Mamoru Hosoda’s Upcoming Film Scarlet Gets First Trailer

By Elijah Gonzalez  |  August 1, 2025 | 12:30pm
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Mamoru Hosoda’s Upcoming Film Scarlet Gets First Trailer

The first trailer for Mamoru Hosoda’s highly anticipated new film Scarlet dropped today, showing off the movie’s unique 3D animated look and reality-spanning action.

[Skip the following two paragraphs if you don’t want spoilers about the movie’s setup]

In it, we see the princess Scarlet watch as her father, the king, is executed by her uncle Claudius, who then seizes the throne. She swears revenge. According to the trailer’s YouTube description (take this with a grain of salt because the following is from Google Translate), the bulk of the story takes place after Scarlet attempts to get revenge and fails, ending up in the Land of the Dead. Here, she meets Hijiri, a paramedic from modern-day Japan, who disapproves of her continued quest for vengeance, as she attempts to kill this world’s version of Claudius.

Hosoda previously mentioned that the film is based on a classic work, and it seems he was referring to Hamlet: in both, the villain is an evil uncle named Claudius, who kills the king (the main character’s father) and steals the throne. It’s also probably not a coincidence that both protagonists’ names end with the same three letters (Scarlet, Hamlet). That said, it seems there will also be quite a few differences with this version of the story, like how the main character is a pink-haired warrior woman who gets stuck in a limbo that abides by different metaphysical rules.

For those unaware of his work, Mamoru Hosoda has directed many of the most notable anime films of the last two decades, including Wolf Children, The Girl Who Lept Through Time, Summer Wars, and more. Scarlet will be his eighth feature film as director, and he will also write its screenplay.

The movie’s animation is being handled by Studio Chizu, which Hosoda worked with on his last four films, and will be distributed by Toho. It’s set for a Japanese release date of November 21 and a worldwide release date of December 12.

You can view the full trailer below:

 
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