The studio behind One Piece and the home of Ultraman are building a new kaiju story together, and fans just got their best look at it yet. Toei Animation and Tsuburaya Productions have released a third key visual and a teaser trailer for Kaiju Decode: The Ring of Aidara (Kaiju Decode: Aidara no Yubiwa), which is set to debut in 2027.
The new visual and trailer were revealed on Sunday (October 18th) through the project's official channels.
A Girl And Her Kaiju
The third key visual shows Coco, a girl from the Aidara tribe, smiling gently as she reaches out to the kaiju Gira. It is a fitting image for a project whose central theme is "a story about kaiju and girls." The visual carries the tagline "A New Era of Monsters."
The teaser uses footage from the anime itself and also gives fans their first chance to hear the two leads in character. Check out the official teaser below:
The Story So Far
The anime takes place in the year 2070. A supernova sends multiple space stations crashing into Earth, causing massive destruction in a disaster called the Skyfall Calamity. The event also brings an unknown bacteria from space that eats away at or assimilates matter on Earth, giving rise to new creatures known as transcendent lifeforms.
Humanity walls itself off from the dangerous lands where these creatures live, which are called the Zone, and builds the City, a society freed from the limits of body, brain, space and time. Maru is a cheerful, mischievous boy who lives peacefully in the City and makes a living hunting kaiju with an older brother figure. Coco is a calm but curious kaiju tamer from the Aidara tribe who was left behind in the Zone and hopes humans and kaiju can live together. The two come from opposite worlds, and the story follows them as they search for a way to coexist.
The setting has a real-world anchor, too. The anime takes place in Sakai City in Osaka Prefecture.
Cast And Staff
The main cast includes:
- Aya Yamane as Maru
- Karin Takahashi as Coco
The staff includes:
- Original Work: Tsuburaya Productions and Toei Animation
- Director: S/N
- Screenplay: Katsuie Shibata
- Character Design: Sei Nakashima (Maru) and Masatsugu Saito (Coco)
- Kaiju Design: Masayuki Goto (Tsuburaya Productions)
- Animation Production: Alect and Toei Animation
Goto's involvement should catch the eye of tokusatsu fans. He is a kaiju designer at Tsuburaya, the studio behind Ultraman, and he also designed monsters for SSSS.Dynazenon. Shibata wrote the screenplay for Hitchhiker's Guide to the Isekai, while Saito designed characters for Cyborg 009: Call of Justice. Nakashima is a Hollywood CG art director who worked as a concept artist on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and drew the end credits illustrations for Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution.
Part Of A Bigger Project
This is not the first time Kaiju Decode has been animated. A full anime short streamed on the Tsuburaya Imagination website in December 2021, and a VR short titled Kaiju Decode: First Contact launched the same day for Oculus Quest. S/N directed the original short at Alect, with Aya Yamane voicing a character there as well, so several key creatives are returning for the new series.
The Ring of Aidara is the new anime in Kaiju Decode, a transmedia project Toei Animation and Tsuburaya Productions are producing together, and the studios are aiming it at a worldwide audience. A specific premiere date and a streaming partner outside Japan have not been announced yet.
Are you more excited to follow Maru the kaiju hunter or Coco the kaiju tamer in Kaiju Decode: The Ring of Aidara?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.