A new basketball donghua will be scoring baskets and doing layups this February.
According to AnimeTV, Left-Hand Layup, a new sports donghua centered around a high schooler playing basketball, will premiere in mainland China sometime in February. Produced by HEART&SOUL, a trailer for Left-Hand Layup dropped in December 2022. HEART&SOUL also produced two other sports donghua, including a soccer series called Wu Di De Zuqiu, Wu Di’s Football in English and a baseball donghua called Strike! Nifeng Toushou.
Starring newcomer Xu Xingze, who appears to possess incredible speed and is left-handed, Left-Hand Layup will center around the challenges revolving around him and his teammates’ bid to make it into the championships. While a few viewers noted how the donghua might get “compared to kurokos basketball,” as it appeared to feature players who have supernatural powers when they pick up a basketball ball, many seemed to look forward to it and complimented the high-quality visuals. According to the Sina post, Left-Hand Layup reached an agreement with the Chinese Basketball Association to have the latter offer strategic consultation. Left-Hand Layup will also have a side project featuring Xu Xingze’s sister Xu Xingyou as a virtual idol, with her album releasing in May.
Left-Hand Layup is LHL Culture’s Sole Work
According to Yu Alexius, LHL Culture is a studio set up solely to animate this particular donghua. Left-Hand Layup will have Xie Zhongli helming as the director, who worked on the key animation for one of the episodes of Attack on Titan Season 3 and the key animation for Boruto, One Piece and Penguin Highway. He also directed the animation for Season 2 of The King’s Avatar.
Donghua, or animation in China, has slowly garnered international attention in recent years. Funimation announced in October 2020 that it would stream its first donghua, Tian Guan Ci Fu, or Heaven Official’s Blessing, based on a BL webnovel by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. In May 2021, the streaming platform added a new original donghua series called Link Click, starring two young men who have the ability to time travel via photographs. Link Click garnered a hugely positive reception, with a second season premiering in 2023.
Left-Hand Layup will premiere on Tencent in February. There has yet to be any word of plans for an international broadcast.
Source: Twitter, Sina, Yu Alexius
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