A3!

Background

A3! was launched for iOS and Android on January 27, 2017, in Japan. In June 2018, Cybird licensed the game for an English release, which launched on October 23, 2019, and ended services in November 2021. The game's plot follows Mankai Company, a theatre troupe in debt after its former director disappeared, with the player character joining as the new director to repay the debt within a year. The company's actors are split into four troupes: Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, each with its own cast of characters voiced by Japanese and English actors.

The game's success spawned multiple adaptations. A series of stage plays titled Mankai Stage A3! began in 2018, with performances for Spring & Summer and Autumn & Winter troupes, followed by individual troupe shows. An anime adaptation, split into two seasons (Spring & Summer and Autumn & Winter), aired in 2020, with production delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Two live-action films, Mankai Movie A3! Spring & Summer and Mankai Movie A3! Autumn & Winter, were released in December 2021 and March 2022, respectively.

Did You Know?

• A3! was downloaded by 800,000 users within the first three days of its Japanese release.

The Adaptation Landscape

The relationship between Japanese animation and interactive entertainment has produced a substantial body of adapted works. A dedicated catalog exists that collects animated productions whose narratives or characters trace their origins to video games. This encompasses two broad categories: anime that serve as direct adaptations of existing game titles, and animated works whose character rosters were originally conceived within a game's world. The phenomenon is not a niche curiosity but a significant thread running through the history of Japanese animation.

Hand-drawn and computer-generated animated productions alike have drawn upon the storytelling frameworks, character designs, and world-building established in the gaming medium. This cross-pollination reflects a broader cultural ecosystem in which narrative properties migrate fluidly between interactive and passive entertainment formats, with the animated series often serving as an introduction point for audiences who may later explore the source game.

Pokémon: A Landmark Case

One of the most recognizable examples of the video-game-to-anime pipeline is the Pokémon franchise. The original Pokémon video games were released in 1996 for the Game Boy, establishing the foundational property. The following year, in 1997, the Pokémon television series debuted, carrying the franchise into the realm of serialized animated entertainment.

This one-year gap between the game's release and the anime's premiere illustrates how quickly a successful interactive property can be extended into an animated format. The Pokémon case demonstrates the practical mechanics of the adaptation pipeline: a game establishes the foundational world and characters, and an animated series then builds upon that foundation while remaining anchored to the original game's identity. It stands as one of the most prominent examples of the broader relationship between Japanese video games and anime.