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Netflix to Stream CG Animated Series Based on Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo Comics
posted on by Alex Mateo
Netflix announced on Wednesday that it will stream a new CG animated series titled Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles, based on Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo comics. Gaumont is producing the series, and Mumbai-based 88 Pictures is the CGI animation studio.
Sakai is serving as an executive producer, along with Candie and Doug Langdale, who are also the showrunners. Additional executive producers include Gaumont's Nicolas Atlan, Terry Kalagian, Sidonie Dumas, and Christophe Riandee, Dark Horse Entertainment's Mike Richardson, Keith Goldberg, and Chris Tongue, and Atomic Monster's James Wan, Michael Clear, and Rob Hackett. Ben Jones is the supervising producer, and Khang Le is the art director.
Netflix teased that the series takes place in the far future and follows teenage Rabbit Samurai Yuichi, descendent of Usagi Yojimbo's protagonist Miyamoto Usagi. Yuichi leads a group of heroes including a bounty hunter, ninja, acrobatic pickpocket, and pet lizard. Their group fights depth-charging moles, metal-tipped winged bats, and monsters from another dimension.
Stan Sakai, a Japanese-American, has been drawing the Usagi Yojimbo comic series for over 35 years. Sakai also collaborated with Dark Horse Comics president and founder Mike Richardson and Lone Wolf and Cub creator Kazuo Koike to create the 47 Ronin comic.
Sources: NX on Netflix's Twitter account, Variety (Will Thorne), The Wrap (Jennifer Maas) via Dark Horizon
