Step back into a Jaeger in first look at Netflix's long-awaited Pacific Rim anime 'The Black'

As far back as 2014, Pacific Rim director and co-writer Guillermo del Toro teased that the robots-vs.-monsters franchise would live on in the form of an animated series. But the series was slow to materialize, and we got the live-action sequel Pacific Rim: Uprising instead. Then, in 2018, Netflix announced an anime series based on the franchise, fulfilling del Toro's promise. Now Pacific Rim: The Black is almost here — and we just got a first look.

Netflix and Legendary revealed the first look at the upcoming anime series late Monday in the form of two images, one taking us inside a Jaeger cockpit and the other revealing a brand-new kaiju design. We still know very little about the plot of The Black, but we do know that it will involve the evacuation of Australia at a time when humanity thought they'd already beaten the kaiju, and it will follow two siblings piloting an old Jaeger across "a continent of danger." Check out both images in all their glory below. 

Del Toro teased all the way back in the summer of 2014 that he was talking to several Japanese companies at the time about working on a Pacific Rim anime series that would focus on "younger" characters and explore the various consequences of drifting a little more, but the project seemed to go a bit dormant as work began on Pacific Rim: Uprising. Then, a few months after that film hit theaters in 2018, Netflix announced Pacific Rim woud be joining a crop of new animated series.

Pacific Rim: The Black will take place in the same continuity as both live-action films, and will be showrun by Craig Kyle (Thor: Ragnarok) and Greg Johnson (Wolverine and the X-Men, Miles From Tomorrowland).

Pacific Rim: The Black does not yet have a release date, but is set to hit Netflix sometime next year.