Future GPX Cyber Formula ASURADA Opens February 19, 2027: Direct SIN Sequel, New Machines, and 1,900-Yen Advance Tickets Explained

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The new short anime Future GPX Cyber Formula ASURADA hits theaters across Japan starting Friday, February 19, 2027. Positioned as the direct sequel to the fourth OVA series, Future GPX Cyber Formula SIN (1998), it’s a roughly six-minute short depicting “a new year of Cyber Formula,” meaning a new Grand Prix season. It screens as a double bill with the HD remastered TV series compilation Future GPX Cyber Formula EARLYDAYS RENEWAL MOVIE EDITION, and Movie Ticket card-type advance tickets are 1,900 yen each for general admission. Sales began Saturday, September 26, 2026.

The biggest thing in this latest batch of news is the reveal of two Shoji Kawamori machine designs: the completely new Cyber Machine “Zenith Asurada AKF-S0/G,” and the first look at “Ohtori Ogre AA-1.” Asurada and Ogre. The moment those two names appeared side by side, anyone who lived through the original era sat up straight.

Full disclosure: I’m a mid-forties guy who plays with a Valkyrie model kit on his desk, running it through all three transformation modes. I’m weak to the name Shoji Kawamori. And that same Kawamori drew a brand-new Cyber Machine in 2026 — I read this news on the train home from Akihabara and my grip on the phone tightened a little.

In this article I’ll organize the confirmed details, staff, new machines, ticket prices, and theater list based on primary information from the official site (as of September 2026). Then I’ll write up both what there is to look forward to and what honestly gives me pause.

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What is Future GPX Cyber Formula ASURADA? A new short anime for the 35th anniversary

Future GPX Cyber Formula ASURADA is a roughly six-minute new short anime produced to commemorate the series’ 35th anniversary, and it opens in theaters on Friday, February 19, 2027.

The series hit its 35th anniversary in 2026. The new short anime being made as that commemorative project has now had its official title confirmed as “ASURADA,” and a newly drawn theatrical announcement visual by character designer Hirokazu Hisayuki and chief mechanical animation director Tomo Shigeta was unveiled alongside it.

Mitsuo Fukuda directs and writes. Hirokazu Hisayuki handles character design, Shoji Kawamori handles Cyber Machine design, Sunrise is behind planning and production, and Bandai Namco Filmworks is producing and distributing. The cast has Jun’ichi Kanemaru as Hayato Kazami, Kotono Mitsuishi as Asuka Sugo, Toshihiko Seki as Bleed Kaga, Yuri Amano as Kyoko Aoi, and Shuichi Ikeda as Kyoshiro Nagumo. The fact that the original cast lines up intact tells you how seriously this project is being taken.

The official site has also published a comment from series general director Mitsuo Fukuda. It’s the single most information-dense primary source in this announcement.

This piece is a short animation delivered in an extremely brief runtime of about six minutes. Within that, however, we have condensed “a new year of Cyber Formula.” (…) And on the visual side, from the characters all the way through to the Cyber Machines, we have used no CG whatsoever — everything is fully hand-drawn animation.

Source:Future GPX Cyber Formula OFFICIAL WEB

“No CG whatsoever, everything fully hand-drawn.” I’ll go ahead and declare that this is the single biggest draw here. Fully hand-drawn mecha in a 2026 theatrical anime, and racing on top of that — look at the cost structure and it isn’t a sane decision. But it’s also a luxury that only works precisely because the runtime is about six minutes.

Fukuda has also stated outright that racing regulations, designs, and various other settings were re-examined and rebuilt from scratch. In other words, “ASURADA” isn’t aiming for “that nostalgic look one more time.” It’s aiming for Cyber Formula reconstructed as a contemporary piece of filmmaking.

Release date, double bill, staff, and tickets: everything announced so far

Here’s every piece of ASURADA information made public as of September 2026, in a single table. Where something hasn’t been announced, the table honestly says “unannounced.”

Table it out and you can see that everything that’s been decided has been decided. The only gaps are exhibition details: the total runtime of the double bill, day-of ticket pricing, and the screening period. Special events like opening-day stage greetings haven’t been announced either.

What does it mean for this to be a direct sequel to “SIN”?

ASURADA being a direct sequel to “SIN” means the story that ran on from the TV series is moving forward again after 28 years.

Let’s get the timeline straight. The TV series ran 37 episodes, from March 15 to December 20, 1991. After that came the OVAs “11,” “ZERO,” “SAGA,” and “SIN,” with the two-episode compilation “EARLYDAYS RENEWAL” produced alongside them in 1996.

