'Spriggan' Trailer: Netflix's Sci-Fi Action Anime Gets Delayed To 2022

Netflix continues to expand its slate of original anime films and TV shows, but viewers will have to wait a little while longer before they see Spriggan. The series, based on the best-selling manga by Hiroshi Takashige and Ryoji Minagawa, has been bumped to 2022. In the meantime, the streamer has released a new official teaser to whet your appetite.

As a manga, Spriggan has sold over ten million copies worldwide. It was originally serialized from 1989 to 1996 in Shogakukan's Weekly Shonen Sunday magazine (which, for some reason, publishes on Wednesday, not Sunday). Anime was beginning to find more of a Western audience with movies like Akira and Ghost in the Shell, and Spriggan soon capitalized on this with its own film adaptation, which hit theaters in Japan in 1998 and eventually made its way stateside in 2001.

Now, a new TV anime adaptation is headed to Netflix. The first teaser for Spriggan, which debuted back in October 2020, ended with the words "coming 2021." This new teaser changes that to "coming 2022."

Bombastic music, crackling energy, agents in armored muscle suits, and the secrets of ancient civilizations are all on display in these trailers. "Spriggan" is actually a word derived from a creature in Cornish folklore. The official synopsis for Spriggan describes the Netflix series in these terms:

This story depicts the adventures of Yu Ominae, a young man who serves as a "Spriggan," a special agent of the ARCAM corporation, an organization established to seal away the relics of an ancient civilization.

In case you missed it, the first teaser reveals more details of the mythological backstory behind Spriggan:

The official logline also goes into greater depth about what Netflix subscribers can expect to see next year:

A great civilization once existed on this Earth. Possessing knowledge and scientific prowess far exceeding that of modern man, the relics of this ancient civilization remain hidden across this world even now. As high-speed communications networks cover the globe and the peering eyes of satellites are able to expose all secrets, the armies of great nations clash as they seek to uncover and research these artifacts, which possess an unfathomable "power." A member of this ancient civilization carved a message into a plate: "Protect our legacy from evildoers." Taking this message to heart, one organization aims to seal away this ancient civilization for good. The elite secret agents of this organization are known as... Spriggans.

Spriggan is directed by Hiroshi Kobayashi and adapted for the screen by writer Hiroshi Seko. Shuhei Handa acts as the supervising animation director and is handling the character design. The series features the voices of Chiaki Kobayashi, Youhei Azakami, Kenji Hamada, and Mariya Ise.

Expect to see Spriggan hit Netflix sometime in 2022.