Klonoa Anime Project

Timeline, History and Information

A feature-length film adaptation of Bandai Namco’s Klonoa series was in development at Henshin, Inc. from mid 2016 to late 2018. Following two years of no major production updates, almost all people involved in production were removed from the project in September 2018 and the film was confirmed to be cancelled in January 2019.

An explicit reason for the film’s cancellation was never revealed, though it was likely due to failure to find a distributor. Henshin had little to no communication with Bandai Namco during the movie’s production, and the latter was unaware of why it was cancelled.

This document was created with the goal of documenting and archiving all known information related to this film’s production, and to raise awareness of the film’s existence within and outside of the Klonoa fandom.

Disclaimer

Do not attempt to contact any current or former staff of Henshin, Inc. All personnel are under a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) that prohibits any discussion of the film. Any form of contact with Henshin, Inc. staff is not only likely to be unproductive, but may result in serious legal repercussions for parties involved.

Do not attempt to contact any current or former staff of Bandai Namco. The company had little-to-no involvement in the film’s production itself, and it’s likely they know just as much as we do.

If your name is mentioned on this document and you would like it withheld, please contact us at klonoamoviesearch@gmail.com.

About The Film

An untitled film adaptation of Klonoa was in the planning stages of production at Henshin, Inc. from late 2016 to mid 2018. The film was set to be a feature-length anime set in the same universe as the video games, featuring an original story written by Hitoshi Ariga.

It's unknown exactly when the film began development, but a tweet from Rob Pereyda reveals he was planning the film for eighteen months before its announcement (est. May 2015). The earliest known reference to the Klonoa film online was on the 11th of October 2016, when an untitled project was added to Henshin’s website with the description “Anime adaptation of Japanese video game”.

The film was announced on October 27th, 2016 at TIFFCOM, as reported by this Variety article with Henshin founder Rob Pereyda set to produce and Hitoshi Ariga set to write the script and design the characters. Hideo Yoshizawa (creator of Klonoa) was brought on as an executive producer shortly after the film's announcement. Development began in early 2017, with story meetings being held involving Ariga, Yoshizawa and Pereyda. According to the films IMDb Pro page, script-writing began in June 2017. No formal announcements were made, though Henshin’s twitter account was active and regularly engaged with fans. At the end of the year, Rob Pereyda announced that the film crew was “in a position to get to work on finance and distribution partnerships”.

In September 2018, all information regarding the film was removed from Henshin’s website, their socials and Pereyda’s LinkedIn page. In addition, all crew members were removed from the films IMDb Pro page (Ariga initially remained, but was removed shortly thereafter). The film’s twitter account made a tweet saying that the project was not cancelled, though the “who/how/what might look a bit different”. Ariga continued to assure fans that the film wasn’t cancelled, but did not offer any further information.

On the 31st of December 2018, Henshin officially confirmed they were no longer involved in the film. Four days later, Ariga officially confirmed the film's cancellation, though he said he could not offer a specific reason. A tweet from Katsuhiro Harada (producer at Bandai-Namco) revealed Bandai-Namco had little involvement in the film and was not responsible for its demise, and they themselves were surprised by the film's cancellation. As of 2026, no further information on the film has been released. The last public mention of it was from associate producer Ash Paulsen in a tweet from February 2023, praising the film's script but being unable to offer any further information due to “potential legal repercussions”.

Plot Summary

Klonoa is called to the clockwork forest of Galdheim, whose benevolent ruler has fallen under a curse of eternal slumber. As a nightmare falls upon the kingdom, Klonoa and his friends must find a way to protect all they hold dear - and the strength of their friendship just might be the key.

*This summary has never been confirmed to be legitimate, as no source involved in the film’s production who has been consulted has been able to verify or deny it.

Characters

Klonoa
Huepow

Locations

Galdheim (unconfirmed)

Casting

While it’s unlikely the film got far enough into production for any casting decisions to be made, in a tweet that unfortunately remains unarchived, Pereyda mentions “casting @TeamHenshin projects!” with Ash Paulsen, mentioning wanting to utilize SAG-AFTRA voice actors. As of now, it is unknown whether or not the Klonoa film was among those projects.

Shortly after the film's announcement, Ariga stated on Twitter that the film's audio would be in Phantomilian (language used in the Klonoa games) with English and Japanese subtitles.

In an episode of GameXplain’s Real Talk podcast, associate producer Ash Paulsen said one of his responsibilities was selecting English voice actors, indicating that the Phantomiian audio was either scrapped or it was decided that the film would be dubbed in other languages.

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