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Anime Expo 2024 served up another packed weekend of news and excitement, and we've got an overview of all the major announcements that were made! From more on the new Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt anime to Trigun Stargaze , another look at Solo Leveling season 2 and beyond, let's take a look back as the dust still settles from the July 4 weekend festivities. New Anime Projects and Continuations We learned a lot about some upcoming series and the future of existing shows, like the "final phase" of Trigun Stampede and the long-awaited third season of Fire Force . Trigun Stampede “Final Phase” Revealed as Trigun Stargaze Atsushi Nishigori, CloverWorks Reunite for Grotesque Anime Film Blue Exorcist -Beyond the Snow Saga- Anime Reveals New Trailer, -The Blue Night Saga- Announced for January 2025 Link Click Donghua Reveals New Bridon Arc Trailer, Release Date Black Butler -Emerald Witch Arc- Anime Announced, Crunchyroll to Stream Dr. Stone Science...

Kodansha had a bunch of manga licenses to reveal during its Anime Expo 2024 panel, including print releases planned for spring 2025 digital releases right around the corner throughout July. Among the print licenses are Dead Rock from Fairy Tail creator Hiro Mashima, Tower Dungeon from Knights of Sidonia author Tsutomu Nihei and more. Here's the full list, starting with spring 2025 print releases: Kodansha Spring 2025 Print Licenses Dead Rock by Hiro Mashima Synopsis: Welcome to Dead Rock, the underworld’s top educational institution! A spot at this training facility for demonic mischief is all the young demon Yakuto has ever wanted, but in Hell, there’s no such thing as an easy A. Plenty of Yakuto’s fellow prospects won’t survive the entrance exam, and even fewer will make it to graduation. So why bother? The prize, for those who survive this death game through perdition, is the world, in the palm of their hand!

Viz Media recently teamed up with Marvel Comics on a number of Marvel manga from writers and artists like Sanshiro Kasama, Hikaru Uesugi and Yusuke Osawa. Now those titles are getting ready to join the Viz Manga digital service, and Viz Manga and Marvel Unlimited are offering subscription deals to celebrate. Among the first titles are Deadpool: Samurai , Wolverine: Snikt! , Spider-Man: Fake Red , and Marvel’s Secret Reverse . After that, Spider-Man: Octo-Girl and X-Men: The Manga: Remastered will follow this fall. Related: Viz and Marvel Team Up to Release Deadpool: Samurai Manga and More in English Here's more on each addition: Deadpool: Samurai : Deadpool lands in Tokyo with a bang! What could possibly go wrong when Iron Man invites Deadpool to join the Avengers' new Samurai Squad? After all, Deadpool is just in it for the money…and the trip to Japan. This is fine, right? Wolverine: Snikt!

We at Dn continue to be inspired by the science fiction-inflected animations of Karl Poyzer with his last two comedy shorts Floaters and Floaters: The Big Number Two having premiered here on our pages. Now, once more, we’re delighted to welcome Poyzer back to premiere his music video for Ital Tek’s The Mirror. In The Mirror Poyzer sets his sights on a futuristic city, with a camera that gently bobs and weaves throughout its myriad of internal locations. This smooth and pristine approach to cinematography is the perfect foil to Ital Tek’s ambient and pulsing track which is similarly gentle in its execution. In company with the video, which features below, Dn caught up with Poyzer to talk over the influence of manga artist Tsutomu Nihei on the piece, the freedom of the camera in animation, and the feeling of discovery he wanted to impart to the viewer.

When Japanese manga-ka Hajime Isayama first wrote and illustrated "Attack on Titan" for serialized monthly publication in Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine, he had no idea that it would go on to become an international mega-hit. Basing the manga storyline on a one-shot prototype he had written when he was 19, Isayama spent years fleshing out the dangerous, combat-prone world of "Attack on Titan," where massive, man-eating beasts named Titans terrorize and devour humans. Isayama took inspiration for these giant humanoid antagonists from various sources — some aspects were a natural evolution of his pre-school sketches, while others were inspired by contemporary serialized manga, including Tsutomu Nihei's "Knights of Sidonia." However, in a 2014 interview with culture magazine Brutus, Isayama clarified that his Titans were based on Mma-themed magazines, along with several real-life WWE and UFC fighters, and mixed-martial artists.

As Isayama's Titans stand out due to their massive, rugged appearance and enhanced physicality,...

Exclusive: Funimation, which last year released the anime movie Demon Slayer: Mugen Train to great success at the global box office, has zeroed in on its next adventure. The company has set a September 13 release date for Knights of Sidonia: Love Woven in the Stars, the sci-fi anime space thriller based on the manga from Tsutomu Nihei.

