Arriving this November on Netflix is Godzilla: Monster Planet (Godzilla: Kaijū Wakusei), the new series is going to take place in the future. A new video goes behind-the-scenes of the making of the new animated feature, although it’s in Japanese and YouTube’s auto-translate feature doesn’t help in any way shape or form. Still, we get to see some of the human characters being designed as well as many of the film’s settings.

The last summer of the 20th Century. That day, the human beings learn that they are not the only ruler of the planet Earth.

The appearance of the giant living creatures “Kaiju’s” and the ultimate existence that destroys all monsters: Godzilla. Through the battle against kaiju’s that lasted for half a century, human beings has experienced continuous defeat, and finally plans to escape from the Earth. And in 2048, only those who were selected by the A.I. managed under the central government boarded the inter-sidereal emigrant spaceship “Aratrum” to head for “Tau Cetus e”, the planet beyond the distance of 11.9 light-year. However, the environmental condition differences between that of the Earth and Tau e, which they finally arrived after 20 years were far beyond the predicted numbers, and was not an environment considered to be habitable by human beings.

The young man on the emigrant ship: Haruo, who saw his parents killed by Godzilla in front of his eyes when he was 4 years old, had only one thing in his mind for 20 years: to return to the Earth and defeat Godzilla. Shut out from the possibility of emigration, as the living environment in the ship deteriorates, the group of “Earth Returnists” led by Haruo became the majority, and determines to head back to Earth through a dangerous long-distance hyperspace navigation. However, the Earth they have returned has already passed the time of 20,000 years, and has become an unknown world with the ecosystem reigned by Godzilla.

At the end, will human beings win back the Earth? And what will Haruo see beyond his fate?

Here’s what I find immensely interesting about this story; it’s a bit full circle on humanity. The dinosaurs died millions of years ago, and now in the future they’ve once again become the rulers. Having the series take place way in the future is also unique and something that should work well as an animated series; it’s clearly not something any of us would want to see in a live-action film.

Directed by Kobun Shizuno and Hiroyuki Seshita, it’ll be the very first anime film in the Godzilla franchise. The voice cast for the Gen Urobuchi-penned film includes Yuuki Kaji, Takahiro Sakurai, Mamoru Miyano, Junichi Suwabe, Kana Hanazawa and Tomokazu Sugita.