Anime fans ate well at this past weekend’s San Diego Comic-Con. The four-day event saw both major series announcements and world premiere trailers for a variety of upcoming shows, sure to bolster your anime watchlist for the rest of the year and beyond. So, here’s a quick roundup of some of the biggest anime announcements from San Diego Comic-Con.
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Shinichirō Watanabe’s new anime trailer
Arguably the biggest announcement to come out of SDCC anime-wise was the news of Cowboy Bebop creator Shinichirō Watanabe directing a new anime with John Wick director Chad Stahelski and Studio Mappa (Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man), called Lazarus. According to Variety, the anime, which is already in production, takes place in the year 2052 and follows the story of a “Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist” who concocts a cure-all drug named Hapauna. However, the drug has dire side effects that result in the death of its users three years after they use it, leading a special task force to investigate the matter.
Lazarus’ trailer, which depicts the series as being just as jazzy and action-packed as Cowboy Bebop, features music by saxophonist Kamasi Washington as well as British electronic music DJ Floating Points and jazz DJ Bonobo. Basically, the folks behind this show are a dream team of creatives, and you should feel excited. Lazarus has a loose release window of 2024, which gives you just enough time to check out other Watanabe anime like Carole & Tuesday.
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New FLCL baybee
Fooly Cooly, also known as FLCL, is returning with its fourth season, FLCL: Grunge. As is tradition, the new hotness’ soundtrack will be performed by Japanese alternative rock band The Pillows. However, unlike its predecessors, FLCL: Grunge will utilize 3D animation by MontBlanc Pictures.
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First announced last year, FLCL: Grunge follows a group of teenagers, one of whom resembles Fantastic Four’s The Thing, as they battle strange otherworldly oddities to protect those closest to them. If prior seasons are anything to go by, there’s also a high probability that the monsters causing a ruckus in the quiet fictional industrial town of Mabase have something to do with one of Haruko’s hair-brained schemes. FLCL: Grunge premieres on Toonami on September 9.
Netflix’s One Piece live-action looks really good actually
Anime fans have long had reservations about their favorite shows receiving the live-action treatment, especially when Netflix is involved. Look no further than the swiftly canceled live-action Cowboy Bebop and the lukewarm reception to the streamer announcing a second attempt at a live-action Death Note. So you can imagine why One Piece fans, as well as creator Eiichiro Oda, would be worried about the upcoming live-action series. But I’ve gotta say, the first trailer for the series looks promising.
The trailer, which has amassed over six million views on YouTube, is filled with a treasure trove of easter eggs that are almost too plentiful to spot on the first watch. While the trailer’s attention to detail to the grander pirate world and its action choreography look impressive, what’s even more remarkable is how charming its found-family live-action crew feels.
From the jump, the group dynamic of the live-action Straw Hat crew feels damn-near identical to their anime and manga counterparts, which honestly, is more important than any gripes about gripes about CG animation, which just so happens to look pretty incredible. We’ve got Zosan banter, Nami mother-henning her dunderheaded crewmates, and Luffy looking cool while coming to the aid of his friends. Basically, the trailer has all the hallmarks of the series’ found-family dynamic, which was paramount for the series to nail.
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Oda himself even took it upon himself to get ahead of his most diehard fans nitpicking creative liberties with the Netflix series by giving props to the production team for bringing his mega-popular series to life in a special message. He even metaphorically offered his own neck to the gallows if fans have an axe to grind with the final product once it releases on August 31. This is notable, considering that Oda’s previous message about the series stressed how Netflix promised that it won’t launch the series until he was satisfied with the show.
The first season of the One Piece live-action series looks like it will at least cover the major story beats of East Blue up until the Arlong Park arc, a pivotal early story arc that’ll likely serve as an ample litmus test for whether or not we’ll set sail with more live-action seasons in the future. As a born-again One Piece fan, I’m personally invested in One Piece live-action’s success because I need to see who they’ll cast as Nico Robin and Bon Clay.
Eiichiro Oda’s pre-One Piece manga is getting an anime
Netflix’s One Piece live-action trailer wasn’t the only Eiichiro Oda-related news to come out of SDCC weekend. We also got the announcement that Monsters, a 1994 one-shot manga series from before Oda started working on One Piece, will receive its own anime adaptation by E&H Production.
The announcement came as a part of One Piece Day 2023, an annual celebration of the series that took place on July 22. Monsters, which is considered canon within the One Piece series, follows the story of a legendary swordsman named Ryoma’s battle against a terrifying dragon.
No release date has been announced yet for Monsters.
Uzumaki is shaping up to be the best Junji Ito anime
Last year, Production I.G announced the third delay of its anime adaptation for Junji Ito’s critically acclaimed horror manga, Uzumaki (“Spiral”). At the time, the official Twitter account for the anime cited that the production team required additional time to recreate “the quality of the intricate designs and detailed line work” of Ito’s manga. Evidently, the extra time Uzumaki spent in the anime production oven paid off because we just got a preview trailer and a release window.
Uzumaki’s story follows a high schooler named Kirie Goshima and her reclusive boyfriend Shuichi Saito as they investigate mysterious hypnotic spiral patterns that are turning their small coastal hometown into a living nightmare and driving its denizens into madness.
Unlike recent attempts at anime adaptations of Ito’s works, which featured shoddy 3D animation that hindered the effectiveness of the page-turning horror of Ito’s manga, Uzumaki keeps things effectively simple by being entirely black and white and appearing to more smartly utilize its 3D models to accentuate the unnerving body horror from the source material’s static manga panels. Uzumaki is slated to be a four-part miniseries that will premiere on Toonami sometime later this year.