The First Trailer for Suicide Squad ISEKAI Gives DC Villains an Anime Treatment

The DC animated universe continues to expand with Suicide Squad ISEKAI, a new series that brings together the group of villains from the comic book company. In 2016, David Ayer brought the Amanda Waller-created team to the big screen, and then current DC Studios CEO James Gunn returned to give them another explosive movie in 2021.

Now it’s Wit Studios’ turn to tell a new adventure of the popular characters, but in the best anime style. During Anime Expo 2023, Warner Bros. Japan and Wit unveiled the first trailer for Suicide Squad ISEKAI, a Japanese-style animated series:

Wit Studio is recognized for working on productions such as Spy x Family, Ōsama Ranking, Vinland Saga and on some seasons of the acclaimed Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin). Suicide Squad Isekai is directed by Eri Osada, with Akira Amano and Naoto Hosoda serving as character designers, from a script by Tappei Nagatsuki and Eiji Umehara.

ISEKAI is actually the name of a popular genre within the world of anime which means another world, which implies that a character is transported into a different reality from the one in which their adventures generally take place. None plot details have been revealed about the show, although the trailer shows famous characters such as Harley Quinn, The Joker and Amanda Waller.

Related: My Adventures With Superman: Why You Should Watch This Animated Series Before Superman: Legacy

DC Is Loving the Anime Style

Suicide Squad ISEKAI will not be the only project in the DC universe to convert famous characters from the franchise to the Japanese style. This week, the Man of Steel will also premiere his own anime titled My Adventures with Superman on Adult Swim.

The series stars The Boys‘ Jack Quaid as Clark Kent, Alice Lee (Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist) as Lois Lane and Ishmael Sahid (Jury Duty) as Jimmy Olsen. Here’s the official synopsis:

“In this serialized coming-of-age story, we follow Clark as he builds his secret Superman identity and embraces his role as the hero of Metropolis – and perhaps the world. Lois, now growing into a star investigative journalist, takes aspiring photographer Jimmy Olsen under her wing. All the while, Clark and Lois are falling in love, sharing adventures, taking down bad guys, stumbling over secrets, and discovering what it means to be Superman and Lois Lane.”

But the history of DC and Japanese animation is much more extensive than these two productions. Warner Bros. Animation has partnered with different studios to bring anime-style stories to the screen. One of the most recent was Batman Ninja, a 2018 film that had Takashi Okazaki, creator of Afro Samurai as the character designer.

Gotham Knight, a collection of stories starring the Caped Crusader, was also made by different Japanese companies: Studio 4°C, Madhouse, Bee Train and Production I.G. The story was conceived as part of the timeline of Christopher Nolan’s trilogy, with its events occurring between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, although the plot is not necessarily related to that of the films starring Christian Bale.