Fans of gritty science fiction have just received great news. Through the launch of its official website, the production committee confirmed that the spectacular original manga of action and survival Tsugumi Project (known in Japan as Tora Tsugumi) will make its definitive leap to television with its own animated adaptation. To build excitement, the team behind the project released a first conceptual visual and an amazing promotional video that hints at the carnage to come.

The narrative of this franchise is relentless, dragging us into a distant, extremely hostile future. The story closely follows Leon, an elite soldier who is violently separated from his family under fabricated criminal charges to force him into accepting a truly suicidal mission. His dark objective is to recover a classified weapon named only “Tsugumi,” which lies hidden in a cursed territory ruled by gigantic and deadly irradiated mutated monsters. To make the premise even more disturbing, this hell on Earth from which no one expects Leon’s team to return alive is what was once known as Japan two hundred years ago.

A triumph that first conquered the West

The most curious aspect behind the massive success of this gem is its unusual publication history. Author and illustrator ippatu originally launched his work in the French market in 2019, captivating European audiences long before giant publisher Kodansha decided to repatriate the project to serialize it in the pages of the magazine Weekly Young Magazine at the beginning of 2021. After keeping Japanese readers on the edge of their seats, the work successfully concluded in September 2023, managing to compile its intense plot into a total of seven compiled volumes that will finally come to life on screen.

Considering the brutal level of explicit violence and the bizarre mutations presented in the source material’s panels, do you think the animation studios will manage to adapt this frenetic story faithfully without resorting to the always annoying TV censorship?