Netflix brought a packed presentation of upcoming anime highlights to the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, unveiling new footage, announcements, and an in-person interview. The hour-long showcase was led primarily by Netflix Anime Content Director Yuji Yamano (in Japanese, with audio translation via headphones) and closed with a few teases from Adult-Animation Spectacle Director Jermaine Turner.

Netflix Anime

Yamano opened by framing anime's place in the current entertainment landscape, noting that Netflix now delivers anime to more than 190 countries and regions in up to 34 languages. More than half of Netflix members watch anime regularly, and anime titles were viewed over 1.5 billion times in 2025 alone. He described the company's guiding philosophy as "Creative First, Local First,” the idea that stories rooted in specific cultures and the genuine voices of their creators carry the most universal power.

Japan, he emphasized, is central to that mission. Japanese-originating titles rank second among the most-watched non-English content on Netflix, and the second half of 2025 marked the largest-ever lineup of Japanese originals from the streamer. He highlighted long-term studio partnerships, including with Studio Colorido, which began in 2022 and is now four films deep, as an example of Netflix's commitment to backing creators over the long haul rather than simply licensing finished content.

Sparks of Tomorrow

The first title featured in depth was Sparks of Tomorrow (Japanese title: 20th Century Electric Catalogue: Eureka), a Kyoto Animation series set in an alternate early 20th-century Kyoto where steam power overtook electricity. The show follows a boy hardened by loss and a girl who buries her grief as they uncover the catalog's secrets. Yamano noted the series is competing in the official selection at Annecy this year. the first Kyoto Animation work to do so. A pre-recorded interview with director Minoru Ota played on screen, in which he discussed the show's visual ambitions, including deliberately giving the art backgrounds an unusual presence that typically would stay subordinate to the characters. He described the visual approach as something the entire staff had to work hard to achieve, and spoke about production being in its final stages. Sparks of Tomorrow begins streaming on Netflix on July 5th.

Fool Night

Yamano then announced the anime adaptation of Fool Night, describing it as a major collaboration between two of Japan's most celebrated studios, Sunrise and Shaft, working together for the first time. The series is set in a far-future Earth where perpetual winter and thick cloud cover have decimated plant life, forcing humanity to develop "Transfloration," a technology that implants seeds into dying people, transforming them into plants to produce oxygen. Director Atsushi Yukawa, known for his work on Suzume, will helm the project. The world premiere teaser trailer debuted at the festival. Fool Night is set for release in 2026.

Sakamoto Days Season 2

Yamano shared that Sakamoto Days Season 2 is in production for a 2027 release. He noted that Season 1 spent 10 consecutive weeks in the Netflix Global Top 10 for non-English series and has drawn an enthusiastic international response. Attendees got an exclusive early look at key art and a teaser trailer for the new season approximately nine hours before their public release. The new season promises expanded character rosters and a significant step up in animation quality.

The One Piece

WIT Studio's new adaptation of Eiichiro Oda's One Piece, titled The One Piece. is targeting a February 2027 release. Yamano introduced the first piece of episodic art for the series, depicting Luffy raising his fist to the sky, which he described as fitting for a story about beginnings. A pre-recorded interview with director Masashi Koizuka played for the audience, in which he reflected on first encountering the manga as a high school student during an era when Shonen Jump was at a creative peak, and described the feeling of reading it each week as a kind of electric anticipation he hopes to recreate for young viewers around the world. He spoke candidly about the responsibility of the project and his personal commitment to finding something new to feel emotionally moved by with each episode. Attendees also saw the first minute of Episode 1, titled "Romance Dawn," in an exclusive venue-only screening. A public teaser trailer is set to release tomorrow.

The Ribbon Hero

The closing section of Yamano's presentation was a live onstage interview with director Yuki Igarashi for The Ribbon Hero, Netflix's upcoming animated feature film based on Osamu Tezuka's classic manga Princess Knight. The interview was conducted in Japanese, and Igarashi was visibly moved to be presenting the project at Annecy, noting that the story's setting, the fictional "Gold Land" surrounded by mountains, made the festival's location feel almost surreal, given Annecy's own topography.

Igarashi described being drawn to Tezuka's work since childhood and leaping at the chance to adapt it when production company Twin Engine approached him with significant creative latitude to reimagine the story for contemporary audiences. He traced Princess Knight's lineage back further than the manga itself, to the Takarazuka Revue, the all-female theatrical tradition that originated in Tezuka's hometown of Takarazuka, Hyogo, and that profoundly influenced his mother and, through her, Tezuka himself. That theatrical heritage became a visual motif in the film, with curtains opening and closing between scenes as an homage.

Igarashi also discussed choosing Czech architecture, particularly Prague, as a visual reference point for the film's world, deliberately moving away from obvious Western European landmarks that might feel too familiar. He noted that Tezuka himself had never visited Europe when he wrote Princess Knight. His imagined kingdom drew more from Disney films like Snow White than from any real geography, which meant the source material already depicted a fantastical, not-quite-real Europe. That freed Igarashi to look eastward, toward somewhere with its own distinct character, and the castle city of Prague, with its river dividing an old town from a new one, became the primary visual reference.

On the film's unconventional visual approach, Igarashi invoked a long-held idea from Ghost in the Shell director Mamoru Oshii that all movies will eventually converge in animation. He argued that in the current landscape, where even live-action films rely heavily on CG and post-production techniques borrowed from animation, the line between mediums has already blurred significantly. The film reflects that philosophy by incorporating live-action footage, puppet animation, and cutout animation styles alongside traditional animation. Igarashi acknowledged his deep respect for Tezuka's legacy, both his towering contributions to manga and his foundational influence on anime, and expressed hope that the film would reintroduce Tezuka's work to viewers — particularly younger audiences and international fans — who may never have encountered it. The Ribbon Hero arrives on Netflix on August 8th.

Netflix Adult-Animation

The second half of the presentation shifted to English, with Jermaine Turner framing his segment around the argument that anime has become a foundational storytelling framework in global entertainment.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Season 2

Turner opened with Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Season 2, noting that the first season revitalized the Cyberpunk 2077 franchise after its troubled launch, illustrating anime's cultural weight. Director Kai Ikarashi, lead character designer Kano Ichigo, and collaborator Masiko are all returning for the new season, and Turner emphasized that in anime, the specific people behind a project matter as much as the IP itself.

Blue Eye Samurai Season 2

For Blue Eye Samurai Season 2, Turner situated the Emmy-winning series within anime's visual tradition, even though it was written and produced in the US and animated at Blue Spirit Studios in France. He noted that its influences (Sword of the Stranger, Ninja Scroll, Samurai Champloo, the films of Akira Kurosawa) are not incidental but central to the show's identity, with fight choreography that speaks what he called "anime fluently." Season 2 picks up immediately where Season 1 ended, with Mizu arriving in London. An exclusive clip screened at the festival depicted her arrival in the city alongside her captive, Fowler. A release window was not announced.

Bass X Machina

The final title in Turner's segment was Bass X Machina, a steampunk Western with supernatural horror elements from creator LeSean Thomas and executive producer Brian Tyree Henry. Turner described the series, produced by Studio Mir in Korea, as the product of a generation of creators who grew up watching anime and American animation simultaneously, with no hard line between them. Henry, a longtime anime fan, serves as executive producer. Bass X Machina premieres on November 3rd.

Turner closed the presentation by describing all three titles as evidence that anime has evolved into a worldwide creative language, a framework being used fluently by creators across cultures and studios.