Orange’s Steampunk Leviathan Anime Project Shows Promise

The Studio Orange panel at Anime Expo 2024 mainly served to act as a teaser and set up for things to come. There was a little information about a future Trigun project and even a confirmed release date for the much anticipated season three of BEASTARS. However, the star of the panel was Studio Orange‘s upcoming project, Leviathan. The CEO of Qubic Pictures, Justin Leach who will be producing the adaptation alongside Studio Orange came on stage specifically to discuss more about the project.

You could tell this is where Studio Orange wanted the focus to be after they released a never-before-seen teaser. This teaser focused on a young boy named Alek and his journey throughout the series. He’s on the run and needs to traverse a variety of locations. He does this via the Leviathan, an airship made out of a giant whale. The teaser had a lot of striking imagery that summed up two of the main artistic appeals of the series. The first was the creature designs, which seemed to act as heightened versions of established animals or animals that were enhanced with some form of technology. Throughout the panel, behind-the-scenes art pieces were displayed, trying to recapture the fantastic creature designs in Scott Westerfield’s original novels, illustrated by Keith Thompson.

The second thing that Leach and Studio Orange wanted to make apparent was the show’s backgrounds. With the story set in an alternate version of World War One, it potentially covers a wide breadth of different locations, a variety of detailed and well-crafted backgrounds are paramount. Based on the teaser, I think anime fans will be in for a treat with how the environments are rendered. They’re some of the best-looking environments that the studio has produced to date. As someone without prior experience with the franchise before this panel, I would say it was like watching a modern version of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.

This panel got me more excited for Studio Orange‘s new upcoming series than I was originally expecting. The staff knew where they wanted to keep the focus and they emphasized the elements that they were the most proud of. If the show could look half as good as the teaser, I think we will be in for a whale of a time when the anime premiers on Netflix.