GKIDS to screen N. American premiere at July’s JAPAN CUTS, release anime on home video
GKIDS announced on Tuesday that it has acquired the North American rights to Cocoon – One Summer of Girlhood (cocoon Aru Natsu no Shōjo-tachi Yori), the anime of Machiko Kyō’s Cocoon manga. The company will begin screening the anime in theaters on September 4 in Japanese with English subtitles and with an English dub. It will then screen the North American premiere at this year’s JAPAN CUTS event in July. GKIDS will also release the anime on home video.
Image courtesy of GKIDS
© Machiko Kyo (AKITASHOTEN) / NHK, NEP
The anime debuted on BS-NHK in March 2025, before airing on NHK General that August.
The anime stars Hikari Mitsushima as Mayu and Marika Itō as San.
Yukimitsu Ina (animation director for Tatami Time Machine Blues) directed the anime, and kensuke ushio (A Silent Voice, Chainsaw Man, DAN DA DAN) composed the music. Hitomi Tateno, a veteran Studio Ghibli animator, was the animation producer, with the studio Sasayuri producing the anime.
The manga is set in a tropical southern island, and centers on San and her best friend Mayu, who go to the island’s top all-girls school. War soon comes to their country, and the students of the school soon become embroiled in the war effort, and soon enough, the rear-line care of the wounded. One by one, San and Mayu lose their friends in the ever-worsening war.
Kyō released the manga in 2010, 65 years after the end of World War II. The anime’s 2025 release came 80 years after the end of World War II.
Viz Media licensed the manga.
Kyō published the Mitsuami no Kami-sama manga in Shueisha’s now-defunct Jump X (Jump Kai) magazine in 2013, and Shueisha published the manga’s first and only compiled book volume in the same year. The manga won an award in the 18th Annual Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize in March 2014. The manga inspired Production I.G’s Pigtails 28-minute short anime film. The short made its international debut in April 2016 at the WorldFest Houston International Film Festival, where it won the Platinum Remi Award in the Classic Cel Animation Category. Pigtails has won multiple awards, including the Diamond Award in the Animated Film category at the 2016 California Film Awards.
Source: Press release
