Get ready to initiate the drift, pilots. The Jaegers are back in black. More precisely, Pacific Rim: The Black, which is a new anime based on the hit Kaiju vs. Robots film franchise. It is headed to streaming titan Netflix in March 2021 [Thanks, Polygon!].
The show was announced back in 2018. After being pushed out of 2020, Pacific Rim: The Black was confirmed for its launch window by a teaser trailer:
The show is based on Pacific Rim, an original film originally created by Guillermo del Toro and released in 2013. In it, giant monsters called Kaiju menace the Earth after emerging from an interdimensional portal located in the Pacific Ocean. To combat them, humanity builds the Jaegers. These are Kaiju-sized robots that must be driven by two pilots connected mentally through the “drift.” A 2018 sequel, Pacific Rim: Uprising, was directed by Steven S. DeKnight.
The Pacific Rim: The Black teaser itself doesn’t show too much more than is already known about the program. The Kaiju are back and appear to have overrun Australia. They are emerging from dimensional breaches and toppling whole cities down under. A pair of siblings must come together in the drift and pilot an old, battered Jaeger across the now-dangerous continent, battling Kaiju along the way.
Pacific Rim: The Black will be run by two names that should be familiar to fans of Marvel comics: Craig Kyle and Greg Johnson. Kyle is a Marvel Comics writer and co-wrote a run of the X-Men comic alongside Christopher Yost. Kyle is also the creator of the character X-23 (aka Laura Kinney). Kyle also worked on the three Marvel Cinematic Universe Thor films, as well as the X-Men: Evolution and Wolverine and the X-Men animated series. Greg Johnson also worked on X-Men: Evolution, but is a veteran writer for American animated series, with credits on Beast Wars: Transformers, Biker Mice from Mars, and Miles from Tomorrowland.
The series will be animated by Polygon Pictures, a Japan-based animation outfit specializing in CGI work. Polygon Pictures produced multiple CG anime shows currently licensed by Netflix, including Knights of Sidonia, BLAME!, Ajin, the Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters trilogy, and Transformers: War for Cybertron.Â
