To celebrate the release of the big Transformers film spin-off, Bumblebee, in Japan last year, a cute short animation debuted that gave fans a quick rundown of the film in a cute chibi anime video. Now that the film has been available on Blu-ray and DVD, Paramount Pictures shared two more of these short chibi anime specials to their Japanese YouTube page.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Directed by Yuzo Yamamoto and featuring returning Bumblebee voice actor from the Japanese dub, Ryohei Kimura, these shorts highlight more of the fish out of water shenanigans fans saw Bumblebee fumble through in the original film. You can check out the shorts in the videos above and below.
These cute new adventures see Bumblebee try to squeeze itself into small spaces (a struggle fans witnessed in the film itself), and even try cooking an omelet with Charlie. With as expansive of an anime past as the Transformers franchise has, fans wouldn’t mind seeing more anime adventures from the Autobots again someday.
In fact, some animation on Transformers‘ original animated series was actually handled by Toei Animation, the studio behind mega-hits Dragon Ball and One Piece. So it’s not too far off to claim that series as an anime if you wanted to. It’s a great argument that anime has always been in the DNA of the franchise in some way, and it’s not a bad avenue to explore further in the future.
Bumblebee is now available on Blu-ray and DVD. Originally released in December last year, the film is directed by Travis Knight, written by Christina Hodson, and stars Hailee Steinfeld, Dylan O’Brian, Angela Bassett, Justin Theroux, Peter Cullen, and John Cena. The film is set in 1987, before the events of the original film, and acts as a semi-soft reboot of the entire Transformers film franchise.
Bumblebee is officially described as such, “On the run in the year 1987, Bumblebee finds refuge in a junkyard in a small Californian beach town. Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld), on the cusp of turning 18 and trying to find her place in the world, discovers Bumblebee, battle-scarred and broken. When Charlie revives him, she quickly learns this is no ordinary, yellow VW bug.”
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