Streaming behemoth Netflix looks set to bolster its animation arm with five new anime shows that are series adaptations as well as inspired from live-action movies.
In a huge announcement at the Netflix Singapore event, sci-fi thriller Pacific Rim was revealed to get an animation treatment from the platform and bring back the epic battles of Kaiju and Jaegars clans but with a touch of anime. With productions slated for Legendary Entertainment, Craig Kyle and Greg Johnson are set to be the co-showrunners as the series would also expand on the stories told on the big-screen.
Live-action series Altered Carbon is a dystopian sci-fi cyberpunk that premiered on Netflix earlier in the year to rave reviews and to further build on the success, it’s now transcending boundaries of animation. Set in the same universe, the OTT platform is now bringing a movie version of it that’s set to explore the story deeper even as it’s season two is in production. Dai Sato and Tsukasa Kondo will be writing the film as animation studio Anima will be producing.
Another intriguing animated story soon to hit Netflix would be Cagaster of an Insect Cage, which is also set in the post-apocalyptic world where a mysterious disease termed cagaster transforms humans into giant insects. And amid all the pandemonium ensuing around them are a young couple trying to make their ends meet in the city. A Gonzo animation studio production, veteran Japanese animator Koichi Chigira will be helming the project.
For fans of the Fantastic Beasts franchise, Trese is an anime series they’d want to keep an eye on, for the Philippine show treads a similar line but with a mythological twist: set in the capital city of Manila, it probes the existence of mythical creatures among humans while the protagonist Alexandra Trese fights a criminal underworld fraught with supernatural beings with supernatural powers.
Rounding off the mega anime scheme is Yasuke, which chronicles a dark and gory tale of a retired wandering samurai who’s tasked with transporting a child to another world else risk falling into the clasps of dark forces. The show is actually based on a true story of a samurai of an African origin, who took on the Japanese crime lord Odo Nobunaga.
Quiet evidently, Netflix is amping up the efforts to reach out to the global animation fanbase.