#ChaO is an Upcoming Human x Mermaid Anime Romance Film Set to Premiere in Summer 2025

STUDIO4℃‘s X (formerly Twitter) account has announced ChaO, a new anime feature where an ordinary office worker finds himself having to marry a mermaid princess.

“A future society where humans and mermaids coexist. Stephen, an office worker, is suddenly asked to marry by Chao, a princess of the mermaid kingdom! A 100% pure love story!” reads the synopsis. 

Don’t expect the typical human-upper-half depiction for the mermaids, however. An official image released by the STUDIO4℃ account shows that ChaO‘s mermaids (or at least Chao herself) will be very fishy.

Yasuhiro Aoki (Psycho-Pass: The Movie co-character designer, SAMURAI NOODLES “THE ORIGINATOR” unit director et al.) is directing ChaO, which has character designs and animation direction from Hirokazu Kojima (Shoka, More Than a Married Couple, But Not Lovers ending design and animation). Hiroshi Takiguchi (Weathering With You) is the background art director.

TOEI is distributing the film in Japan.

For more conventional-looking mermaids, turn your eyes to Goodbye, Lara, an upcoming Kinema Citrus-produced title directed by Takushi Koide (assistant director, revue costume designer, weapon designer et al. for Revue Starlight and its movie sequel), which was announced last year. 

Source: @STUDIO4C