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RetroCrush announced on Thursday that it has added the television anime adaptation of Hiromu Arakawa’s autobiographical manga Hyakushō Kizoku (The Peasant Noble) under the title Hyakushō Kizoku – The Farmer’s Days and the anime adaptation of the short story “5-Oku-Nen Button” (500-Million-Year Button) from Sōta Sugahara’s Minna no Tonio-chan manga series under the title 500000000 years button.
The streaming service also recently added or will also add:
The first season of the Hyakushō Kizoku anime premiered on the Tokyo MX channel in July 2023. Each episode was four minutes long. The third season debuted on October 3. The season’s final episode aired on December 19.
The show is getting a fourth season.
The eighth volume of the manga bundled all 12 aired episodes of the first season, in addition to two unaired episodes on DVD in December 2023.
Yūtarō Sawada (Inui-san!) directed the first season at Pie in the sky, and also penned the scripts and served as line director. Ayane Matsumoto (Gunma-chan storyboard, episode director, animator) designed the characters and also served as animation director and animator. ari was in charge of backgrounds. Minori Yamada is credited for ending animation. Precious tone composed the music. The Japan Agriculture Group’s Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives is credited for supervising the agricultural aspects.
The manga follows Arakawa (Fullmetal Alchemist) as she worked as a farmer in Hokkaido for seven years before she became a manga creator. The experience eventually informed her work on her Silver Spoon manga, which centers on students of an agricultural school.
Arakawa (Fullmetal Alchemist, The Heroic Legend of Arslan, Daemons of the Shadow Realm) launched the manga in Shinshokan’s Unpoko magazine in 2006, and it moved to Shinshokan’s Wings magazine in 2009 after Unpoko ceased publication. Arakawa continues to serialize the manga irregularly. Shinshokan published the manga’s seventh compiled book volume in October 2021. JManga previously published the manga in English.
Image courtesy of Retrocrush
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The 5-Oku-Nen Button anime debuted in July 2022 with 12 episodes. Amazon Prime is streaming the first 12 episodes under the title 500000000 years button. The anime’s 13th episode aired in September 2024 and its 14th episode aired in December 2024.
The story centers on a button that grants a million yen (about US$6,499) to whomever pushes it, with the condition that they must spend 500 million years alone in an empty space. However, at the end of the 500 million years, the person loses that memory and returns to the point in time when they pushed the button. A person with this button appears in front of 5-year-old Tonio, 14-year-old Jaimi, and 17-year-old Suneko – three siblings who need money to pay for their father’s hospital treatment.
Original creator Sugahara directed, designed the characters, and acted as one of the only staff members on the project.
Virtual YouTuber Koko performed the opening theme song “TIME,” and virtual YouTuber RIM performed the ending theme song “Tick-Tock Boy.”
Sugahara debuted the Minna no Tonio-chan manga series in 1999. The series inspired an animated special in 2004. The thought experiment revolving around the 500-Million-Year Button has been a philosophical discussion topic in Japan ever since Sugahara’s story launched.
Source: Press release
