Grotesqqque, the original anime film from director Atsushi Nishigori and CloverWorks, is getting a U.S. premiere. The Japan Society announced on September 27 that it will host the film’s U.S. debut in New York City on October 8, in collaboration with CloverWorks and Aniplex of America.
Director Nishigori will give a pre-screening introduction in person at the event, which makes the screening something more than a standard festival booking — it puts the director in the room for the film’s first American audience.
Where the film has already screened
Grotesqqque — previously titled simply Grotesque — held its world premiere at this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal, which ran from July 16 to August 2. The film will open in Japan on November 6, a little under a month after the New York event.
What the film is
It is an omnibus film built from three stories with different worldviews rather than a single continuous narrative. Nishigori is directing, writing the screenplay and designing the characters — a triple role that shapes everything from the film’s structure to its look. His previous credits include The IDOLM@STER and DARLING in the FRANXX, two projects he is closely associated with as a director.
The band METALVERSE performs the opening theme song, “Shoot Shoot Shoot.” Haoto performs the ending theme, with lyrics by momosu momosu.
The title change from Grotesque to Grotesqqque happened during production, and the extra letters are part of how the film has been presented in recent promotional material.
Who is behind it
The film comes from JOEN, the company jointly established by Sony’s Aniplex, its CloverWorks animation studio, Production I.G’s sister company Wit Studio and publisher Shueisha. CloverWorks producer Yūichi Fukushima and Wit Studio producer Tetsuya Nakatake serve as JOEN’s representative directors.
That structure matters for how the film was made. Grouping Aniplex, two animation studios and a publisher under one banner means a single original project can draw on both studios’ production teams and a publisher’s reach at once, instead of being assembled deal by deal.
Why it matters
The New York screening follows a familiar pattern for anime films with festival ambitions: a world premiere on the circuit, a regional premiere in a major city, and then a domestic theatrical run. For U.S. audiences who follow Nishigori’s work, the Japan Society event is the first chance to see the film on a big screen, and the in-person introduction is a rarer extra than the programming itself.
It also underlines what JOEN is for. The venture was set up to pool the production capacity and IP reach of two studios and a publisher under the Aniplex umbrella, and Grotesqqque is one of the clearest examples of that model reaching audiences outside Japan. If the film performs well in its Japanese run, it is the kind of original project that tends to shape how much appetite there is for more non-adaptation features.
No U.S. theatrical release beyond the October 8 premiere has been announced, and the film’s wider international distribution is still unconfirmed. For more on the autumn anime slate, see our Fall 2026 anime season guide, and for another film heading to U.S. theaters, our coverage of Dive in Wonderland’s one-day release.
Source: Anime News Network
Featured image: Key visual for the Grotesqqque anime film, via Anime News Network.
