Shin Godzilla—or Godzilla: Resurgence in most of the world—recently stomped its way through Japanese theaters, reigniting people’s love for the big monster faster than a blast of his atomic breath. Now, the Godzilla custodians at Toho have come up with a new way to capitalize on that film’s success, and it’s an idea that’s so brilliant that it’s shocking nobody has done it before: A Godzilla anime. That comes from Anime News Network (via io9), and in terms of just how popular those two things are in Japan, the American equivalent of a Godzilla anime would probably be something like a Mickey Mouse cheeseburger.
So far, nothing but a teaser image has been revealed for the Godzilla anime (which sounds like it’ll be a movie and not a TV series), but we do know that it’s going to be directed by Fist Of The North Star’s Kobun Shizuno and Knights Of Sidonia’s Hiroyuki Seshita. The teaser image—which you can see below—makes it look like some futuristic stuff is going on, but Godzilla movies tend to veer a little sci-fi anyway, so it’s hard to say what the significance of that is. Also, while this is Godzilla’s first proper anime, he has previously starred in a cartoon based on the 1998 Godzilla and a ‘70s Hanna-Barbera show with a great whiplash-inducing theme song.