Anime News Network·Japan·Thursday, September 24, 2026 at 02:00 PM
This Week in Anime - The Waiting Game
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Are you ready to play the Waiting Game? Oh, hang on a sec, Chris and Coop have some thoughts.
Disclaimer:The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network.
Coop
I know you've talked about canned anime projects before, Chris, but what about the ones that've blown so much smoke ahead of time that you start wondering if there are mirrors involved?
For example: The more I hear about N LITE's MFINDA and their other projects, the more I question if we'll actually see any of it come to fruition.
In a recent interview with Animenomics, N LITE CEO Christiano Terry talks about building interest by constantly engaging with potential audiences—either through merchandise or happy accidents along the course of production.
While I can understand the desire to publicly hype up a project still in active development (especially when looking for interested investors to bankroll it), there's a reason all the behind-the-scenes insights are saved for the promotional period or a Blu-ray special feature—serious accidents are just as likely as the happy ones. Since animated films often take many years to complete, there's always room for illness, scheduling mishaps, or a creative collapse to happen. In the case of MFINDA, the film's director-producer duo of Gisaburō Sugii and Masao Maruyama are both in their mid-eighties. If either of them happens to run into any serious health complications, it could be disastrous for the film's production. Also, if you've watched a documentary like Kingdom of Dreams and Madness or Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki, you've probably seen just how hard this business is on an elder creative.
It's darkly funny that they're willing to highlight the space from announcement to accomplishment in that interview: "Once an anime film is announced, people are waiting two to four years for it to come out." It's like they're trying to temper the audience's expectations.
Still, while I'm ostensibly intrigued by the project and their enthusiasm for it, to say nothing of being appreciative of mining an underutilized arena like African culture for storytelling, it can't help but feel a bit side-eye-worthy that they haven't even managed to get a chapter of serialized manga out in so many years.
It gets a touch confusing when the focus ping-pongs between the film and manga adaptation. On that topic, there's also the very real chance that the manga goes down its own narrative and stylistic route. We both know that general audiences really don't like it when the manga deviates from the anime. Regardless, I'm stoked for the folks who will be able to soak up Tom Lintern's beautiful watercolor illustrations for the first time. Lintern's own comic series, Girrion, is a visual delight.
However, there's another issue here: Audiences won't be attached to the world of MFINDA until they see the final product for themselves. It won't matter how many side projects and merch there is unless the main project sticks the landing. Seeing that N LITE has another four projects in the hopper and at least one already shelved, it'd probably be best to stick with one before going hog wild. Terry's interview with Animenomics seems to imply the company's dangling all these keys to keep investors interested, but again, it comes off as a touch excessive.
Oh yeah, they claim that they're working on a "highly anticipated reimagining of Osamu Tezuka's Jungle Emperor Leo" and sorry, but I will believe that when I see it. Hasbro and TakaraTomy have gotten more homages to the white lion out in that time.
Your point about the attention economy echoes another sentiment we've discussed previously, in how the shorter attention spans and more pieces competing for them these days make it really, really easy for new projects to miss out on the hype cycle if they take too long.
I appreciate the honest "we got busy, did other things, and now we're working on this" candor Imaishi and Nakashima have in this quick announcement video, but the whole thing kind of comes off an "announcement for an announcement." It all just makes me go "Don't say anything until you actually have something to show! And I don't mean concept art either; I mean animation as animation. Even if it's early!"
Kinema Citrus initially revealed Goodbye, Lara with a full-on concept trailer in 2024, clearly communicated that it'd take them a while to get it done, and then went largely radio silent on the subject. Honestly, I think this was a winning strategy for the studio. They gave potential viewers something tangible to chew on while they kept cooking away, not just a quick sketch and some lofty promises.
In that case, it at least has to do with the consistent (some would say excessive) line of projects MAPPA so regularly pumps out, compared to N LITE's seemingly all being plugged up in the same bottle. Chainsaw Man's just one more in the rotation that will get to when they've got room in the schedule. I imagine this is a similar case for Trigger's projects, wherein entries like Dungeon Meshi S2 and Imaishi's New Wild Ride have to wait their turn in the pipeline.
Even Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 had over a year between announcement and release.
Now, that's a perfectly reasonable amount of time to get excited for the first new Tsuneo Imahoriscore in over a decade. We stan "H.T" in this house.
I agree, it's reasonable in this case, what with the established pipelines and an understanding of how these things get made. Less so when a new adaptation gets announced and languishes so long that understanding how these things get made means you worry about it. I was thrilled when the Young Ladies Don't Play Fighting Games manga announced an anime adaptation...in 2021.
Then it had barely anything to show for itself for like four years, before resurfacing, getting delayed again, then finally pressing start this year. It's a chain of events that could make me understandably concerned about all that time in production hell, so it's kind of miraculous that the anime actually turned out pretty well! Part of me just has to assume the addition of Street Fighter tie-in licensing contributed to it being held up.
At least another punch lesbian outing is way more likely than the actual release of Uru in Blue or a Gunbuster 3, especially with GAINAXbeing sent out to pasture in late 2025.
Rex Nabours III of Beyond Electric Sheep has a pretty beefy look into the ups and downs of Uru in Blue's production status just before Gainax's dissolution, alongside a whole bucketload of notes to go along with it.
Uru in Blue, along with the long-key-jingled Gunbuster 3, has to have been one of the most prolific "Oh it's definitely happening" anime projects of the generation. Even up to 2018, Gainax were claiming production was under way and swearing they'd be released soon.
In a case like this, though, whatever hype could've been there had long since burned out. Even if Uru in Blue and Gunbuster 3 were real and not just ploys to help keep the lights on, would we really want to see them as put out by what was left of the shambling corpse of Gainax at that point?
At that point, the hope is that these projects either get put to bed or get rescued. Look at the second season of Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, which was technically "announced" shortly after the first season, only to languish in limbo after the exodus of Imaishi and the funky bunch and Gainax becoming, well, everything I just talked about. That's to the point that when Trigger finally did pick up the ball with an announcement in 2022, it didn't seem so bad that we had to wait around until 2025 for New Panty & Stocking to actually release.
It'd already been a decade and change by then.
Right? To go with my eternal example of that element, the follow-up to seasonal surprise hit Lycoris Recoil was teased back in 2023, and there since hasn't been anything serious to show for it. At this point it might've been better for the show to lay low and simply try to repeat its breakout appeal a second time, rather than linger around the entry hall making us wonder if anything's still actually happening or not.
Because so many of us know what it's like to be given hope, and after a long time, it just means the longing turns to dread, then the dread to resignation before the inevitable happens.
Wherever she is right now, I hope Sayo Yamamoto is out there living her best life and still coasting off the many ice skating highs from this year's Olympics.
We talk about us as viewers; imagine how the creatives behind these projects feel when the production hell consumes them, never to be seen again? I could go on, because this really is an exercise in emotions and reactions. Like it's funny that Netflix announced their glitzy remake of One Piece, what, three years ago, and have been sharing only piecemeal updates leading to a mere seven episodes that won't be out until February of next year.
With the original One Piece anime still going, is anybody going to be as hype for this kind of revisit at this point as they might've been while irons were still hot? And more importantly, if this kind of fatigue can hit One Piece, what kind of reception could N LITE's projects be looking at when/if they get over the finish line?
Until then, it's not like there aren't plenty of long-awaited anime coming into rotation. I mean, I waited a cool ten years for Yona of the Dawn to get a follow-up, and that finally got announced! ...last year...with no updates since...
Say Coop, you want to play some Rival Schools to pass the time?
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