As we close the chapter for the year 2022, we’ll shortly begin a new page in 2023. And with a new year, we also get a new batch of new anime to watch. Some of them are sequels to established titles, such as the new season ofVinland Saga,Tokyo Revengers,andBungou Stray Dogs, just to name a few, while others are new and original anime that finally get the chance to debut at the beginning of the new year.
Among all of the new anime for Winter 2023, the one that we’d like to talk about in this article is a new series calledKaina of the Great Snow Sea. This anime is the brainchild of Polygon Pictures and Tsutomu Nihei, the creators of iconic manga/anime likeBlame!andKnights of Sidonia. From the story to the official release date, here’s everything that you need to know aboutKaina of the Great Snow Sea.
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The Story
In the world ofKaina of the Great Snow Sea, the world has beenenveloped by a never-ending snow. Standing proud at relatively similar distances among the snow are countless colossal trees, called the Orbital Tree. As the name suggests, the trunks and branches of these trees grew all the way to the orbit of the earth, and then spread into some kind of thin layer at the top, connecting one tree to the next.
However, even in this unimaginably harsh environment, humanity managed to survive and make decent settlements here and there. There are villages on top of the trees, and there are also small nations near the root of the trees. Interestingly enough none of them knew about the existence of the other.
That is until one day, a princess from a small country at the sea of the snow flew to the top of the tree, and met with a young man from the only village left in the orbit. Her name is Liliha. His name is Kaina. And this is their journey together as they slowly descend from the orbital tree, and head into the complicated political and military conflict betweenthe warring nationsof the sea of the snow.
From The Mind of Tsutomu Nihei
As mentioned above,Kaina of the Great Snow Seais the latest manga from the mind of Tsutomu Nihei, the creator of iconic titles likeBlame!andKnights of Sidonia. However, unlike those previous titles, this time around, Tsutomu Nihei focuses solely on the story, while Itoe Takemoto is responsible for the art.
Looking back atBlame!andKnights of Sidonia, it’s clear that those two titles have become cult classics that are famous for their unique world-building, interesting story, ambiance atmosphere, and also thrilling action sequences. Needless to say, you can expect to find all of those things in this new series as well.
Similar to the anime version of his previous works, Tsutomu Nihei also works together with Polygon Pictures to adaptKaina of the Great Snowinto anime. Polygon Pictures is specialized in 3D CGI animation,particularly cell-shade animation. This particular visual style is what makesBlame!andKnights of Sidonialook different from other anime at the time, which means you can also expect to see a similar visual style inKaina of the Great Snow.
The Staff
Other than the original creators of the series, there are also several notable staff members that work onKaina of the Great Snow Sea. The first one is the director, Hiroaki Ando, who has actually worked with Polygon Pictures several times before, such as onAjin,the newGodzillamovies, and alsoKnights of Sidonia.
After that, there’s Sadayuki Murai (Blame!, Knights of Sidonia) who is responsible for the script and Series Composition. There’s also Kohta Yamamoto (Attack on Titan: The Final Season, 86) who composed the music for this series. The Opening Theme is “Telepath” by yorushika, while the Ending Theme is “Juvenile” by GreeeeN.
Release Date
Kaina of the Great Snow Seais scheduled to be released worldwide in the first half of January 2023, specifically on January 11. For outside Asia, you can stream this series through Crunchyroll,along with other Winter 2023 anime, such as the fourth season ofBungo Stray Dogs,the newTrigun Stampede, The Fire Hunter,and many others.
It’s unclear at this point how many episodes we will get from this series. However, considering that the originalKaina of the Great Snow Seawas first published back in February 2022, we can surmise that there’s not much material available to be adapted into an anime. As a matter of fact, it’s quite surprising that this series already got an anime adaptation this early into its life cycle. Therefore, we can expect the usual 13 episodes for this first season.
