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There is a promotional video for March Comes in like a Lion (aka 3gatsu no Lion) called March Comes in like a Lion meets BUMP OF CHICKEN. It expands the closing song of the anime, Fighter, into a 6-minute music video, produced by the manga's author Chika Umino and the band BUMP OF CHICKEN.

I may have that backwards, though. The video may have pre-dated the anime by over a year, making the closing song a condensed version of the music video. From what I can gather, a DVD with the video accompanied special copies of the 10th volume of the manga, released 28 Nov 2014. The anime was announced 25 Sep 2015. If the music video pre-dated the anime, who animated it? Studio Shaft (producing the TV show) may not have even been involved.

add: The music video definitely predates the anime. It was posted to YouTube on 8 Dec 2014.

Much of the art in the music video looks like it may have come from the anime (and a lot does not), but that could just be that they both share the manga as source material. Also was the music video made in Flash? Parts of it have that mechanistic feel, but I do not know enough about Flash video capability to know if it would have been up to the task.

The [Show More] section of the YouTube video has a link to a Japanese site or page apparently dedicated to the music video: 3月のライオン meets BUMP OF CHICKEN｜白泉社. It is somehow protected and won't translate (not that a translation would be very accurate). I can't even drag over and copy text from it.

кяαzєя
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RichF
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  • Heh, I looked at the Japanese page's source, and the text is normal. I copied a bit and pasted to Google Translate: *The appearance of BUMP OF CHICKEN in recent years that creates strong and bright songs is overlapping in forms that do not know which one is one of them any longer.* I think the original Japanese was clearer. – RichF Jan 05 '17 at 22:31

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It's a collaboration project between Chica Umino, the author of March Comes in like a Lion and BUMP OF CHICKEN, a Japanese music band.

The background of this project, as mentioned on both Young Animal (the publisher of the manga) and BUMP OF CHICKEN's official site,

In the beginning, Chica Umino likes BUMP OF CHICKEN, and BUMP OF CHICKEN's members like March Comes in like a Lion.

They are respecting each other, they like each other's product. Well, let's do something!

After thinking for a while, the only thing that Chica Umino can do is drawing a manga, and BUMP OF CHICKEN is writing a song. They knew they have nothing else.

Thus, BUMP OF CHICKEN wrote a single, Fighter, and Chica Umino drew a spin-off manga.

As it has been mentioned on the question, the single and the manga was released on 28 November 2014. The limited edition of the manga's volume 10 included the single's CD and the limited digital delivery from Toy's Factory (BUMP OF CHICKEN's record label) included a serial number for the digital spin-off manga.

In 2016, the song was also chosen as one of the ending songs for the anime.

Regarding the MV, there's not much info (if, at all) about the production on the internet. Someone mentioned that it's Chica Umino's drawing, but there's no info about the animation/studio behind it.

Additional sources: Japanese Wikipedia

Community
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Aki Tanaka
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  • Aki, thank you! After so many months, I didn't think this question would get one. Since I posted, Bump of Chicken uploaded a related music video, [Answer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRWQckbQ9tQ) . It is an expanded version of the first opening song. This time I believe all the animation is taken directly from episodes of the anime. – RichF Jun 03 '17 at 08:48