TOKYO, March 27: US entertainment giant Walt Disney on Thursday unveiled pilot versions of television animation series it is producing in first-of-a-kind tie-ups with Japanese animation studios.

The move, first announced earlier this month, marks a change of strategy for Disney, which has traditionally distributed US-made characters Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck around the world.

A Japanese adaptation of the popular US “Lilo and Stitch” series will start in late 2008 as “the first Disney animation made in Japan and set in Japan”, an official at the Japanese arm of Walt Disney said.

“It’s important for Disney’s business to produce contents that suit the taste of the country” where they are marketed, the official said at the Tokyo International Anime Fair 2008.

The original “Lilo and Stitch” series told of the bonding between the orphan girl Lilo and a little blue alien named Stitch on the lush Hawaiian island of Kauai.—AFP