If you know Yoshitaka Amano’s name, you know it from Final Fantasy — he painted the ethereal warriors, the summons, the villains across every numbered entry from the original NES game onwards. His brushwork is the visual soul of the series. Now, for the first time, Amano is turning his personal mythology into anime, and the pilot film has just screened — 100% hand-drawn, assembled with a crew of legends. This is ZAN.
What Is ZAN?
ZAN is a dark fantasy anime based on Amano’s own art project DEVA ZAN, which he has been developing since 2010 — a universe spanning more than 300 original paintings that Dark Horse Comics published as an English-language art book in 2013.
The story follows a warrior named ZAN, locked in fierce combat at Azuchi Castle during Japan’s Sengoku (Warring States) period. Guided by a mysterious young girl called Uzume, he crosses through time and space into another dimension, accompanied by a mechanical familiar named Panther. In this otherworldly realm, ZAN faces powerful rivals and monstrous creatures called Tropes, ruled by a being known as RIKKA.
Amano describes the project as entirely his own: “ZAN is from me,” he has said, distinguishing it from prior collaborations such as Angel’s Egg and Vampire Hunter D. To produce it, he established a Los Angeles-based production company, Yoshitaka Amano Inc., specifically to realise this vision.
The Pilot Film Premiered at Anime Expo 2026
The pilot film — entirely hand-drawn, in the spirit of classic anime — had its world premiere at Anime Expo 2026 in Los Angeles in early July as part of Amano’s solo panel. The official YouTube channel has since released it publicly, so you can watch it right now.
A Dream Team of Anime Veterans
The crew assembled for ZAN reads like a roll call of the genre’s founding generation. Animation directors Masashi Ikeda (Mobile Suit Gundam Wing) and Tooru Yoshida are leading production, with legendary character animator Moriyasu Taniguchi — founder of Studio Anime R — as principal animator.
For mechanical design, Amano reached out to Kunio Okawara, the man who designed the original RX-78-2 Gundam and countless Mobile Suits across the franchise. Series composition is handled by Ryosuke Takahashi, creator of Armored Trooper Votoms, one of the most acclaimed real-robot series of the 1980s. Screenplay duties go to Yuya Takashima, who wrote for Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury.
The result is a meeting of Amano’s transcendent visual imagination and some of the deepest craft experience in Japanese animation — working entirely by hand, without shortcuts.
What Singapore Fans Should Know
ZAN has no confirmed release date or streaming platform as of this writing — the project is still in production, and the pilot is a proof-of-concept, not the full series. But a few things are worth watching:
- The official pilot is publicly available on the ZAN YouTube channel right now — it is the real first look at Amano’s animated world.
- Amano’s immersive touring exhibition AMANO — which has already appeared in Italy and Brazil — is confirmed to expand to Southeast Asia in 2027. Singapore fans may well get an in-person encounter with the DEVA ZAN universe before the anime itself arrives.
- When the limited series does reach streaming, it will almost certainly be picked up globally. Keep the official site bookmarked for distribution announcements.
For fans of Final Fantasy’s visual identity, classic mecha anime, and hand-drawn craft, ZAN is a passion project worth keeping on your radar. Check out more anime news on GameTrader.SG.