Stan Sakai‘s long-running Usagi Yojimbo is getting animated! The comic character is coming to Netflix in a new animated series that mixes “modern high-tech images with classic Japanese references” called Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles.
Usagi Yojimbo launched in 1984 and has published over 215 issues, plus guest appearances in other series through a mix of publishers.
James Wan will be one of the executive producers of the CGI series which follows the teenage Rabbit Samurai Yuichi, a descendent of the warrior Miyamoto Usagi. Yuichi leads a “ragtag team of misfit heroes,” a bounty hunters, ninja, pickpocket, and pet lizard.
This isn’t the first time Sakai’s characters have become animated. Usagi appeared in the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles show as well as on the 2003 series for a few episodes and then again in season 3, season 4, and season 7, of the same series. Uasgi also appeared in the 2012 CGI TMNT series in the fifth season. A CGI adaptation of Usagi was initially announced on February 8, 2018 and was in the works by Gaumont Animation.
Sakai will also be an executive producer on the show along with Gaumont, Dark Horse Entertainment and Atomic Monster. Gaumont’s Nicolas Atlan, Terry Kalagian, Sidonie Dumas and Christophe Riandee also serve as EPs along with Dark Horse’s Mike Richardson, Keith Goldberg and Chris Tongue and Atomic Monster’s Wan, Michael Clear and Rob Hackett.
Candie and Doug Langdale also are attached as showrunners and executive producers.
