Attack on Titan anime studio Wit announced a new anime, LONA, premiering in spring 2027 – the studio's latest original series.
Per Wit Studio's reveal trailer, LONA will be directed by Takashi Katagiri, who directed Spy x Family Code: White and was episode director on Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song. Vivy is an especially relevant and encouraging touchstone, not just because it's an excellent Wit original, but because LONA seems to deal with some similar themes.
Set in the "not-so distant future," LONA sees humanity "attacked by humans who should be dead." Governments respond with the formation of the eponymous "Laboratory of Optics and Neural Analysis," which is charged with analyzing the brains of the dead.
Banish the zombie tropes from your mind; LONA seems much closer to sci-fi transhumanism so far, a little more Psycho-Pass or Ghost in the Shell.
The teaser description adds, "What do people think of, and what do they leave behind before they die? Countless memories engraved in the neural circuits. What did they see in those deep depths?" One character, per the trailer's English captions, wonders, "What was her oldest memory, what was her strongest desire?"
"A neuroscience adventure series depicting researchers confronting their world by connecting with the unresolved emotions left behind by the deceased," a plot summary adds.
LONA has been in the works since 2020, according to story and screenplay writer Akiko Nogi, who also sheds more light on the setting: "Driven by a desire to explore forms of expression possible only through animation, we have set our story against the backdrop of a large-scale synchrotron radiation facility – a place I have long been fascinated by – as we take on the mysteries of the brain and the world around us."
The series' character designs will be handled by Posuka Demizu, best known as the artist behind the manga The Promised Neverland (not the disastrous second season of its anime adaptation). The team is stacked from top to bottom, and LONA's reveal trailer is predictably gorgeous, so this series gets an early spot on my 2027 anime list.
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