Typically, when a streamer announces new anime shows for a given season, they take a shotgun approach, where quantity trumps quality. Netflix has proven to be an exception to that trend. In keeping with its reputation for smarter curation of animated shows in its catalog, the streamer reminded folks about its slate of absolutely stacked anime with a batch drop of trailers and new looks at upcoming shows.
Despite getting a glimpse of what’s ahead at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in June, Anime NYC is here, and Netflix has come out to play with a shortlist of new and continuing series bound to occupy the tippy top of folks’ watchlists. There’s a lot of ground to cover, so to expedite the process, we’re gonna run down what was revealed in alphabetical order, including a brief synopsis of their premises, the studio behind them, their cast, and when they’ll premiere.
Bass X Machina
Animated by Studio Mir (The Legend of Korra/Devil May Cry), Bass X Machina is a steampunk western anime where a father battles outlaws, machines, and supernatural oddities to protect his family. The show stars Brian Tyree Henry (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse), musician and actor Janelle Monáe, Tati Gabrielle (Mortal Kombat II), and seasoned voice actor Cree Summer. The series premieres on November 3.
Blue Eye Samurai Season Two
Animated by Blue Spirit, season two of Blue Eye Samurai sees roaming samurai Mizu (Maya Erskine) continue her vengeful journey in search of her father in London. Meanwhile, back in Japan, Mizu’s companion Ringo (Masi Oka) searches for a new purpose in life while Akemi (Brenda Song) and Taigen (Darren Barnet) navigate the politics of Edo Castle under a new, dangerous shogun. The series, by writers and showrunners Amber Noizumi and Michael Green, is slated to return in January 2027.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2
Studio Trigger and CD Projekt RED’s highly anticipated follow-up to the 2023 Anime of the Year-winning series Cyberpunk: Edgerunners follows a new crew in Night City in a 10-episode standalone story set in the world of Cyberpunk 2077. Along their neo-noir journey, the show—which draws heavy inspiration from classic cinema like City of God—asks what extremes its heroes are willing to go to for their stories to matter.
Its cast includes Clancy Brown (Mr. Krabs in SpongeBob SquarePants, among many other iconic roles) as Weak Kingsley, an edgerunner; Nazeeh Tarsha (Kafka Hibino in Kaiju No. 8) as D, a netrunner; Kimoy Lee (Syrup in Witch Watch) as Talia, a chromed-out Corpo who fraternizes with the Maelstrom gang; and Valeria Rodriguez (Venture in Overwatch) as Roman Carax, a young cinephile documenting all the horrors in Night City, LiveLeak-style, from his camcorder. The series premieres on October 20.
Fool Night
Jointly animated by Sunrise (Mobile Suit Gundam/Cowboy Bebop) and Shaft (Puella Magi Madoka Magica), Fool Night, based on Kasumi Yasuda’s ongoing manga series, is a dystopian sci-fi anime set in a world plunged into eternal darkness following an ecological disaster. The only way for humanity to combat a century’s worth of oxygen deprivation from plant life dying out is transfloration, a cutting-edge operation that transforms human beings into plants for the greater good. When a man named Toshiro Kamiya undergoes transfloration to pay for his mother’s medical bills, he and his best friend (employed at a transfloration facility), Yomiko Horai, wind up at the center of a serial-killer plot and a series of dangerous government conspiracies.
Its main cast includes Kōki Uchiyama (Tomura Shigaraki in My Hero Academia) as Toshiro, and Minako Kotobuki (Tsumugi Kotobuki in K-ON!) as Yomiko. Fool Night premieres on November 26.
Lego One Piece
Coming off the bon voyage of the live-action One Piece series’ second season, this two-part animated LEGO special recaps the events of the series thus far as told by the Straw Hat pirates‘ trusty sniper (and unreliable narrator), Usopp. The special stars Iñaki Godoy as Luffy, Emily Rudd as Nami, Mackenyu as Zoro, Jacob Romero Gibson as Usopp, Taz Skylar as Sanji, Charithra Chandran as Nefertari Vivi, Mikaela Hoover as Tony Tony Chopper, and Jeff Ward as Buggy. Lego One Piece premieres on September 29.
Sakamoto Days Season Two
Studio TMS is back with a second season of shonen hitman-turned-family-man mayhem with Sakamoto Days season two. The series follows Taro Sakamoto (EN: Matthew Mercer, JP: Sugita Tomokazu), a legendary hitman who, after retiring from the business for good to become a loving husband and father, is thrown back into the criminal underworld when a nemesis puts his family in his crosshairs. What follows is an action-adventure romp that’s equal parts John Wick and Jackie Chan kung fu cinema wrapped in a delightfully madcap package as Sakamoto and his allies take on a progressively bizarre assortment of antisocial assassins. Sakamoto Days season two premieres in January 2027.
The One Piece
Rounding things out is a new look at the key visual for WIT Studio’s anime remake of Eiichiro Oda’s long-running shonen series, The One Piece. As we learned earlier this year, the series is seven episodes, each with a runtime of roughly 42 minutes, which’ll drop all at once on the streamer. For those keeping track of what that means relative to the ongoing manga’s 1,000+ chapters, the show is adapting the first 50 chapters of the series’ East Blue Saga “up to the point where Luffy and the crew meet Sanji.” The One Piece sets sail in February 2027.
All in all, Netflix’s slate of upcoming anime looks impressive, to say the least. If we were to pick three shows at the top of our watchlist, it’d be Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2, Blue Eye Samurai season two, and Fool Night. Let us know what shows piqued your interest in the comments.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
Read the full article here