In addition, Funimation has acquired TV rights to Netflix’s Knights of Sidonia anime series, and will begin streaming Season 1 and Season 2 beginning August 3 on its platform in the U.S., Canada, the UK and Ireland.

Funimation will team with producer Polygon Pictures on the limited theatrical release, which will be in Japanese with English subtitles and an English dub. It is being billed billed as a thrilling conclusion of the series, set a thousand years in the future where an alien race threatens to wipe out the human race which lives on...

“Nobody knows when the world became this way,” intones young Suzu (Sora Amamiya) moments into “Blame!,” and though that world is familiar, it’s not without its surprises. Hiroyuki Seshita’s adaptation of the 10-volume manga by Tsutomu Nihei envisions a society in which man contended with machine and lost — now, untold years later, the few humans left within the unfathomably large Megastructure are on the brink of extinction.

This being a post-apocalyptic cyber-wasteland, our heroes are of course a band of survivors attempting to eke out an existence in the futuristic dystopia their once-thriving planet has become. They’re stymied in their efforts by Builders, Exterminators and other mechanical beasts roaming the Megastructure: some large, some small, all deadly. Resources are scarce, outfits are sleek and straits are dire.

Seshita drops us right into the action, which is likely to please diehards and confuse the uninitiated. Once you’re...

Manga fans displeased by the changes made to “Ghost in the Shell” for this year’s live-action adaptation starring Scarlett Johansson (whom you may have noticed is not, in fact, Japanese) might have something to root for in “Blame!” Netflix has released the trailer for its take on Tsutomu Nihei’s beloved manga, which we’re assured has long been considered “visually impossible” to adapt. Watch below for a glimpse of how the streaming service fared.

Read More: TV Imports: The Best Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Acquired Series You’re Not Watching

Here’s the synopsis: “‘Blame!’ is set in the distant future where what’s left of the human race resides within the Megastructure, a vast and dangerous labyrinth that has grown wild and out of control. Thrown into this world is the mysterious Killy, a strange individual who is on a quest to bring civilization back from the brink of oblivion.

Already a successful seven part animated series, Tsutomu Nihei's celebrated cyberpunk series "Blame!" is getting yet another adaptation this time, in the form of a movie.

Over the weekend, Netflix announced that it was continuing its foray into original anime titles ("Kights of Sidonia" proved to be successful for the streaming service) by co-producing a film adaptation of Blame!. Nihei's story is set in the distant future where what's left of the human race resides within the Megastructure, a vast and dangerous labyrinth that has grown wild and out of control. Thrown into this world is the mysterious Killy, a strange individual who is on a quest to bri [Continued ...]...

Netflix has added the anime feature film “Blame!” as an original title that will premiere in 2017, Anime News Network reported. The film is an adaptation of Japanese magna artist Tsutomu Nihei’s 10-volume 1998 cyberpunk story for Kodansha Comics.

“Blame!” is set in a distant dystopian future where a loner named Killy is on a quest to save civilization with the help an incredibly powerful weapon called the Gravitational Beam Emitter. Tokyo Pop describes the story this way:

Killy is a man of few words. He wanders, seemingly endlessly, through a lonely, gargantuan labyrinth of concrete and steel, fighting off cyborgs and other futuristic nightmares, searching only for something called Net Terminal Genes. And he has a very powerful gun, which he uses without hesitation whenever anything resembling danger rears its ugly head. Who is this quiet, violent, determined man and what are these Genes he seeks? The small communities he...

Filmmaker Vincenzo Natali ("Cube," "Splice"), who has recently been helming various episodes of NBC's "Hannibal," has used social media to post some of the early concept art and pitch work that was created for some of his unmade movies. On the list includes an adaptation of Stephen King's "It," the comic "Swamp Thing," William Gibson's legendary cyberpunk novel "Neuromancer," and an entry in the "Predator" franchise. It's a hell of a collection and worth a good look.

More #TsutomuNihei art for #Neuromancer. Kaung Grade Mark Eleven penetration program. pic.twitter.com/IY4pU1lRdL

— Vincenzo Natali (@Vincenzo_Natali) June 2, 2015

Night City from #Neuromancer pic.twitter.com/8eGmv7f9L2

— Vincenzo Natali (@Vincenzo_Natali) June 2, 2015

#Neuromancer Design: Maelcum. My sketch and #AmroAttia's beautiful painting pic.twitter.com/S0bNXQ4DwG

— Vincenzo Natali (@Vincenzo_Natali) June 1, 2015

#Neuromancer Design: The Sense/Net pyramid pic.twitter.com/wbyfQSTNIi

— Vincenzo Natali (@Vincenzo_Natali...

