BODY: When the studio behind Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood picks up another Hiromu Arakawa manga, the obvious narrative writes itself β but the team behind Yomi no Tsugai is pushing back on that storyline before it can take hold.
The TV anime adaptation of Arakawa's Yomi no Tsugai (literally "Pair of the Underworld") began airing on TOKYO MX, BS11, and other channels in April. The series is based on the manga serialized in Square Enix's Monthly Shonen Gangan since the January 2022 issue, and it marks Arakawa's first major fantasy work since Silver Spoon wrapped its long agricultural detour.
In a recent interview with MANTANWEB, staff at Bones Film β the spinoff studio that inherited Bones' anime production lineage β emphasized that this project is not a victory lap. Rather than treating the assignment as a return to Arakawa's world, the team framed it as a "challenge" (ζζ¦), explicitly distancing the production from any "once more" framing tied to the Fullmetal Alchemist legacy.
The story follows twin siblings, Yuru and Asa, separated since childhood and pulled into a confrontation involving the tsugai β paired spirit beasts wielded by clans on either side of a sealed boundary. It is darker and more folkloric than Fullmetal, leaning on Tohoku-flavored mythology rather than European alchemy.
The insider take
Bones reorganized in 2024, spinning off its TV anime production arm into Bones Film, and Yomi no Tsugai is one of the first high-profile original-IP showcases under the new banner. Industry watchers in Tokyo read the studio's "not a reunion, a challenge" messaging as both genuine creative positioning and a quiet branding move β Bones Film needs to establish itself as more than the Fullmetal studio's younger sibling, and an Arakawa adaptation that succeeds on its own terms is exactly the calling card it wants.
Originally reported by γ―γ¦γͺγγγ―γγΌγ― (Japanese).