Estab Life

Lore & Background

The franchise takes place in the distant future, when the world population has turned to decline. The H.D.E.D. (Human Diversity Experimental Department) is conducted by an ecosystem management AI for the purpose of species prosperity, in addition to ordinary humans, beasts, and various races such as demons and cyborgs. The AI has created many areas surrounded by high walls called 'clusters', and the culture, common sense, and values of each area have been formed. Tonkyork Metropolis (a portmanteau of New York City and Tokyo located in the Kantō region) and Chicagosaka (a portmanteau of Chicago and Osaka located in the Kansai region) are experimental and futuristic cities divided by clusters, with AI monitoring making it impossible for people to come and go freely.

The television series Estab Life: Great Escape follows the Escape Shop Extractors, a mercenary group that helps clients escape their heavily guarded clusters. Key members include Equa, a leader with precognition called Fatal Luck; Feles, a 'Gun Wizard' who manipulates bullets; Martes, a humanoid slime girl; Alga, a robotic technical support; and Ulula, a wolf beastman specializing in close combat. The film Bloody Escape: Jigoku no Tōsō Geki features characters such as Kelvin, Loretta, Cruz, Jimmy, Lalac, Nonoc, Zanza, Zesh, and Yaohachi. The cancelled game Estab Life: Unity Memories would have included characters like Ashley, Herbert, Charles, Occa, Kokuto, Mithril, Fel, Sidden, Hajun Shogun, and Prime Minister Akimori.

Reader's Guide

Estab Life represents a notable attempt at a multi-platform franchise in the early 2020s, combining a television series, a feature film, and a planned mobile game. The project was created by Gorō Taniguchi, with the TV series directed by Hiroyuki Hashimoto and supervised by Shoji Gatoh. The anime was produced by Polygon Pictures, known for its 3D CGI animation. The series aired on Fuji TV's +Ultra programming block and was streamed internationally by Crunchyroll, which also produced an English dub. The film, originally titled Estab Life: Revengers' Road, was delayed and retitled Bloody Escape: Jigoku no Tōsō Geki before its January 2024 release. The mobile game, Estab Life: Unity Memories, was announced as a free-to-play MMORPG developed by Square Enix but was cancelled after the film's release. The franchise's significance lies in its ambitious world-building—a future of walled clusters governed by an AI—and its attempt to tell interconnected stories across different media, though the cancellation of the game limited its expansion.

Did You Know?

• The TV series Estab Life: Great Escape premiered on Fuji TV on Demand on March 1, 2022, before its broadcast on Fuji TV's +Ultra block from April to June 2022.
• The film Bloody Escape: Jigoku no Tōsō Geki was originally titled Estab Life: Revengers' Road and was set for a 2023 release before being delayed and retitled.
• The mobile game Estab Life: Unity Memories, developed by Square Enix, was cancelled after the film's release.
• The setting includes fictional cities Tonkyork Metropolis and Chicagosaka, portmanteaus of New York/Tokyo and Chicago/Osaka respectively.