Crunchyroll Commissions Original Anime Art For John Cena’s Birthday

WWE recently announced on its latest investor call that the professional wrestling organization would be partnering with the anime streaming service of Crunchyroll to deliver a mysterious anime project in the future, but the platform also wanted to honor one of the greatest superstars of the company on John Cena’s birthday. Though details regarding the project that will arise from the partnership of Crunchyroll and the WWE are few and far between at this point, we definitely wouldn’t be surprised if John Cena were to make something of an appearance in the mysterious project born from the union.

John Cena certainly isn’t a stranger to the world of anime, recently being compared to a movie poster for the upcoming third film of the My Hero Academia franchise. My Hero Academia: World Heroes’ Mission features Midoriya, Bakugo, and Shoto Todoroki being given something of an upgrade, with the main inheritor of the Quirk of One For All performing Cena’s patented “You Can’t See Me” hand gesture. Gaining the attention of Cena himself, the WWE legend proved himself to be a fan of Kohei Horikoshi’s Shonen franchise and shared his enthusiasm that All Might’s pupil was also showing off Cena’s moves.

Crunchyroll shared the commission artwork by artist ZZYZZYY that imagines what World Wrestling Entertainment’s John Cena might look like if he were given an anime adaptation of his own, bringing wrestling to the medium of anime once again:

While there hasn’t been any WWE anime projects in the past, there has been plenty of anime series that have dived headfirst into the world of professional wrestling, including the likes of Ultimate Muscle, Baki The Grappler, I Wanna Be The Strongest In The World, and Tiger Mask listed as some of the most popular. John Cena, likewise, hasn’t appeared in an anime series, but he has appeared in plenty of pop culture movies in the past such as Bumblebee and has more slated for later this year in The Suicide Squad and Fast And Furious 9.

What do you think of this original take on John Cena? What is your guess about the anime project that is brewing between WWE and Crunchyroll? Feel free to let us know in the comments or hit me up directly on Twitter @EVComedy to talk all things comics, anime, and the world of professional wrestling.