Red Riding Hood: A Detective Story premieres in January 2027 on Crunchyroll

Red Riding Hood: A Detective Story, the anime adaptation of Aito Aoyagi’s mystery novels, will premiere in January 2027. Pony Canyon confirmed the release window, Japanese broadcasters and additional cast members, while Crunchyroll announced that it will stream the series outside Asia. A specific premiere date and a territory-by-territory schedule have not been announced.

What the new announcement confirms

In Japan, the series will air on TOKYO MX, BS Nippon TV and Yomiuri TV. The first full promotional video shows Red Riding Hood meeting Pinocchio and uses that encounter to move from a fairy-tale setting into a criminal investigation. That combination is the premise of the novels: as the protagonist travels through familiar storybook worlds, she encounters crimes and attempts to solve them through observation and deduction.

Yume Miyamoto voices Red Riding Hood, while Akira Sekine plays Pinocchio. The announced cast also includes Takuya Sato as Jill, Atsushi Tamaru as Antonio, Motoko Kumai as Rodrigo, Kotaro Nishiyama as Paolo and Sakiko Uran as Thumbelina. Ryoko Shiraishi serves as narrator. Itsuro Kawasaki is directing and writing the series while also acting as sound director; Mana Minakata and Yuko Yahiro are credited with character design, Jun Ichikawa is composing the music, and BENTEN Film is producing the animation.

The January window is more specific than the initial August announcement, which only placed the project in 2027. It also makes international distribution part of the series’ rollout alongside its first full trailer. Crunchyroll says it will stream the anime worldwide except in Asia, but it has not clarified whether every included territory will receive episodes at the same time or which language options will be offered.

A new adaptation, not a sequel to the film

The anime shares its source material with Once Upon a Crime, the live-action film released by Netflix in September 2023, but it is a separate production. The movie, directed by Yuichi Fukuda and starring Kanna Hashimoto, focused on the mystery involving Cinderella. The animated series has a different cast, a different creative team and a format capable of covering more than one case from the novels. It has not been announced as a sequel or as an animated continuation of the Netflix film.

Publisher Futabasha says the book series has passed 600,000 copies and currently contains four volumes centered on Red Riding Hood’s investigative travels. Beyond Cinderella, the novels draw on characters and situations connected to Pinocchio, One Thousand and One Nights and Aesop’s fables. That catalog gives the anime room to move beyond the case already adapted in live action, although the production has not disclosed an episode count or identified which stories will appear in the first season.

The main development, then, is not only the narrower release window. The announcement positions Red Riding Hood: A Detective Story as a serialized adaptation with confirmed international distribution and an identity separate from the 2023 film. The trailer, cast and staff point to a blend of fantasy, comedy and detection, but conclusions about its final tone or fidelity to the books will have to wait for completed episodes.