What if Disney villains were the inspiration for a bunch of dark academia anime characters? You can find out this month with the arrival of a new anime.
Disney has released a new trailer for Twisted Wonderland, based on the Japanese mobile game of the same name by Aniplex. Capturing a cult following around the world for character design from Black Butler creator Yana Taboso that mashes together Disney aesthetics with dark fantasy before funneling them through the vessels of waifish anime boys, the game and series follow a magical school where said anime boys are taught the tenets of sorcery inspired by immortalized abstracts of seven classic Disney villains: the Queen of Hearts, Scar, Ursula, Jafar, the Evil Queen, Hades, and Maleficent.
The anime will follow Yuken Enma, a high school student from Tokyo who finds himself magically and mysteriously whisked away to Night Raven College, forced to navigate the strange customs of life at a magical academy while trying to find his way back home to reality. Think isekai trope meets fun inversion of Alice falling into Wonderland, where villains are beloved rather than defeated antagonists, inspirational heads of academic houses that lead to some truly bonkers-looking uniforms—on display in the trailer below as we and Yuken are introduced to the Rose-Red Tyrant Riddle Roseheart, dorm leader for house Heartslabyul, who’s giving major Queen-of-Hearts-meets-Regina-George energy.
It’s no surprise that Disney is leaning all the way in on Twisted Wonderland. People have loved the studio’s classic villains for years and years and have had that fandom satiated with reams of merchandise and spinoffs like the Descendants movies (or even their starring turns as antagonists in things like Kingdom Hearts). There’s even a villains land on the way at Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World!
Thankfully fans won’t have to wait too long to get this particular slice of villain fandom served up: Twisted Wonderland will begin streaming on Disney+ from October 29