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Manga Productions, Toei Animation's Future's Folktales 2 Animated Series Debuts in 2024
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
The Manga Productions booth at AnimeJapan 2024 on Saturday revealed that Future Folktales 2, the second season of Manga Productions and Toei Animation's Future Folktales (Asatir: Mirai no Mukashibanashi or Asateer -- Future's Folktales) animated television series, will broadcast in Japan in 2024. The booth confirmed that Toei Animation is again involved in the production.
Manga Productions had announced in 2020 that it has entered a partnership agreement with NEOM for the production of the second season. The first season of the animated series streamed and aired on 19 regional and international platforms and has reached an international viewership of 70 million.
The new season of the series will take place in NEOM, which is a planned smart city in Saudi Arabia.
HIDIVE streamed the first season in North America. Sentai Filmworks licensed the series and stated plans to release it on home video.
The series premiered in Japan on J Tele in April 2020, and had 13 episodes. The series' story is set in Riyadh in the year 2050, and centers on a grandmother named Asmaa telling folktales from the Arabian Peninsula to her three grandchildren.
The cast includes:
- Masako Nozawa as Asmaa
- Naomi Ōzora as Maha
- Sachiko Kojima as Rayan
- Megumi Urawa as Sultan
Manga Productions streamed a teaser trailer in November 2017 for "The Woodcutter's Treasure," its first collaboration with Toei Animation. The project is a 25-minute animation based on Saudi Arabian folklore and aimed at children and families, and it served as a pilot for a television series.
Manga Productions and Toei Animation have also collaborated on The Journey film.
Manga Productions is a subsidiary of the Prince Mohammed bin Salman Foundation, also known as MiSK, and named for Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. The company aims to create animation, comic, and video game projects to "promote Saudi ideas and messages internationally."
In February 2021, the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence assessed that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Jamal Khashoggi. Khashoggi was a Saudi journalist who relocated to the United States and wrote for The Washington Post newspaper before being killed in 2018. The Saudi Arabian government "completely reject[ed]" the U.S. assessment. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has also been criticized for pursuing a war in Yemen that caused a humanitarian disaster and for cracking down on dissenting voices. He has alternately been praised for ending a ban on women drivers in 2018.
Source: Press release
