Ashita no Nadja returns for free on Toei's YouTube channel

Toei Animation has put Ashita no Nadja back online. The first episode of the 2003 series went up on the studio's own YouTube channel on 23 September, free to watch and filed by Toei as a limited-time release rather than a permanent addition to a streaming catalogue.

The episode, 「ナージャ、運命の扉!!」 (Nadja and the Door of Destiny), arrived on the 東映アニメーションミュージアムチャンネル at 18:00 Japan time on 23 September 2026 and runs just over 24 minutes. The channel labels it 期間限定公開, meaning the episode is only available for a limited window; Toei has not said how long that window is.

A museum channel, not a licensing deal

This is Toei's own archive channel rather than a deal with Netflix or Crunchyroll. The same feed is currently cycling other studio catalogue: episodes of 魔法少女ララベル (Magical Girl Lalabel) and 花の子ルンルン (Lulu, the Flower Girl) for Toei's 魔女っ子60周年 (magical girl 60th anniversary), 宇宙海賊キャプテンハーロック (Space Pirate Captain Harlock) for the Leiji Matsumoto exhibition at the Kadokawa Musashino Museum, and きんぎょ注意報！(Kingyo Chuiho!). Every one of them carries the same limited-time banner, and every one is free while it lasts.

What Ashita no Nadja is

Ashita no Nadja is a Toei Animation original, 50 episodes long, that ran from 2 February 2003 to 25 January 2004 in the Sunday 08:30 slot on the ABC and TV Asahi network. It follows Nadja Applefield, an orphan who travels in search of the mother she believed was dead, and it sits in the Sunday-morning lineage between おジャ魔女どれみドッカ〜ン！ (Ojamajo Doremi Dokkān!) and ふたりはプリキュア (Futari wa Pretty Cure).

The credits are a roll call of the era: original concept under Toei's house pen name Izumi Todo, series composition by Tomoko Konparu, series direction by Takuya Igarashi and character design by Kazuto Nakazawa, with Hiromi Seki producing. Ami Koshimizu voiced Nadja and sang the ending theme 「けせら・せら」; Minako Honda performed the opening, 「ナージャ！」.

New notes from the people who made it

Toei has attached fresh comments to the release. Seki writes that she drafted the proposal at 27, while she was a clerical worker in the planning department, and that getting it approved was what turned her into an assistant producer; she also recalls building a timeline of early 20th-century history for the series and watching twin films back to back while developing Frances and Keith. Konparu writes that she was genuinely surprised to be asked for an original series set in Europe a century earlier, and that Nadja became a girl who looks at tomorrow and walks forward on her own feet.

How to watch it

The episode is on the 東映アニメーションミュージアムチャンネル, and it is free while the window is open. Toei's own release notes also point to the anniversary Blu-ray box set, 「明日のナージャ」アニバーサリーBD-BOX, and to the Kodansha novel 明日のナージャ １６歳の旅立ち (Ashita no Nadja: Departure at Sixteen), which carries the story on; both are Japanese-language releases. The run is aimed at a Japanese audience and no international licensing has been announced.

Our opinion

Toei's museum channel has quietly become the most interesting corner of anime streaming. The paid platforms chase this season's simulcasts while the studio puts its own back catalogue out for nothing, a few episodes at a time, with production notes attached that you would normally pay for at a retrospective screening. Ashita no Nadja is this week's beneficiary, and the choice is not obvious: a 23-year-old Sunday-morning show, better remembered for its antagonist than its heroine, that has had no legal route for most viewers under 30. The 期間限定 approach is the genuinely interesting part, because scarcity is being used as a scheduling device again, the way broadcast used to work. It also means the door shuts. If you have ever been curious about the series that sat between Ojamajo Doremi and Pretty Cure on a Sunday morning, now is the moment to look.