Netflix Debuts Images From First Japanese Netflix Original Anime, 'Eden'

Netflix is starting to become a mecca for anime, with the U.S. version of the streaming service pumping out a new anime series every couple months. But curiously, the Japanese version of Netflix has yet to release its own original anime series. That will soon change with the upcoming series Eden, the first Japanese Netflix Original anime set in a far future where robots roam the Earth and humans are thought to have gone extinct. Netflix has shared two new images in an Eden first look, along with descriptions of concept art and storyboards for the series.Variety is debuting two new images from Eden, which were first shared at an Annecy Works in Progress session, alongside concept art, story boards and animation techniques, and a lengthy trailer for the post-apocalyptic sci-fi series. See the two images below.

Created by Qubic Pictures CEO and producer Justin Leach, Eden was first conceived 20 years ago when Leach worked with now- Netflix chief producer of anime, Taiki Sakurai, at Production I.G. "I was right out of school at the time and I had this idea, but put it on the shelf," Leach said, according to Variety. "I got some experience in production and finally I was able to pitch this idea to Netflix, who were looking, and this is what they selected."

Here is the synopsis to Eden, per Variety:

Set in a far off future and a world which has been inhabited by robots for centuries, their human creators having gone extinct long ago, most of the robots of the mechanical metropolis Eden 3 don't even believe humans ever actually existed. Most consider them as creatures of myth.

On an otherwise normal day, two ordinary farming robots heading to the fields stumble across a cryogenic pod containing a young human girl. In a world that is definitively not ready for human reintegration, the two secretly raise Sara into young adulthood, opposed along the way by the horrifyingly ominous-looking Zero and his army of black and red robot soldiers.

Christophe Ferreira, a French-born animator living in Japan for the last two decades, is the lead concept designer, while character and lead concept designs are handled by Toshihiro Kawamoto and Christophe Ferreira in Japan. Leach's original script was also fleshed out in Japan by Kimiko Ueno, who wrote the final screenplay.

It's fascinating that for the first Netflix Japan original, the creative team isn't wholly Japanese, though the international scale of the production is probably what made it so appealing to the Japanese subdivision — setting it apart from the countless other anime properties in the country. The art does look quite whimsical, blending typical mecha anime styles with a softer, rotund almost Ghibli-esque character design. It's unclear for now whether the Stateside Netflix will get to see Eden, but it does seem like another potentially great series under the service's belt.