Guillermo Del Toro’s giant-monsters-vs-giant-robots franchise is back with an all new anime series that is coming to Netflix! The streaming service just released the first trailer for the all new original anime series, Pacific Rim: The Black.
The show takes place in the fictional world created by Oscar winning director Guillermo Del Toro for his 2014 film Pacific Rim, which sees humanity fighting back against a constant barrage of giant monsters called “Kaiju” with the most reasonable defense that they can think up; building giant robotic battle-mechs (dubbed “Jaegers”) to beat the living hell out of them like it’s a schoolyard brawl. Naturally.
Pacific Rim: The Black is being produced by Netflix in collaboration with Legendary Television as the first of several new original anime series for the streaming service based on Legendary properties. The show is co-created by Craig Kyle (Thor: Ragnarok) and Greg Johnson (X-Men: Evolution), who are showrunners for the series. As Johnson was formerly the head writer on the fan favorite X-Men series X-Men: Evolution, this new take on the Pacific Rim brand has a lot of potential.
This new series is taking the action to the land down under on the continent of Australia, which is an interesting change considering that both of the Pacific Rim feature films were set predominantly in Eastern Asian countries like China and Japan. While no information has been given as to where in the Pacific Rim universe’s timeline this story is set, Pacific Rim: The Black sees the Kaiju having completely overtaken the continent. Humanity is fighting a losing battle and a pair of siblings that were left behind are going to have to fix up an old broken down Jaeger and fight back if they are going to survive and find their missing parents.
You can check out the first trailer along with a complete synopsis for Pacific Rim: The Black below!
There was a time when Kaiju rose from the Pacific Rim only to encounter gigantic robots, Jaegers, built to fight them back. That time has passed. Now, Australia has been overrun by Kaiju, forcing the evacuation of an entire continent. Left behind, teenage siblings Taylor and Hayley embark on a desperate search for their missing parents, teaching themselves to pilot a battered, long-abandoned Jaeger to help in their quest and give them even the slightest hope of surviving.
While the premise of Pacific Rim as a franchise is simple, everything about it absolutely kicks ass. The first film was set in the not-too-distant future in a very real feeling world, and while the idea of massive robots fighting off the gargantuan monsters from another dimension may sound unoriginal, the film builds a really fun world for its story with masterful visuals that you never once doubt could be real. The Jaegers have a real weight to them, and the entire movie is set in a “used future” so everything feels natural. The first film was a blockbuster of kaiju sized proportions that set a new precedent for just what a giant monster movie could be.
Unfortunately, many people thought the franchise was dead after the sequel, Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), tanked at the box office. While fans were actively asking for more Pacific Rim, the sequel took the series in a very different direction and was considerably more family friendly and less imaginative than the first film. This ended up leaving it being poorly received by both fans and critics who felt the film completely missed the point of the original and was just a cash grab sequel. This new anime series looks to course correct and bring the Pacific Rim franchise back to what made it great to begin with.
The new anime series Pacific Rim: The Black is set to premiere on the Netflix streaming service on Thursday March 4, 2021.
Are you excited about this all new original anime series set in the world created by Guillermo Del Toro? What other films do you think would make cool anime adaptations? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below and be sure to stick around Geek Anything for all the latest Pacific Rim updates!
