Moana 2 is currently taking over box offices all over the world, and Disney has gone all out to celebrate that success with some fun and official anime shorts giving it all a big makeover. Moana 2 hit theaters earlier this Fall, and has since been absolutely dominating the top of the box office. While the first film was one of Disney’s biggest successes in years, Moana 2 has gone on to break many of those records while setting more of its own. It’s taken the records for top openings over Thanksgiving weekend, animated films, and more, so it’s clear that fans are really loving the newest release.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Taking that success even further, it’s now been made clear that Moana would be a franchise that’s a perfect fit for a full anime feature of some kind as well. Collaborating with director Gensho Yasuda to help celebrate Moana 2‘s release in Japan this past weekend, Moana 2 has gotten two new anime shorts with the promise of more to come as part of this new team up. You can check out the first of these new shorts in the video above, and the second of the Moana 2 anime shorts below to see how a few of its characters have made the jump to anime.
Moana Gets the Anime Makeover Treatment
Debuting through Gensho Yasuda’s own YouTube channel, these Moana 2 anime shorts were directed by Yasuda for his studio, Yasuda Gensho Studio by Xenotoon. Celebrating the release of Moana 2 in Japan on December 6th, the first of these videos features the Japanese dubbed version of “We’re Back” and the second features “Beyond” as performed by Tomona Yabiku (who voices Moana for both films as well as the characters’ appearances in other Disney media). There are two more shorts being teased for this new collaboration as well.
There will be shorts taking on Matangi’s “Get Lost” and Maui’s “Can I Get a Chee Hoo?” planned for a release in the future, but release dates for these new shorts have yet to be announced as of the time of this publication. Yasuda was asked about their impressions of the film as part of the collaboration by Comic Natalie, and stated as such, “The visuals, story, music, and every aspect of this movie are perfect, and I think it will touch the hearts of viewers. It got me thinking about the lives of Moana and Maui, and how they will accept their destiny as heroes. It gave me a lot of inspiration.”
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Disney’s Really Starting to Invest in Anime
Anime fans might have noticed in recent years especially that Disney is beginning to increase more of its investiments into the anime industry. While there are still some issues to iron out when it comes to releasing and promoting their acquired licenses, Disney has been increasing their available exclusive licenses and original productions to better appeal to the general anime fandom and will continue to do so in 2025.
Even with these efforts, however, Disney has rarely given their own feature films or projects full anime makeovers like this. While some of their more intriguing projects like Twisted Wonderland or Star Wars Visions are getting a huge anime push in the future, this is far from a direct adaptation like seen with these Moana 2 anime shorts. Perhaps these can be a sign of what Disney might have planned for anime fans in the future with even more makeovers, shorts, and other projects down the line.
