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Darling in the Franxx and The Idolm@ster director teases their new film, Grotesque, while at Anime Expo

We have no idea what was going on in that trailer but it was very cool.

Darling in the Franxx image — Image credit: A-1 Pictures/Trigger

News by Trent Cannon, Contributing writer

Published on Fri Jul 05 2024

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Beautiful things happen when talented people get the chance to work together. At Anime Expo 2024, we got a hint of one such beautiful thing as the director of series like The IDOLM@STER and Darling in the Franxx anime is teaming up with CloverWorks animation studio on a new feature film. Titled Grotesque, the teaser trailer offered a loud, chaotic look at the upcoming movie.

Announced during the CloverWorks panel at Anime Expo 2024, this time, Atsushi Nishigori is serving as director of Grotesque, and… that is basically all the details we have about the film at this point. The teaser trailer is very much a tease, offering character sketches and some rough CGI animation to highlight the mix of animation styles that many anime studios have been incorporating into their shows recently. It has an energetic JPOP soundtrack to it that sets the tone, but that is really all we know so far.

Still, what we see is enough to feel excited about. The few character designs we see look stylish and cool and there is a sense of chaotic energy to the trailer that hopefully will translate into the final product. We love the strange and wonderful side of anime show its face – it is why we’re so excited for the return of Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, after all.

Grotesque marks the first official project for JOEN, which was formed in 2022 as a partnership between animation studios CloverWorks and WIT Studio, manga publisher Sueisha, and Aniplex. CloverWorks and WIT have already worked together in the past to produce anime like Spy x Family, so there is certainly reason to believe that the group can make magic happen. The teaser trailer for Grotesque does offer up a release window of 2025 so hopefully we won’t have to wait too long for more information about this exciting – and very strange-looking – project.

Here's our guide to every anime coming to Crunchyroll, Netflix and other streaming platforms during the Summer 2024 anime season.