Action
stories where the protagonist is a relentless fighting machine trying to lead a
normal school life always have a special flavor, and this proposal promises not
to fall short. During its panel at New York Comic Con, Crunchyroll dropped the
bombshell by confirming that the acclaimed action webtoon Teenage Mercenary
will officially make the leap to television with its own anime adaptation
scheduled to premiere in 2027.
The
production of the series will be in the hands of the renowned studio J.C.
Staff, which will assume the enormous responsibility of transferring the
frenetic combats from the digital format to the small screen. The project will
be directed by Manabu Ono, an experienced director remembered for his
work on productions such as Sword Art Online: Alicization and Dead
Mount Death Play, who will also be in charge of supervising the scripts.
As if that
were not enough, the visual section will be supervised by Koji Haneda in
the character design, while the soundtrack will have the unmistakable stamp of
legendary composer Hiroyuki Sawano, famous for making the rooms rumble
with his songs in installments of the likes of Attack on Titan and The
Seven Deadly Sins. The production is handled by Hayate, the joint label
formed between Aniplex and Crunchyroll.
The story
introduces us to Yu Ijin, a young man who after surviving a tragic plane crash
at the age of eight lost his parents and was stranded in a foreign land. To
stay alive, Ijin had no choice but to become an elite mercenary child. Ten
years later, the young man manages to return to Korea to reunite with his
family and enjoy everyday peace. However, he soon discovers that surviving the
last year of high school requires tactics as ruthless as those on the
battlefield itself.
About
Teenage Mercenary
Teenage
Mercenary is an
action-intrigue webtoon written by YC and illustrated by Rakyeon.
The work began its digital publication through the Naver Webtoon platform in
November 2020, achieving massive and immediate success that quickly spread to
the Japanese market through LINE Manga starting in April 2021.
Over the
years, the title has managed to break reading records around the world,
surpassing 2,840 million global views through its publications in ten
languages. The work has also established itself as one of the pillars of the
digital format by taking first place in the annual LINE Manga rankings in both
2023 and 2024, becoming a must-read for lovers of the action genre.
