This Week in Japan: Kagurabachi Gets a Date, Ninja Scroll Gets a Scan

New York Comic Con week, so the news came out of Manhattan with a Japanese accent. Kagurabachi has a date and a studio. A Korean webtoon with a billion views is getting a Japanese anime from a Japanese and Korean studio at once. Ninja Scroll got scanned off the negative and put back in 600 theaters. Madoka has a US date. Suikoden went free on YouTube. One inventory link this week, in the Ninja Scroll item, and it is the only one.

Kagurabachi, April 2027, Cypic

The Kagurabachi anime premieres April 2027. Studio Cypic, Tetsuya Takeuchi directing, Keigo Sasaki on character design, Shochiku and CyberAgent leading the committee. This week's add was Yuichi Nakamura as Soshiro Azami, with a character trailer. Taihi Kimura is Chihiro, Tomokazu Seki is his father.

Kagurabachi is the Takeru Hokazono manga that started in Weekly Shonen Jump in September 2023 and got memed into a phenomenon before the first chapter was out, then had the nerve to be good. Three years from chapter one to an anime date is fast for Jump and about right for a series that spent its first month as a joke and its next three years as a sales chart. Cypic is a small studio. Is that a worry? The question is whether the swords look like the manga's swords, and the trailer says they are trying. Cool.

The Boxer: a webtoon, a Japanese print run, and two studios

Crunchyroll's NYCC showcase announced a TV anime of The Boxer, the JH webtoon that ran on NAVER WEBTOON from 2019 and on LINE Manga in Japan from 2020 to 2022, 1.06 billion cumulative views, six print volumes out from Shueisha under the Jump Comics label. Animation is a joint production between breccia, a new studio founded by Kinema Citrus co-founder Muneki Ogasawara, and STUDIO JEMI in South Korea. Yudai Kubota and KANG Wonyeong direct. Koki Uchiyama is Yu, Kensho Ono is Ryu, Tomokazu Seki again as the trainer K. No date.

Read the pipeline, because that is the story. A Korean webtoon, printed in Japan by the Jump people, animated by a Japanese studio and a Korean studio with two directors, one from each. Ten years ago this would have been a Japanese adaptation of Korean material. Now it is a co-production with the credits split down the middle, announced in New York. Is that the future of the industry or one deal? Both answers are the same thing from different distances. Real.

Ninja Scroll, 4K, off the negative

HIDIVE and Iconic Events ran a new 4K remaster of Ninja Scroll in about 600 North American theaters on October 4, 5, and 7, subbed on the 4th, dubbed on the 5th, encore either way on the 7th. The remaster started with a 4K scan of the original 35mm negative, then frame by frame damage repair and color correction, supervised by Yoshiaki Kawajiri, produced by Sentai. The film is 1993, Madhouse, Kawajiri writing and directing.

A negative scan with the director in the room is the version that counts; a lot of anime 4K releases are upscales of a video master and say so in small print. Kawajiri is the Wicked City and Demon City Shinjuku director, and if you want the earlier one in your hand, the 1988 Demon City Shinjuku telephone card is here, credits printed on the face. That is the one link. No home video date on the 4K yet. It will come.

Madoka, Walpurgisnacht: Rising, US January 16

Aniplex of America and Fathom put the new Madoka film in US theaters January 16 to 19, 2027, subbed and dubbed, tickets December 11. It opened in Japan August 28 after a long delay from a planned winter 2024 release. The trilogy it follows goes to Crunchyroll November 8 and Netflix January 2, and a 4K trilogy set lands October 15 at $149.98.

Thirteen years between Rebellion and this one, which the September 4 post covered, and now the whole run gets re-staged for the US in the three months before the sequel. That is a rollout, not a release. The trilogy on two streamers and a disc set first, then the film. Somebody at Aniplex did the math on who forgot the plot of Rebellion. Everyone. Cool.

Suikoden, free, on YouTube

Suikoden: The Anime put its 60 minute first episode on YouTube free with English subtitles from October 6, in more than 75 territories including the US, weekly after that, episode two October 13. Konami's own studio adapting Suikoden II. The 1998 game. The free pilot is a Konami decision and a smart one: the audience for Suikoden II is people who played it in 1999 and people who have only heard those people talk. Both groups need episode one for free before they pay for episode two. Real.

On the desk

The desk is quiet this week and the loop stays where it was. Next week, or when it says.