A food-themed Cosmic Princess Kaguya! spin-off manga,Cho Kaguya Meshi, has debuted its first chapter as part of anime planning and production company TWIN ENGINE‘s new Bibibi Comic web manga label. Drawn byTeruya (Hello,Hello and Hello), the manga is set in the 10-years-later period of the story and revolves around Kaguya eating with her new robot body.
Cho Kaguya Meshi was launched with over a couple dozen other titles, such as the Yuko Motoi-drawn shojo manga Awai no Yaoyorozu, about a tengu girl who has to befriend humans without her identity being exposed in order to maintain her university life. Twin Engine hints at the possibility of some of them getting anime adaptations or expanding into multimedia titles.
“Special chapters” of 27 of these manga were published in a physical magazine issue commemorating Bibibi Comic’s start. In addition to having Kaguya and Iroha front-and-center, it has a page dedicated to never-before-seen Cosmic Princess Kaguya!key animation and comes with an acrylic card featuring the key visual for the movie’s upcoming Tsukuyomi Kanshasai (Tsukuyomi Appreciation Event) online event, which will be held in December.
The manga debuts are part of Twin Engine’s recently unveiled partnership with toy maker Bandai, which aims to co-create new IP. The team-up’s announcement mentioned a project that would begin with manga and lead to anime and licensed products, and that an investment of four billion yen (~US$25.26 million) for the project had been decided.
Cosmic Princess Kaguya! is an original anime film directed by Shingo Yamashita (Pokétoon chief director, opening storyboard artist and director for Chainsaw Man, Jujutsu Kaisen Season 1, and more) in his feature film debut. The movie, a near-future-set retelling of The Tale of the Bamboo Cutterwith yuri and elements of modern entertainment culture, sees busy high school student Iroha Sakayori inadvertently becoming roommates with the extra-terrestrial Kaguya. Later, Kaguya becomes a streaming personality with Iroha as her producer, and their rise brings them into increased contact with Yachiyo Runami, the popular administrator of the virtual realm Tsukuyomi whom Iroha idolizes. At the same time, the spectre of Kaguya’s eventual return to the moon looms on the horizon.
Cosmic Princess Kaguya! was originally released on Netflix on January 22. Its popularity led to initially limited theatrical screenings that expanded to 100 locations in March, and the movie was reported to have made over 2.5 billion yen (~US$15.78 million) in May. It’s now set to return to Japanese theaters on September 18, with screenings in MX4D, 4DX, SCREENX, ULTRA 4DX, Dolby Atmos, and other formats available. The story is also available in manga and light novel forms, both published by KADOKAWA.
The Cosmic Princess Kaguya! movie was co-produced by Studio Colorido and Yamashita’s Studio Chromato. Both are among the 18 studios and creative units under Twin Engine’s EOTA (Engine of the Animation) organization.
