TV
“Kaiju No. 8” Trailer Introduces Monstrous-Sized Anime Series Heading to Crunchyroll This Spring
It’s been a massive day for Kaiju TV series. At New York Comic Con today, Crunchyroll unleashed a new trailer to accompany the announcement that new anime series “Kaiju No. 8” will head to its streaming service in Spring 2024, subtitled and dubbed, exclusively in more than 200 countries and territories, simulcast weekly after its broadcast in Japan.
The new trailer below brings big monster mayhem and gore, showcasing the perils of living in a world filled with giant monsters.
The highly anticipated anime series, based on the manga, is centered around “a group of characters living in a world where giant monsters (or kaiju) attack humanity and the creatures’ destructive aftermath. Kaiju is a Japanese term that is commonly associated with television, movies, and books involving giant monsters (usually depicted attacking major cities and battling the military or other monsters), which has been a science fiction mainstay in the media for decades.”
Production I.G (Psycho-Pass; Ghost in the Shell) animates the series, with kaiju artwork and design supervision by Studio Khara (Evangelion: New Theatrical Edition, Shin Godzilla (Pre Visualization Development)). The anime is adapted from the original manga created by Naoya Matsumoto.
The official synopsis: “In a world plagued by threatening creatures known as Kaiju, Kafka Hibino aspired to enlist in the Japan Defense Force to defeat them. Let’s wipe out the Kaiiju together. Kafka pledged to his childhood friend, Mina Ashiro. Over time, life circumstances forced them to go their separate ways and caused him to abandon his lifelong ambition. He found himself employed by Monster Sweeper, Inc., a professional cleaning company that specializes in cleaning up the aftermath of Kaiju battles. Meanwhile, Mina Ashiro is now the Captain of the Defense Force’s 3rd Division. As it stands, he is currently unworthy of fighting Kaiju alongside her. At work, Kafka crosses paths with the highly motivated Reno Ichikawa. Reno’s undying determination to join the Defense Force leaves no room for failure. His perseverance reawakens Kafka’s ambition of standing next to Mina as they protect humanity from Kaiju together. A dream frozen by time, thawed by a burning promise.”
During the Crunchyroll Industry Panel at New York Comic Con announcing the upcoming series debut, a special message by manga creator Naoya Matsumoto was shared:
“Hello from Japan to everyone attending New York Comic-Con. I’m the author of Kaiju No. 8, Naoya Matsumoto. It’s a story about someone struggling in a harsh world without ever giving up, in the hopes of leading people into an even slightly brighter future. To anyone dealing with the complexities of reality that reads this manga, I hope it can help make your future a little brighter, too. Next year when Kaiju No. 8 begins to air in America and worldwide, I’ll be looking forward to seeing your reactions. I hope you’re looking forward to it, too!”
As for voice cast, Masaya Fukunishi voices Kafka Hibino/Kaiju No. 8, Wataru Katoh plays Reno Ichikawa, and Asami Seto voices Mina Ashiro.
Look for “Kaiju No. 8” this Spring.
Published in 2019, Stephen King‘s novel The Institute is getting a TV series adaptation from MGM+, with Deadline reporting today that the project has been given a series order.
Ben Barnes (Shadow and Bone) and Mary-Louise Parker (Weeds) will star.
The Institute comes from director/executive producer Jack Bender (Lost, Mr. Mercedes), writer/executive producer Benjamin Cavell (Justified, The Stand) and MGM+ Studios.
In the eight-episode series, “When 12-year-old genius Luke Ellis is kidnapped, he awakens at The Institute, a facility full of children who all got there the same way he did, and who are all possessed of unusual abilities. In a nearby town, haunted former police officer Tim Jamieson (Barnes) has come looking to start a new life, but the peace and quiet won’t last, as his story and Luke’s are destined to collide.” The website notes that Parker will play “Ms. Sigsby, the charming but iron-willed director of the Institute and a true believer in its awful mission.”
“I’m delighted and excited at the prospect of The Institute, with its high-intensity suspense, being filmed as a series,” King said. “The combination of Jack Bender and Ben Cavell guarantees that the results will be terrific.”
“We are thrilled to have the opportunity to work again with Stephen King. And The Institute, based on his critically acclaimed novel, is an exciting addition to the MGM+ original series slate,” said Michael Wright, head of MGM+. “There is no creative team I would trust more to bring the book to life than Jack and Ben, whose creative vision and love of Mr. King’s voice, will bring this thought-provoking and gut-wrenching story to life, in the engaging, cinematic, and thrilling style MGM+ viewers expect.”
Here’s the novel’s full synopsis, via Amazon:
As psychically terrifying as Firestarter, and with the spectacular kid power of It, The Institute is Stephen King’s gut-wrenchingly dramatic story of good vs. evil in a world where the good guys don’t always win.
In the middle of the night, in a house on a quiet street in suburban Minneapolis, intruders silently murder Luke Ellis’s parents and load him into a black SUV. The operation takes less than two minutes. Luke will wake up at The Institute, in a room that looks just like his own, except there’s no window. And outside his door are other doors, behind which are other kids with special talents—telekinesis and telepathy—who got to this place the same way Luke did: Kalisha, Nick, George, Iris, and ten-year-old Avery Dixon. They are all in Front Half. Others, Luke learns, graduated to Back Half, “like the roach motel,” Kalisha says. “You check in, but you don’t check out.”
In this most sinister of institutions, the director, Mrs. Sigsby, and her staff are ruthlessly dedicated to extracting from these children the force of their extranormal gifts. There are no scruples here. If you go along, you get tokens for the vending machines. If you don’t, punishment is brutal. As each new victim disappears to Back Half, Luke becomes more and more desperate to get out and get help. But no one has ever escaped from the Institute.
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