Genshin Impact is finally getting the anime adaptation it deserves
HoYoverse has been putting some stunning trailers out for Genshin Impact lately, clips that have made it easy to imagine what the game might look like as a full-fledged TV show. Thankfully, it looks like the Chinese developer was way ahead of us. The Genshin Impact 3.1 presentation revealed that ufotable—the studio behind the God Eater animations and Demon Slayer—is currently working on one.
Despite the reveal trailer being over three minutes long, it doesn't say a whole lot. It's mostly just a flythrough, albeit a gorgeous one. It starts with Paimon floating through a sun-dappled forest before taking us through some recognisable locales, like the plains of Mondstadt, Dragonspine and a zoom-in on a Statue of the Seven. It ends with the two main protagonists, twins Aether and Lumine, holding hands as the trailer closes out with another beautiful whoosh through some Mondstadt ruins.
It may be more style than substance right now, but it's hard to not feel excited for what ufotable could do with the Genshin Impact universe. The studio has pumped out some stunningly fluid animations with a crisp, vivid art style that looks great. It's unknown yet whether the anime will tell a loose adaptation of Genshin's story involving both twins, or whether it'll closely follow the game in favour of highlighting only one twin—I'd place my bets on Aether if that were the case.
With HoYoverse saying in the reveal's YouTube description that "the long-term collaboration project between Genshin Impact and ufotable has begun," we could easily be a year or two away from the anime being released. I'm personally hoping for an episodic series that can potentially explore a story not yet told in the game, but I'd settle for 90 minutes of gorgeous movie magic, too. Whatever this adaptation turns out to be, I'm looking forward to seeing Teyvat in a new format. Hopefully we find out just what that'll be soon enough.
Just in the last few weeks, we've seen how well anime adaptations of videogames can work. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners—a Netflix spin-off from Cyberpunk 2077—has been met with rave reviews despite the lukewarm reception to its source material. In fact, it's so good that our own Wes Fenlon said it renewed his desire to go back and give Cyberpunk 2077 another chance. There's a good chance the Genshin anime could have the same effect, luring all manner of new players into Teyvat if it's good enough.