N LITE and Kodansha have announced a co-development deal to serialize a prequel manga for the MFINDA animated film in Biblio Sirius Magazine, expanding Congolese mythology into a cross-Pacific manga-to-film pipeline.
N LITE, the U.S.-Japan anime studio, has partnered with Kodansha to serialize a prequel manga for its upcoming animated feature film MFINDA. The manga will run in Kodansha's Biblio Sirius Magazine beginning in 2026, with availability planned for both Japan and the United States.
The deal marks a rare instance of a global studio co-developing a manga property with one of Japan's largest publishers from the ground up. The collaboration was brokered by Henshin, Inc., and positions MFINDA as a transmedia project bridging African storytelling traditions with the manga and anime formats.
Kodansha senior editor Keigo Nakama framed the significance of the partnership in cultural terms: "The journey of Congolese culture — crossing the Atlantic to reach America and then spanning the Pacific to evolve into anime and manga is deeply inspiring."
The manga is written by N LITE founder Christiano Terry and illustrated by Tom Lintern, the studio's art director. Japanese storyboard artist Koma Warita is collaborating on the project, with both N LITE and Kodansha jointly supervising production.
The prequel centers on dual protagonists Nasambi and Odi, expanding the Congolese sacred-forest mythology that underpins the feature film. The story follows a thirteen-year-old Congolese girl transported to the Mfinda, a primordial forest inhabited by spirits, gods, and ancestors. There, she joins another young girl from a different era and embarks on a journey home during a conflict between humans and the spirits of nature.
The animated feature itself carries significant industry pedigree. Legendary animator Masao Maruyama founder of MAPPA and M2 serves as producer, while veteran director Gisaburo Sugii and Arthell Isom co-direct. Executive producers include Viola Davis, Joel Embiid, and Jaden Smith, the last of whom voices the character Kozo.
Christiano Terry originally created MFINDA alongside Congolese-American artist Patience Lekien, grounding the project's visual and narrative identity in Central African folklore rather than the East African or West African traditions more commonly referenced in Western media.
The Kodansha serialization gives MFINDA a foothold in the manga ecosystem well ahead of the film's release, building readership and cultural context simultaneously. For the broader afro-anime movement projects that fuse African diasporic narratives with Japanese animation craft a co-development deal at this scale with a publisher of Kodansha's stature signals growing institutional confidence in the subgenre's commercial viability.
With the manga now scheduled for 2026 serialization and the film in active production, MFINDA is shaping up as one of the most closely watched cross-cultural anime projects in development.
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