Nippon Animation Celebrates 50 Years With Three-Title Annecy Spotlight

Nippon Animation took to the stage at the 2026 Annecy International Animation Film Festival on Tuesday afternoon to celebrate 50 years of the iconic studio while looking ahead to what it has in store. Taiki Sakurai, the former Netflix chief anime producer and now founder of anime studio Salamander Inc., shared details on three upcoming titles.

First up was 20001: An Earth Odyssey, a clear riff on the Stanley Kubrick sci-fi classic. A sci-fi black comedy series, it is set in the far future after humanity has gone extinct. We follow a group of aliens who arrive on Earth and try to figure out just what the hell happened. The problem is that “they can never reach the reality of humanity, because they respect humans too much,” Sakurai explained.

In a short sizzle shown to audiences at Annecy, the studio showed the aliens looking in awe and wonder at an abandoned umbrella, wondering if it is a tool used to hook something. Later, they encounter a swing that they believe was used in strange religious rituals by the planet’s former rulers. Expect lots of references to 2001: A Space Odyssey, creative alien designs, and hilarious misunderstandings about human society.

Next up was Taverna!!! (yes, the exclamation points are part of the title). According to Sakurai, the show came about because he “loves cooking” and wanted to write a story about a half-Japanese, half-Italian family managing a restaurant in Japan. Described as a gourmet drama and romance, the anime is all about the power of food.

Over 12 episodes, the series will introduce a new guest at the restaurant who has a problem that is solved, or at least alleviated, by a special meal prepared by the restaurant’s owners. “A dish you have today can change the course of tomorrow,” Sakurai said. It was also announced that the anime will receive a manga adaptation.

Last up was Alices. Yumiko Yoshizawa presented the anime, which is a new take on Alice in Wonderland.

“I am an otaku,” Yoshizawa declared in front of an Annecy crowd. “I am a very big fan of Alice,” she said, explaining that she spent her allowance growing up buying every adaptation she could find.

The six-episode series is being structured so that it can easily be turned into a compilation film, according to Yoshizawa. It is not a straight adaptation of the Lewis Carroll novel, but rather focuses on Alice Liddell and her relationship with the titular character of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Though it is still early in the development process, concept art shown during the presentation teased a beautiful fantasy version of Wonderland.

These three shows are a good representation of the approach Nippon Animation has taken to storytelling over the last 50 years, combining recognizable classics with original stories. This is how the studio became a powerhouse in the 1970s and ’80s, thanks in large part to World Masterpiece Theater, a long-running programming block that aired from 1975 to 1997, spanning 26 shows and more than 1,160 episodes.

It was here that legends like Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki got their big breaks working on shows for the block. During a sizzle reel celebrating the studio’s 50th anniversary, the crowd erupted in applause at the sight of scenes from Heidi, Girl of the Alps and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Though the studio got its start with animation aimed at children, Nippon Animation is also evolving with the times, making anime for older audiences, as seen in the three original series announced at Annecy.

Earlier this year, the studio announced Would You Like to Be a Tanuki?, an adaptation of Tomo Nagawa’s 2020 webcomic series about tanuki (Japanese raccoon dogs), inviting people to try their way of life. The teaser shown at Annecy retains the sense of wonder of classic Nippon Animation while also feeling like a thoroughly modern production, both visually and in terms of the manga’s irreverent humor.

Nippon Animation has been around for 50 years, and it shows no sign of slowing down.