The distribution label TOHO NEXT and the production company NOTHING NEW announced on Saturday that they will open Kōhei Kadowaki and NOTHING NEW’s We Are Aliens (Ware Ware wa Uchūjin) anime film throughout Japan on September 25. The two companies updated the previously released teaser trailer with the new date:
Image via NOTHING NEW film label’s X/Twitter account
©NOTHING NEW, MIYU PRODUCTIONS
We Are Aliens centers on Tsubasa and Gyōtarō, two boys who as elementary school students became close friends, but jealousy and misunderstandings eventually drove them apart. Years have passed and the two boys have gone in different directions in life. But when the memories from their past come back, they must face what happened between them years ago.
The film stars Ryōta Bandō (Fureru., live-action How to Train Your Dragon’s Japanese dub) as Tsubasa, and Amane Okayama (Blue Giant, live-action I”s, Hirayasumi) as Gyōtarō, when both characters are young adults. Child actors Yūto Maki and Tasuku Nakagome — who were both selected through auditions — voice Tsubasa and Gyōtarō, respectively, when they were younger.
Kadowaki, who created the second BEASTARS season’s ending sequence and music videos for YOASOBI, served as the film’s planner, scriptwriter, director, storyboard artist, and editor. Yaffle, who previously produced music for Fujii Kaze, Kenshi Yonezu, and others, composed the music. NOTHING NEW planned and produced the upcoming film, and French studio Miyu Productions (Ghost Cat Anzu, A New Dawn) collaborated on the production, after joining on the project in June 2025.
The film screened at the Directors’ Fortnight of the Cannes Film Festival on May 14, and screened in competition at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, which began on Sunday, and is ending on June 27.
Sales company CHARADES licensed the film to the distributors Hooray Films in Taiwan, Shaw Organisation in Singapore, Intercontinental Film Distributors in Hong Kong, and Sahamongkol Film in Thailand. CHARADES is handling international sales of the film.
The staff launched a crowdfunding campaign in November on the Motion Gallery website. The campaign aimed to cover production and advertising costs, specifically to “improve the quality of the work” and to “distribute the film more widely.” The campaign ended on March 2 and exceeded its 8 million yen (about US$50,365) target and raised 9,604,510 (about US$60,467) yen.
NOTHING NEW is a small film company that was founded in 2022 with the aim “to create a world where talent is not crushed.”
Source: Comic Natalie