Louisa Mellor Aug 22, 2016

You've heard of Breaking Bad, Orange Is The New Black & House Of Cards, what about Danger 5, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Darknet and more?…

Quite understandably, column inches can't fill up quickly enough with praise for the likes of Netflix original series House Of Cards, Orange Is The New Black, Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul and Marvel's Daredevil. What though, about some of the lesser-known series available on the UK streaming site?

Sweeping past the well-publicised riches of Doctor Who, Sherlock, Arrested Development, Community and the like, we've ventured into the slightly dustier shelf of TV shows available on Netflix UK that may be lesser-known or less widely celebrated than the big hitters out there, but are still richly deserving of your time. Some are new, some are old, some were cancelled long ago, some are ongoing, several are from outside the UK and Us.

From supernatural, sci-fi,...

Netflix has announced that it will debut its first original anime series.

The on-demand service will premiere Knights of Sidonia in all territories on Friday, July 4.

The show - based on the popular manga series by Tsutomu Nihei - follows humanity's struggle to escape extinction against shapeshifting aliens who are determined to wipe them out.

The focus of the series is on low-born Nagate Tanikaze, who is now a refugee following the destruction of Earth.

After living in the bottom layers of the ship Sidonia during his youth, his talent as a pilot comes to light, leading him to become one of the ship's elite defenders.

Knights of Sidonia stars Hisako Kanemoto, Aki Toyosaki, Ryota Ohsaka, Takahiro Sakurai, Aya Suzaki and Eri Kitamura.

Earlier this week, Netflix unveiled the trailer for The Battered Bastards of Baseball, one of its first original feature-length films.

I have no idea what is happening to me. Am I getting soft? I didn’t execute a Single. Comic. This week. That’s right, I was so wowed by all of these debut issues, they are All getting a pardon until their next volume. Usually, I read at least One #1 issue that I can’t stand. Maybe it’s because I picked up two pulp comics, which I’ll admit to being a sucker for. But I was actually pretty convinced I’d dislike the overpriced The Last Broadcast before I even picked it up, and in fact, my first read-through, I wanted to execute it. But upon further dissemination, I started to appreciate the art more and…

If this gets any worse, I’m going to have to change the name of the column to I Read Comics For You or perhaps Comics Are Things.

The Last Broadcast...

Writer: Sadayuki Mirai

Director: Kobun Shizuno

Release date: April 2014 (Japan)

Production Company: Polygon Pictures

Creator: Tsutomu Nihei

During a viewing of the first five episodes of Knights Of Sidonia, one of my friends exclaimed, “It’s like Attack On Titan… in space!” Which, for all its simplicity, is not an untrue statement: both boast a broad, futuristic, fantastical setting, mysterious monsters that seem to want to annihilate humanity, and young people who must step up to the plate and acquire skills to defeat them. What’s interesting is that Tsutomu Nihei, creator of the manga Sidonia is based on, has been at the game much longer than many of his peers (including Titan creator Hajime Isayama, who listed Nihei as a mangaka he “admires”), and Nihei is an expert at science fiction world-building—as evidenced in his previous series Biomega and Blame!. So, although the surface structure of Sidonia is...

We love our Japanese monsters at FM, and while that absolutely means Godzilla and his brethren, we also like to give animated monstrosities plenty of love. You don’t have to be obsessed with Japanese media to appreciate a good story, and ever since I started watching Attack On Titan (feature coming in Issue 274), my adoration for the medium of anime has been wholly rekindled. I had admittedly been stuck watching the same shows over and over again for a while (Gundam, X, Wolf’S Rain), becoming stagnant in my appreciation.

No more, my friends. See, one of my favorite manga creators, Tsutomu Nihei (author of Biomega and Blame!), has been writing a Sci-Fi series called Knights Of Sidonia. Currently being translated by Vertical Publishing, it’s really intense and exciting stuff, packed full of weird scenarios and commentary on social strata and gender identity. Oh, and giant tentacled alien monsters.

Need a reason to be excited about comics in the next couple of months? Look No Further.

There is some serious greatness coming your way in the form of inks and word balloons. Things that made me jump up and down when I saw them in Previews. And there’s not a superhero comic in the bunch! They get enough publicity, right? How about some giant robots, time travel, hip-hop, underwater horror, and elves with a bad attitude? Allow me to present FM’s latest Hot List of ten upcoming comics projects that deserve your attention.

1. Black Mask Studios

Picture this: two comics heroes (Steve Niles and Matt Pizzolo) and one member of a beloved punk band (Brett Gurewitz of Bad Religion) walk into a bar, have some drinks, and decide to get together to start a comics imprint that bridges the relatively small gap between the musical and storytelling worlds.