It is Friday, November 6, and The Nerds List Daily is talking about the biggest swing of the anime season — hosted by Geeked, in ten minutes every morning.
Episode 6, "Original Anime's Big Swing," is live now. The biggest new anime opening today is not a sequel, not a remake, and not the next chapter of something you already know. It is something brand new, from a studio betting its reputation on original ideas — and it opens in Japanese theaters today with no manga, no light novel, no video game, and no built-in audience behind it. In an industry where almost everything is an adaptation, that is a genuine gamble, and it is exactly the kind of gamble worth talking about.
The film is GROTESQQQUE, a new animated anthology from CloverWorks, written and directed by Atsushi Nishigori, the director behind Darling in the Franxx and The Idolmaster. It is made up of three short films with three completely different worldviews. The first is A(E)liens, which follows Ellie, an alien girl who teams up with Kento, a civil servant working at the space agency, on a search for friends — first contact treated not as an invasion or a war, but as a lonely kid looking for somebody to talk to. Ellie is voiced by Kana Ichinose, and Kento is voiced by Gen Hoshino, with Akio Otsuka playing the director of the space agency. The second story is Yoroshiku Girl, also known as 4649 Girl, a full-on battle royale fought between girls in a neon-lit Tokyo gal culture scene — frenzied, colorful, and chaotic. The third is Nocturn, subtitled On This Grotesque Night, which follows a pure-blooded vampire and three girls who survived by being bitten by her, traveling together through a desolate world in a van. Three stories, three tones, one name tying them together, and the festival programmers who have already seen it describe the whole thing as blending together like a chimera.
The road to today has been a long one. The film was first announced at Anime Expo in 2024, revealed in its final form at Anime Expo in 2025, and has been building buzz at festivals ever since. It had its world premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal in July, then its United States premiere at Japan Society in New York City on October 8, in collaboration with CloverWorks and Aniplex of America. Now it opens in Japanese theaters today, November 6, with a running time of 104 minutes. And here is a detail that shows how global this release is: the film is also playing in Glasgow, Scotland today, at the Scotland Loves Anime festival, on the exact same day it opens in Japan. Glasgow audiences are seeing it at 6 in the evening, on its release day — not something that happens every day for an original anime film.
The film also comes from JOEN, the company jointly established by Aniplex, CloverWorks, Wit Studio, and the publisher Shueisha. When four heavyweights like that team up to back an original anthology, it is a signal: the industry itself wants to prove that original anime can still open in theaters and find an audience. The songs and original soundtrack CD drop today too, the same day as the theatrical release, and each of the three segments has its own original music built into it. This is a film made to be experienced loud, in a theater, with an audience — not half-watched on a phone at midnight.
But the weekend is not only about the brand new. On Sunday, November 8, the free-to-air Japanese satellite channel BS12 is airing the Ghost in the Shell 4K remaster as part of its Sunday Anime Theater block — Mamoru Oshii's 1995 masterpiece, cleaned up in 4K, broadcast free across Japan at 7 in the evening. And it is not a one-off: BS12 is running a whole month of classic theatrical anime on Sundays. Harmagedon opened the block on November 1, Ghost in the Shell airs November 8, Innocence follows on November 15, and Armored Trooper VOTOMS Pailsen Files the Movie closes it out on November 22. If you are in Japan, that is four Sundays of essential viewing for free. If you are not, there is no international simulcast of the block — but the 1995 film is streaming free with ads in the United States on Tubi and Plex, so you can still join the watch party.
Speaking of Mamoru Oshii, the man is having quite a month. Not only are two of his films anchoring that BS12 block, but his brand new film opens in Japanese theaters in exactly two weeks. Armored Trooper VOTOMS: Die Graue Hexe, which translates to The Grey Witch, opens on November 20, and it is the first completely new entry in the VOTOMS franchise in five years. Oshii is directing it, with a script he wrote together with Kei Yamamura, animated at Sunrise with production cooperation from Production I.G, as part of Sunrise's fiftieth anniversary celebration. It is planned as a two-part theatrical release, and the first part is the one opening November 20. The story is set near the end of the Hundred Year War between the Gilgamesh and Balarant forces, and it follows Maki Staufenberg, a military officer secretly assigned to investigate Ash Vamps, a penal unit soldier nicknamed the Grey Witch because she keeps surviving missions nobody should walk away from. Miyuki Sawashiro voices Ash, and Mabuki Ando voices Maki. The theme song is "Like a Nameless Poet," performed by Mika Nakashima, with music, lyrics, and arrangement by Toshihiko Takamizawa of the rock band The Alfee. That is a November 20 date worth circling.
One more item from this week, and this one is a quick catch-up: The Irregular at Magic High School the Movie: Yotsuba Succession Arc screened exclusively in UK cinemas on November 4 and 5, in collaboration with Crunchyroll and Sony Pictures Entertainment. It is the second feature film in the franchise, it picks up directly after the third season, and it follows Tatsuya and Miyuki into the winter season of their second year at Magic High School. It was directed by Jimmy Stone, animated by Eight Bit, and screened in Japanese with English subtitles. If you missed it, the catch-up path is easy: all three seasons of the main series, plus the Reminiscence Arc, are streaming on Crunchyroll right now.
So why does the big swing matter? Because the anthology format fits this film so well. Three short stories means three chances to take a risk. If one segment is not your thing, the next one might be your favorite thing of the year — a very different bet from a single two-hour story that has to please everybody at once. An alien girl looking for friends, a battle royale in neon Tokyo, and a vampire road trip through a dead world do not sound like they belong in the same movie, and that is the point. If GROTESQQQUE works, and audiences show up for something they have never seen before, studios notice. They greenlight the next weird idea. They take the next risk. The best way to get more original anime is to show up for the original anime we already have.
Geeked's picks for the weekend are simple. If you are anywhere near a screening of GROTESQQQUE, go see it in a theater, loud, with people. If you are in Japan, set a reminder for Sunday at 7 for Ghost in the Shell on BS12 — and if you are anywhere else, pull it up on Tubi or Plex and watch it properly, lights off, phone away. And if you are counting down to November 20 like Geeked is, start your VOTOMS homework now, because the Hundred Year War waits for no one.
Listen to the episode right here:
Or listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3zywsmsPEmSiecD78BlQlh
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