During the NBCUniversal Entertainment Japan panel at the recent Anime Expo, the production committee revealed news that veteran readers had been waiting years for. The bloody and frenetic Murciélago franchise is finally making its leap to television, officially confirming that its animated adaptation is scheduled to premiere in 2027.

To bring the visceral feel of the manga to the screen, animation duties will fall to a joint effort between Satelight and Staple Entertainment studios. Matsuo Asami will take the director’s chair, working under the direct supervision of Takashi Naoya, who will serve as chief director and structure the dense script composition. Character design adaptation will be handled by Sei Tateishi, while the heavy atmosphere of the work will be orchestrated by the original soundtrack composed by Masanori Akita and Yuichi Tsuchiya.

The manga’s long criminal record

This urban chaos was born from the twisted imagination of author Kana Yoshimura, who began serializing the story in Square Enix’s Young Gangan magazine back in 2013, accumulating 28 physical volumes to date. The plot puts us in the shoes of Kuroko Koumori, a deadly former death row convict saved through extreme legal measures to work as an executioner authorized by the state itself. Accompanied by her inseparable partner and expert driver, Hinako Tozakura, this deranged duo hunts the worst scum of society in a narrative that blends dark humor with high-caliber action sequences.

Given the immense amount of explicit violence and adult content in the source material, do you think the studios involved will manage to bypass aggressive TV censorship to deliver a truly faithful adaptation?