The first collaboration in history between Sunrise and SHAFT has a name, a story, and a release date. Fool Night, the dystopia by Kasumi Yasuda published in Big Comic Superior, was confirmed as that joint project during the Annecy International Animation Festival 2026 in France, with an exclusive worldwide premiere on Netflix in 2026. The announcement came with promotional imagery, a teaser, main cast, and confirmed production team.

The story takes place in a future Earth covered by dense clouds where most plant life has vanished, creating a severe oxygen shortage. Humanity survives thanks to a technology called Transfloration, which turns people near death into oxygen-producing plants. The protagonist, Toshiro Kamiya, is a young man trapped in poverty who faces a life-changing decision: continue living as a human or start a new existence as a plant.

The promotional image shows Toshiro on a train next to someone in the process of Transfloration, contrasting a vibrant field of flowers with a threatening sky. The teaser offers the first character images fighting to survive in that environment and of humans whose transformation is already advanced.

Voice Cast

• Koki Uchiyama as Toshiro Kamiya. (Meruem in Hunter x Hunter and Tomura Shigaraki in Boku no Hero Academia).
• Minako Kotobuki as Yomiko Horai. (Tsumugi Kotobuki in K-On! and Chitose Karasuma in Chitose Get You!!).

Production Team

Direction is handled by Atsuyuki Yukawa, with credits in Suzume. Series composition is by Jin Tanaka, known for Oshi no Ko. Sound direction is by Yota Tsuruoka, responsible for the sound in A Silent Voice. Music is composed by Tatsuya Kato, known for Dr. STONE. The co-production is between Sunrise and SHAFT.

Yasuda created this commemorative image to celebrate the announcement:

About Fool Night

Fool Night is a manga by Kasumi Yasuda published in Big Comic Superior that has twelve compiled volumes and approximately 600,000 copies in circulation worldwide in physical and digital editions, with releases in 17 countries and regions. The series received recognition in the Kono Manga ga Sugoi! 2023 and the Best Suspense Award at the Japan Expo Awards that same year. Yasuda explained that the concept was born from imagining indoor plants in a sterile office, an image that organically grew into this story. For the anime, the author expressed hope that the adaptation will help more people discover the speculative science fiction world she built.

Does the premise of becoming a plant as the last form of existence seem like one of the most original ideas in recent anime, or do you prefer dystopias with a different focus?