Galaxy Express 999 film reveals its first teaser visual

The new theatrical film of Galaxy Express 999 has shown its first teaser visual, and the only place to see it so far is a gallery in Saitama. The exhibition Galaxy Express 999 50th Anniversary Project - Matsumoto Leiji Exhibition: A Journey of Creation opens on 19 September at the Kadokawa Musashino Museum in Tokorozawa and runs until 26 October, and Kadokawa Media House confirmed in a release dated 18 September that the teaser visual for the new film is unveiled there for the first time.

What is actually known about the film

Toei Animation announced the production on 25 July 2026. The original story concept comes from Rintaro, whose credits include the 1979 Galaxy Express 999 film and Metropolis in 2001, and animation production sits with Toei Animation, which marks its 70th anniversary this year. Makiko Matsumoto, president of Leijisha, the company founded by the manga author Leiji Matsumoto, said in the statement released with the announcement that the new work was her father's long-held wish and that animated film-making had been his dream since childhood.

No date, no cast, no distribution

That is the extent of it. There is no release date, no cast or staff list beyond the concept credit and no word on international distribution, and the exhibition is doing most of the announcing work: alongside the teaser visual, the museum is offering three venue-only admission gifts, original merchandise and collaboration drinks. Galaxy Express 999 ran as a manga from 1977 to 1981 and was adapted for television and film while it was still serialising, which is the reason a 50th anniversary project has been running for a while before this film had anything to show.

Our opinion

A film that launches with a picture you have to buy a ticket to see is a pleasantly old-fashioned move. Teaser art has become a free commodity, posted at midnight and screenshotted into oblivion inside the hour, so putting the first one behind a museum door is either a confident artistic statement or an admission that there is nothing else ready yet. My reading is a bit of both, and nobody involved is pretending otherwise. What the announcement does establish is more useful than a date: Rintaro has the story concept and Toei's feature pipeline is behind the animation, which is a specific promise about tone in a way that a 2027 placeholder would not be. The frustrating part is the deliberate silence around everything else, and the queue of people who will pay to stand in front of a picture frame tells the studio that the silence is working. After nearly five decades of reissues, this franchise is finally asking for something other than nostalgia.