Tamal Kundu
Created by Greg Johnson and Craig Kyle, ‘Pacific Rim: The Black’ is an anime entry into the increasingly complex and diverse ‘Pacific Rim’ franchise. Guillermo del Toro’s 2013 original film was heavily inspired by various sections of Japanese pop culture, especially mecha and kaiju. So, the anime addition to this sprawling universe seems only fitting.
The story centers around Taylor (Calum Worthy) and Hayley Travis (Gideon Adlon), siblings who have been separated from their jaeger pilot parents, Brina and Ford, when they were children. After the picturesque valley where they have hidden for the past five years with other young men and women gets attacked by a Copperhead kaiju, the siblings pilot a training jaeger called Atlas Destroyer to barely escape with their lives. As they travel across the desolate landscape of a post-apocalyptic Australia, they come across a mysterious boy with remarkable abilities.
Following its premiere, ‘Pacific Rim: The Black’ garnered positive reviews, with critics praising the anime for its stunning animation, explosive action, and an entertaining central plotline. If you are already done binging the inaugural season and wondering when season 2 will come out, here is what we know.
Pacific Rim: The Black Season 2 Release Date
‘Pacific Rim: The Black’ season 1 premiered on March 4, 2021, in its entirety on Netflix. The inaugural season has seven half-hour-long episodes. Legendary Pictures (which has the rights to the ‘Pacific Rim’ franchise) produced the anime in collaboration with Polygon Pictures, a Tokyo-based 3DCG animation studio. The first two seasons of ‘Pacific Rim: The Black’ were confirmed together.
Speaking at Project Anime, an international conference proceeding Los Angeles’ industry-wide event Anime Exo, Elie Dekel, who was Legendary Entertainment’s Executive Vice President of Brand Development and Consumer Products at the time, said that the anime show had been greenlit for two seasons and would premiere in 2020. However, during the October 2020 virtual Netflix Anime Festival, the streaming service announced that it would come out in 2021.
As for the release date of season 2, neither the studios nor Netflix executives have yet commented on the subject. But considering ‘Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy,’ an anime series that is similar in themes and scope to ‘Pacific Rim: The Black’ and is also developed by Polygon, takes about five to seven months to release a brand-new season, Johnson’s and Kyle’s show might come out with a new season after a similar intermediate period. So, one can expect ‘Pacific Rim: The Black’ season 2 to release in late 2021.
Pacific Rim: The Black Season 2 Plot: What Can it be About?
In the season 1 finale, the Travis siblings and Boy run into Mei in Clayton City. The siblings later discover their parents’ jaeger, Hunter Vertigo, with no sign of Brina or Ford. However, they left a message for whoever comes inside Hunter’s cockpit next, asking them to tell their children that they tried. The Copperhead kaiju tracking the siblings and Boy shows up, prompting the child to transform into a kaiju himself. Ultimately, Mei and Taylor pilot Atlas to fight the kaiju before Hayley kills it with Hunter’s remaining nuclear missile.
In season 2, whether the Precursors (or some other group) created Boy might be revealed. The cult that considers Boy as “Kaiju Messiah” might receive some focus in the upcoming season. We might also learn more about the history between Atlas and Horizon and its crew.
Read More: Pacific Rim: The Black Season 1 Ending, Explained
