A New Galaxy Express 999 Film Is in Production at Toei Animation

A new Galaxy Express 999 theatrical animation is in production at Toei Animation. The announcement credits Rintaro with the story concept, a credit also rendered as being in charge of the original story draft, and positions the project as arriving roughly half a century after the 1979 theatrical film.

What Toei announced

The core of it is short and unambiguous. A new Galaxy Express 999 film is being made for theaters, with animation production handled by Toei Animation. Attached with the story concept credit is Rintaro, and in introducing him Toei points to his own 1979 Galaxy Express 999 film and to Metropolis (2001).

Toei also situates the project against two anniversaries of a kind. The studio notes that it is marking its 70th anniversary this year, and it frames the new film as coming approximately half a century after that 1979 theatrical release. The announcement is signed jointly by Leiji Matsumoto, Leijisha and Toei Animation.

That is the complete shape of what has been said. It is a production announcement rather than a full staff reveal, and it is worth reading it as exactly that.

What has not been announced

A fair amount, and it is worth being precise, because the gap between what is credited and what is open is easy to collapse. Rintaro is named. His credit is the story concept, and nothing else; beyond that, no other role has been filled publicly.

• No director has been announced. Rintaro's credit is the story concept, not direction.
• There is no screenwriter, composer or character designer named yet.
• Beyond the story concept, no other staff credit of any kind has been given.
• Cast remains unrevealed.
• No release date or window has been given.

No new artwork has accompanied the announcement either. What exists right now is the production news, the studio, the story concept credit and the framing around it.

Why Rintaro matters here

The connection Toei draws is direct. Rintaro directed the 1979 Galaxy Express 999 film, the same film the studio uses as the reference point when it describes the new project as arriving roughly half a century later. That is not an outside reading of the announcement; it is the line Toei itself runs between the two works when it introduces him.

The studio also lists Metropolis, his 2001 feature, among his work. Taken together, the introduction reads as an argument for continuity of authorship at the level of the story rather than a claim about who will sit in the director's chair. Whoever ends up directing, the shape of the thing is being drawn by the filmmaker who made the 1979 version.

Naming a story concept credit first, and only that, is a particular way to open a campaign. It sets the terms of what the film is before it sets out who is making it, and it puts the 1979 film in the frame from the first sentence rather than leaving that comparison to be made later.

For now, the confirmed picture is a Galaxy Express 999 theatrical animation in production at Toei Animation, with Rintaro on the story concept, announced in the studio's 70th anniversary year. The rest of the credits, and any sense of when the film arrives, remain to be filled in.

Source: Toei Animation.