Adult Swim excites the Annecy Animation Festival crowd by announcing adaptations for Get Jiro! and SuperMutant Magic Academy.
Adult Swim is making my day at the Annecy Animation Festival by announcing two new animation projects with adaptations of Anthony Bourdain‘s Get Jiro! and Jillian Tamaki’s SuperMutant Magic Academy. I’m a massive fan of both books, especially SuperMutant Magic Academy. This news adds to several exciting announcements from Annecy, including green lights for Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur: Moon Girl’s Lab, the new Regular Show and Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends series, and more.
The adaptation of Anthony Bourdain’s graphic novel, Get Jiro!, hails from Briand Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka, co-writers of Sharper and producers of NBC’s Superstore. Published by Vertigo, Get Jiro! has the following synopsis:
In a not-too-distant future of food-obsessed L.A., where master chefs rule the town like crime lords and people literally kill for a seat at the best restaurant, Jiro, a renegade and ruthless sushi chef arrives in town with strong ideas of his own. It’s a bloody culinary war of epic proportions, and in the end, no chef may be left alive!
“I started to develop it with Tony when Tony was still alive. Um, and it became a labor of love for me, truly,” said Peter Girardi, executive VP of alternative Programming at Warner Bros. Animation.
In addition to Get Jiro! an adaptation of Jillian Tamaki’s webcomic turned graphic novel SuperMutant Magic Academy is coming to screens. Originally published online, Tamaki’s comic became a graphic novel published by Drawn & Quarterly.
Here’s an official synopsis courtesy of D&Q:
The SuperMutant Magic Academy is a prep school for mutants and witches, but their paranormal abilities take a backseat to everyday teen concerns. Science experiments go awry, bake sales are upstaged, and the new kid at school is a cat who will determine the course of human destiny. In one strip, lizard-headed Trixie frets about her nonexistent modeling career; in another, the immortal Everlasting Boy tries to escape this mortal coil to no avail. Throughout it all, closeted Marsha obsesses about her unrequited crush, the cat-eared Wendy. Tamaki’s jokes are precise and devastating, whether the magic is mundane or miraculous.
“It’s about what is happening to kids and what kids are worrying and thinking about in 2024-25. If we can hit that, and I think we do do that, it’s going to be a very big show and be very meaningful to a lot of people,” said Suzanna Makkos, head of Adult Animation, Adult Swim.
Let’s f*cking go! I’ve been waiting years for a studio to adapt these properties. Bourdain’s Get Jiro! is sharp, witty, and delectably violent, while Tamaki’s SuperMutant Magic Academy is a melting pot of personalities with otherworldly quirks. I can see audiences digging into both of these adaptations. Huzzah!