The creators of Gurren Lagann and Promare are making a new anime

Animation studio TRIGGER announced at Anime Expo 2026 that director Hiroyuki Imaishi and screenwriter Kazuki Nakashima are working on their fourth project together. The news confirms the return of the creative team behind some of the most kinetic anime of the last two decades.

The Imaishi and Nakashima partnership has a very specific rhythm. They first collaborated on Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann in 2007 while at Gainax, establishing a template of escalating scale and absolute sincerity. When it aired, mecha anime was largely dominated by brooding, political narratives or heavy psychological themes. Gurren Lagann rejected all of that in favor of pure, unadulterated hot-blooded action.

They followed it up in 2013 with Kill la Kill, which was TRIGGER's first major television production. The duo then reunited in 2019 for the theatrical feature Promare.

A very specific brand of chaos

Imaishi's direction relies on extreme perspective distortion, limited but highly expressive animation frames, and a relentless pacing that barely gives the audience time to breathe. Nakashima's scripts match that energy perfectly. He writes dialogue that sounds like it should be shouted from the top of a burning building. Together, they make shows that start at a ten and somehow keep finding higher numbers.

Promare was a massive theatrical success that helped cement TRIGGER's international reputation. It combined 3D CGI with traditional 2D animation techniques in a way that felt entirely natural for Imaishi's hyper-stylized aesthetic. The film's soundtrack by Hiroyuki Sawano also became a staple in the anime community. Fans are already speculating whether Sawano will return for this new project to complete the usual production trio.

Seven years since Promare

Look at the gap between their original projects. The wait from Gurren Lagann to Kill la Kill was six years. The wait from Kill la Kill to Promare was another six years. Now it is 2026, making this a seven-year gap since Promare hit theaters.

TRIGGER has kept plenty busy in the interim. Imaishi directed Cyberpunk: Edgerunners for Netflix, though without Nakashima handling the script. The studio also recently adapted Delicious in Dungeon, proving they can handle methodical pacing and existing intellectual properties. Both were massive hits. But an original Imaishi and Nakashima project is what put the studio on the map in the first place.

Waiting for the drop

The studio has not shared a title, format, or release window. We do not know if this will be a standard television series, a theatrical film, or a streaming project.

Given their historical output, we can probably expect a few things. There will likely be a lot of shouting, a heavy reliance on primary colors, and a plot that escalates into outer space by the final act. Until TRIGGER is ready to show some key art or a teaser trailer, we just have to wait.