An anime project titled Ooyukiumi No Kaina involving Tsutomu Nihei (Knights of Sidonia, BLAME!) was announced at Fuji TV’s +Ultra event. The anime is scheduled to premiere in January 2023 on the +Ultra block and will stream on Crunchyroll worldwide outside of Asia. The series will follow Kaina and Liliha — two young people from “the canopy” and the surface respectively who go on a journey to save the world.
The anime is a joint production between Crunchyroll, Fuji TV, and creative company Slow Curve. Polygon Pictures will be in charge of animation production. Along with this announcement, the same production team revealed plans to premiere Gorou Taniguchi’s multimedia project, ESTAB LIFE: GREAT ESCAPE in April 2022.
Tsutomu Nihei is credited with the original concept for Ooyukiumi No Kaina while Hiroaki Ando (Listeners, Ajin: Demi-Human) will serve as series director. Sadayuki Murai (Sabikui Bisco) and Tetsuya Yamada (Knights of Sidonia) will both handle writing the script.
『#大雪海のカイナ』原作者・ #弐瓶勉 の
— 『大雪海のカイナ』公式 (@ooyukiumi_kaina) January 20, 2022
コメント＆原案ビジュアル公開！
タイトルロゴのデザインも、弐瓶先生によるものです！
弐瓶先生とポリゴン・ピクチュアズによって長い構想期間を経ていよいよ始動する本作をお楽しみに！https://t.co/R02t6TVbW6 pic.twitter.com/4pUhqLbLTZ
A manga of the series will be drawn by Itoe Takemoto (The Beast Player) and released in Kodansha’s Monthly Shounen Sirius beginning February 26, 2022. Kodansha will also provide a simulpub of the English language version on Crunchyroll.
Polygon Pictures describes the series as:
A world blanketed in an endless and ever-growing ocean of snow.
The people eke out a living, either huddled around the roots of enormous trees dotting the surface, or high in the canopy, which spreads over the planet’s atmosphere.
A chance meeting between Kaina, a youth from the canopy, and Liliha, a young woman from the surface, sets off a chain of events that will change the fate of the world.
Crunchyroll, Fuji TV, and Slow Curve previously announced their partnership in 2021 to co-develop and co-produce exclusive anime for the +Ultra programming block.
Source: Crunchyroll, Polygon Pictures
