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'Sol Levante' release on March 23 delayed by two weeks probably over coronavirus concerns

The Netflix anime, earlier scheduled to release on March 23, has been pushed to April 2

'Sol Levante,' the hand-drawn anime in 4K HDR quality, will not be airing today. It is instead airing March 2, having been pushed back by Netflix for about two weeks. 

The site gave no reason for the push, although coronavirus concerns have been pushing back a lot of productions and airings. On March 16, the official Netflix Anime account released a tweet announcing the moved date, which you can see below:

The text, when translated, reads: "Netflix's Original Anime The first 4K / HDR hand-drawn work. Production I.G 'Sol Levante' exclusive distribution worldwide starts on April 2! Before the distribution, an interview with the making video and creators has arrived, showing off the “future of anime” packed in this short, 5 minute work!" 

The anime has not received a lot of publicity, despite its unique groundbreaking art style. "For a show out in a matter of days (the 23rd of this month) it is weird how little information there is out on Sol Levante. No proper trailer of any kind, no synopsis of what if anything it is about, just a four minute featurette explaining the animation process," writes one Twitter user.

The people who HAVE heard of it, however, are cautiously optimistic. One Twitter user writes, "Anybody else gassed for sol levante? First netflix anime and its in 4K! Its gorgeous man just hope the story is good as well..." 

This is Netflix's first collaboration with Production IG, which was founded in 1987 and has an incredible influence on the anime industry. Some of the studio's acclaimed works include 'Oblivion Island: Haruka and the Magic Mirror', ' Miss Hokusai', 'Psycho-Pass', 'East of Eden', 'Guilty Crown' and 'Ghost in the Shell.'

You can see trailers, plot, and everything else you need to know about the series here.

The director, Takuya Saito, has spoken with Eizoglobal about the unique art style of the series, and about the use of the ColorEdge CG318-4K. "I remember being impressed when I first saw the screen, thinking that it looked like there was a painting stuck onto it. Of course, it’s different than an actual painting, but I was struck by how detailed and smooth the picture was. Apart from this project, I also noticed a difference when doing client presentations (when checking the finished product of our works). We used to use 2K monitors for presentations on 4K productions as well, but when we used the CG318-4K for the first time in our presentations, we received a very good response from the client. We also felt that we were able to express more than we had imagined," he said.

'Sol Levante' will be able to stream on Netflix on April 2.