Kenji Iwaisawa's ROCK'N ROLL MOUNTAIN studio announced that it's adapting Akiko Okuda's "Rusuban" (House-Sitting) short manga into an anime film. The short will screen for one week starting August 1 at K's Cinema in Shinjuku, Tokyo, alongside a re-release of Iwaisawa's 2010 short "Yama."

The story follows a day in the life of Tokko as she house-sits in a large home while her family is away, set in August 1987. The cast includes Kokoha Tachibana, Yuka Katō, Atsuyoshi Miyazaki, Mitsuho Kanbe, Aimi Imai, and Akane Katsuki.

This marks the directorial debut of Ayumi Yanagisawa, who previously served as assistant unit director on Iwaisawa's film "100 Meters." Beyond directing, Yanagisawa is handling storyboarding and editing duties. The studio took a different approach with "Rusuban" compared to "100 Meters"—rather than using rotoscoping, the team opted for traditional hand-drawn animation featuring work from the studio's younger staff members.

The animation team includes Yuuka Noguchi, Midori Makino, and Miku Akira, with background art from Chisato Mansai and Pang Qi. Veronica Horeva directs photography while Ayame Sekiguchi handles color keys and production desk duties. Miyu Katō serves as sound director, with music by Yasuo Harada and sound effects by Masaru Usui, who also handles dubbing mixing. Voice actress Yuka Katō is credited for dialect supervision.

Okuda's original "Rusuban" appears in her 2019 collection "Shinzō," a book featuring six short manga stories. The work has also been included in the "Glaeolia" collection of indie manga published by Glacier Bay Books.

The August 1 premiere at K's Cinema marks an interesting pairing—bringing together Iwaisawa's work adapting manga from different creators, both approaching short-form storytelling through animation with distinct visual techniques.