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Cartoon

Pingu in the City

Worldwide

The story

Pingu in the City (Japanese: ピングー in ザ・シティ, Hepburn: Pingū in za Shiti) is a Japanese animated children's television series produced by DandeLion Animation Studios and Polygon Pictures. It is a spin-off of the stop-motion television series Pingu. The series first aired on NHK Educational TV in Japan from October 7, 2017 to March 30, 2019.

Premise

The series was adapted from the famous stop-motion animated series Pingu, which was created in 1986 by Otmar Gutmann and Erika Brueggemann for the SRF in Switzerland. In this series, Pingu and his family move from their home in the Antarctic to a large city, where the inhabitants are all very different. The mischievous and curious Pingu makes a big effort to help the citizens with their jobs, but his attempts to do so often result in trouble.

Production

The series is co-produced by American company Mattel Creations (who acquired HIT Entertainment in 2011) and Japanese companies NHK, NHK Enterprises and Polygon Pictures, with animation produced by DandeLion Animation Studios in the same style as the original stop-motion series through computer-animation. and distributed across the world by Sony Creative Products, the Japanese license holders for the Pingu franchise.
It was directed by Naomi Iwata and written by both Kimiko Ueno and Shigenori Tanabe, with music by Ken Arai. It features voices by Ryota Iwasaki and Fumiya Tanaka, in a similar style to Carlo Bonomi, David Sant, and Marcello Magni, who voiced characters in the original series.
A second season premiered from October 6, 2018 (which was the day before the 1st anniversary of the show) to March 30, 2019.

International airings

The series was first screened outside of Japan at the MIPJunior 2017 event at Cannes. In Australia, the show premiered on June 4, 2018, on ABC Kids. In the United States, the show was first screened at the Chicago International Television Festival and the 2018 Animation Block Party.
In October 2018, Sony Creative Products sub-licensed distribution rights to the series to Sony Music Entertainment España for Latin America and most of Europe.
In the United Kingdom, the show premiered on February 25, 2019, on ITVBe's preschool block LittleBe. In Brazil, the show premiered in April 2019 through the preschool channel Gloobinho. On Hop! Channel in Israel, the show premiered in summer 2019.