PROJECT DREAMS – HOW TO BUILD MAZINGER Z’S HANGAR

Official Selection, 2020 Fantasia International Film Festival

Filled with corporate parody and frenzied energy, PROJECT DREAMS – HOW TO BUILD MAZINGER Z’S HANGER is workplace comedy meets mecha anime looking to literally break the 4th wall. The Fantasy Marketing department of engineering company Maeda Corporation has one mission–to increase page visits to their website. Only building a “Fantasy World Communication Device” can make it happen. When the overzealous marketing director Asegawa comes up with a plan to construct the iconic hangar of classic anime Mazinger Z, the PR team gets roped into a wild ride to achieve the ultimate pipe dream. 

The project gets complicated as they try to produce as canon a hangar as possible to appease the clients… who happen to be devoted fans of the show. With zero budget, they must make sense of technological minutiae that should only exist in anime. As the infectious spirit of Asegawa spreads, one by one, the skeptical PR team goes all in. Team members start to nerd out on the mechanics, an otaku manifests his fanaticism in the workplace, a love story grounded in bedrock and snack metaphors emerges, and all come together to try to achieve the impossible–make a giant super robot fantasy into a reality.

–Carmela Prudencio