Sunrise and SHAFT have been making anime since the 1970s and the 1970s-by-way-of-1975, respectively, and in all that time — through “Mobile Suit Gundam,” “Code Geass,” “Puella Magi Madoka Magica,” the “Monogatari” series — the two studios have never once worked together. That changes on November 26, when Netflix drops the full first season of “Fool Night” worldwide, a dystopian sci-fi series the two studios co-produced as their first-ever joint project.
Two Studios With Almost Nothing in Common, Making Something Together
Sunrise built its name on mecha and large-scale franchise television — “Gundam” alone has run for 46 years — plus the sharper political drama of “Code Geass” and the idol-group sparkle of “Love Live!” SHAFT is the opposite kind of studio: smaller, stranger, and defined almost entirely by director Akiyuki Shinbo’s jagged, head-tilted visual signature across “Puella Magi Madoka Magica” and the “Monogatari” franchise. Pairing them is a genuinely odd industry move, which is part of why “Fool Night” has drawn attention from anime trade press since the two companies first teased a collaboration on June 18, 2026, followed by the official announcement five days later at the Annecy International Animation Festival.
The Story: A World Where You Can Sell Your Body for a Paycheck
“Fool Night” is adapted from Kasumi Yasuda’s manga, which has run in Shogakukan’s “Big Comic Superior” magazine since November 2020 — Shogakukan released the 12th collected volume this past January, and Viz Media publishes the English edition. The story follows Toshiro Kamiya, a young man stuck in a resource-starved future where his mother’s illness and his own bills have pushed him toward “transfloration” — an irreversible procedure that strips a person’s humanity in exchange for a payday, central to a plot the manga’s own publisher describes as examining “the limits of society’s waning humanity.” It’s eco-horror dressed as sci-fi: less about monsters than about what desperation makes people agree to.
Who’s Actually Making It
Atsushi Yukawa, who worked as a unit director on the 2022 film “Suzume,” directs. Jin Tanaka, who wrote the “Oshi no Ko” anime, handles series composition, and Robert Satō designed the characters. Tatsuya Katō, composer for “Dr. Stone,” scores it. Netflix’s official credits even pull in a third studio’s talent for background work — J.C.Staff’s Maki Takano serves as background director. The opening theme, “Shake! spit out,” comes from the rock band Tempalay; the ending theme, “iki,” is by Nowlu.
Kōki Uchiyama voices Kamiya, with Minako Kotobuki as Yomiko Horai. Junya Enoki, Aya Endō, and Kiyomitsu Mizuuchi joined as Akira Yatsuka, Saeko Kanaeno, and Jin Hiragishi when Netflix showed a new trailer at its Anime NYC panel in August; a November 5 update added Shion Wakayama, Nobuhiko Okamoto, Sayaka Senbongi, and Yumiko Kobayashi to the cast as the show’s main trailer and key art went live, three weeks ahead of the premiere.
One casting note is worth sitting with: that November 5 update lists Hiroshi Tsuchida as Ken Hikasa. Tsuchida — the Japanese voice of Grisha Yeager in “Attack on Titan” and of Lightning McQueen in the Japanese dub of “Cars” — died of heart failure on October 11, 2026, at 54, his agency 81 Produce announced days later. “Fool Night” will be among his final recorded performances.
How and When to Watch
Netflix is releasing all of Season 1 at once, worldwide, on November 26 — a full-series drop rather than a weekly rollout, the same binge-first approach the platform uses for most of its anime slate. There’s no announced second season yet; with 12 volumes of source manga already published and still running, there’s plenty left to adapt if the first run lands.
Why It’s Worth Watching For
Most anime news cycles are about a single studio’s next project. This one is about whether two studios with almost opposite creative instincts can actually make something coherent together — Sunrise’s scale against SHAFT’s style, under a director who hasn’t led a TV series of this size before. Add a source story that’s genuinely bleak rather than cozy-dystopian, and a cast carrying a quietly emotional footnote, and “Fool Night” is a more interesting bet than its quiet rollout suggests. Whether the alliance actually works is something viewers get to judge for themselves starting November 26.
