We Are Aliens Anime Movie Celebrates Global Festival Success with Heartbreaking New Video Clip
Okay, real talk. A 90-second clip shouldn’t be able to make a grown adult stare at the ceiling and think about every friendship they let rot. And yet here we are.
The fresh video clip for We Are Aliens (Wareware wa Uchūjin) landed in early October 2026, and the anime corner of the internet has been quietly falling apart ever since. No explosions, no mecha, no dramatic power-up. Two kids, a summer, some ice cream, a school shed, and a feeling you can’t name until it’s already in your chest.
So, What Is This Movie Even About?
If the title made you expect UFOs and laser beams, sorry, wrong movie. The ‘alien’ here is a metaphor, and a brutal one.
The story starts in a sleepy Heisei-era Japanese town. It’s the summer of third grade. Tsubasa is the quiet kid who feels painfully ordinary. Gyotaro is the sunny, charismatic classmate everybody gravitates toward. Naturally, they become inseparable, because that’s how childhood friendship works: no negotiation, just two kids sharing secrets and ice cream like it’s the most important business in the world.
Then it all collapses over something tiny. A broken umbrella, a careless word, and a pile of kid-sized anxieties. In a panic, Tsubasa decides Gyotaro is an alien and shoves him out of his life. Gyotaro vanishes.
And then the film does the thing that made me sit up straight: it jumps thirty years ahead. Adult Tsubasa is stuck in gray, grinding office routine, and he has spent decades trying not to think about that summer. Then fate drags the two men back into the same orbit.
Honestly? The premise alone is a trauma casserole, and I mean that as a compliment.
The New Clip: Why It Works
The clip is all about the before. School routines, quiet landscapes, small everyday moments, everything that made Tsubasa and Gyotaro’s bond feel unbreakable before it broke. Seeing the happy version first makes the coming betrayal hit harder. Smart, cruel, effective.
Fans across forums and trailer channels have been gushing about the atmosphere, and I get why. The film’s signature look mixes three things:
- Traditional hand-drawn animation for warmth and character
- Rotoscoping for that slightly dreamlike, floaty human movement
- Real live-action background imagery for a documentary-style texture
Put together, the Heisei setting feels touchable. It looks less like a town someone drew and more like a place you remember, with the hazy, slightly overexposed quality of old memories. Nostalgia is basically the whole point here, and the visuals commit to it completely.
Meet the Mind Behind It: Kōhei Kadowaki
Here’s the part that makes this film more impressive. Kōhei Kadowaki is only 29, and We Are Aliens is his first feature-length directorial effort. He studied in the Department of Design at Tokyo University of the Arts and built his name with stage visuals, commercials and music videos.
If that name rings a bell, it should. He directed, storyboarded and animated the official music video for YOASOBI’s ‘Comet’, the ending theme for BEASTARS season 2. That video already proved he can pack a ton of feeling into a few minutes.
For this film he took on everything: planning, screenplay, direction, storyboards and editing. That’s an enormous amount of control for a debut, and it shows in how unified the vision looks.
The production is also a cross-continental team-up. Japanese film label NOTHING NEW handled planning and production, while French studio Miyu Productions came in with production cooperation. Japan and France joining forces for a story about misunderstanding and distance? Poetic.
The Cast and Music
| Role | Adult Version | Child Version |
|---|---|---|
| Tsubasa | Ryōta Bandō | Yūto Maki |
| Gyotaro | Amane Okayama | Tasuku Nakagome |
| Konatsu Meguro | Ten Yamasaki | Saki Suzuki |
The big headline is Ten Yamasaki of Sakurazaka46 making her voice-acting debut as Konatsu Meguro. Idol-turned-voice-actor casting can go either way, but this role is a major one, and fans are watching closely.
The supporting lineup is fun too:
- Kemuri Matsui (of the comedy duo Reiwa Roman) as Batahara
- Gaku Sano as Seiya Toda
- Edo Harumi as the school’s calligraphy teacher
Then there’s the sound. The soundtrack comes from Yaffle, the producer behind work with Fujii Kaze and Kenshi Yonezu. That pedigree alone is a promise of emotional damage.
The theme song is ‘Sasakure’ by adieu (the musical name of actress Moka Kamishiraishi). The title translates to ‘hangnail’ or ‘split,’ that tiny, annoying tear in your skin that stings way more than it should. Which is exactly what a childhood friendship breakup feels like decades later. Whoever picked that title understood the assignment.
A Festival Run That Reads Like a Flex List
This film has been everywhere in 2026:
- May 14: World premiere at the 79th Cannes Film Festival, Directors’ Fortnight
- June: Official Competition at Annecy in France
- August 9: Australian premiere at Melbourne International Film Festival
- September 24: North American debut at Ottawa International Animation Festival, where it took home awards
- Also: Helsinki, Poland’s Tauron Young Horizons, and Busan
- Most recently: Asian Feature Film Competition at the 37th Singapore International Film Festival, competing for the Silver Screen Awards
Cannes, then Annecy, then a trail of festivals across three continents. For a first feature, that’s a rare path.
Release Dates and What People Are Saying
Japan got the wide theatrical release on September 25, 2026, co-distributed by TOHO NEXT and NOTHING NEW. France is next: December 30, 2026, under the title Un Monde entre nous, via Dulac Distribution.
Early reactions are strong. Actu.fr called it a bitter, funny and deeply tragic look at childhood trauma. On IMDb it’s holding a steady 7.4/10, with viewers pointing to its raw take on bullying, isolation and the long shadow of choices made as a kid.
My Take (Yes, I Have Feelings About This)
What gets me is how small this story is. Anime loves apocalypses and chosen ones, but the scariest thing here is a kid saying something cruel because he’s terrified, then living with it for thirty years. We’ve all got a Gyotaro somewhere, a friend we dropped or hurt or just never called back, and the film seems to know exactly where that bruise is.
The ‘alien’ idea is the sharpest part. Kids reach for that word when they feel different, and adults realize later that everyone felt like an alien. Tsubasa labels Gyotaro as the outsider to protect himself, when the truth is probably that both of them were just scared. Ouch.
Is the hype fully earned? I can’t say for sure until I see the whole thing. But the clip, the director’s track record, the festival buzz and that creative team have me pre-grieving, and I’m weirdly okay with it.
What’s Next?
The big question for Western fans is distribution. Nothing official has been announced for a North American theatrical or streaming release, and everyone is refreshing their feeds. When it happens, clear your schedule, stock up on tissues, and maybe text that old friend first.
