultural point being made here beyond the story of building a firework that will reach the moon. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out.