“SIN” was the story where Aoi ZIP Formula’s Bleed Kaga inherited the Ogre from Kyoshiro Nagumo and went head-to-head against Hayato’s Nu Asurada AKF-0/G. Read that and it’s instantly obvious why Jun’ichi Kanemaru, Toshihiko Seki, and Shuichi Ikeda are all sitting on this cast list.

Take it from a guy on his second divorce: men generally spend their whole lives dragging “the rest of that one race” behind them. Twenty-eight years after the final scene of “SIN,” Hayato and Kaga are trying to stand on the same circuit again. That alone is enough to hit you right in the chest, isn’t it?

What makes the new Cyber Machines Zenith Asurada AKF-S0/G and Ohtori Ogre AA-1 special?

What makes these two new machines special is that Shoji Kawamori, the man who has handled machine design across the entire series, drew a completely new Asurada and a completely new Ogre in year 35.

Look at the model numbers and the positioning shows through. The Nu Asurada Hayato drove in “SIN” carried the model number AKF-0/G. The new “Zenith Asurada” is AKF-S0/G, inheriting the AKF-plus-“/G” naming convention wholesale. Kaga’s Ogre, meanwhile, was “Experion Z/A-10 Ogre AN-21” as of “SIN,” but the new machine is “Ohtori Ogre AA-1.” Reverting to “1” reads like a declaration that the lineage is being rebuilt from the ground up. It dovetails neatly with Fukuda’s statement about rebuilding the various settings from scratch.

And then there’s Shoji Kawamori. The man who drilled the logic of transformable aircraft into the world with the Valkyrie from Macross. Speaking as a modeler who has painted plenty of Valkyries and Scopedogs in full, no-modifications builds, what makes a Kawamori design feel so good is that “it makes sense as a mechanism” always sits underneath “it looks cool as a drawing.” The flow of a Cyber Machine’s wings and cowling isn’t just streamlining, it has reasoning about accelerating built into it, and that’s why you never get tired of looking at it.

And those designs will move in fully hand-drawn animation with no CG. I can already picture how beautiful the lines will look once they get turned into model kits, and the fact that MegaHouse is on board as planning cooperation is something no figure collector should overlook. Scene cuts from “ASURADA” have also been revealed for the first time.

How different is the co-featured EARLYDAYS RENEWAL MOVIE EDITION?

EARLYDAYS RENEWAL MOVIE EDITION is a theatrical version of the two-episode compilation produced in 1996, given an HD remaster and re-edited under the supervision of series general director Mitsuo Fukuda.

The original compilation condensed all 37 TV episodes into two, following 14-year-old Hayato Kazami from meeting Asurada through the death of his father to climbing into the Super Asurada. Mutsumi Inomata did original character concepts, Takahiro Yoshimatsu did character design, Shoji Kawamori (Studio Nue) did machine design, and Ko Otani composed. The original lineup is intact, right down to Kenichi Ono as Asurada, Sho Hayami as Knight Shoemach, and Hikaru Midorikawa as Naoki Shinjo.

This pairing is genuinely well put together. Newcomers grab the world through the compilation, then immediately take the roughly six minutes of “ASURADA” straight to the face as the present day. As an entry point to the 35th anniversary, you couldn’t design anything more legible. For longtime fans, it’s a rare chance to compare the Inomata-Yoshimatsu look and the contemporary Hisayuki-Shigeta look on the same day.

How much are advance tickets, where can you buy them, and how many theaters are screening it?

Movie Ticket card-type advance tickets are 1,900 yen each for general admission, on sale since Saturday, September 26, 2026, at participating theaters, the Meijar online store, MOVIE WALKER STORE, and elsewhere. Twenty-five theaters nationwide are screening the film.

There are two card designs, “CHALLENGER” and “WINNERS.” Theater box offices began sales when doors opened on September 26 (excluding some venues), and online stores started at 14:00 the same day. Quantities are limited and sales end when stock runs out, with purchase limits varying by theater and online retailer. On top of that, an Animate-exclusive Movie Ticket bundled with a “Super Asurada 01” acrylic stand is also being sold.

One thing to watch for. The official site notes that the title printed on the back of the Movie Ticket card reads “remastered version” while the work’s title is “MOVIE EDITION,” a slight discrepancy, but confirms the ticket can be used for admission without any problem. Mismatched text on a ticket makes anyone nervous, but the official word is out, so relax.

The screening lineup spans 25 theaters nationwide, from Sapporo Cinema Frontier in Hokkaido to Southern Plex in Okinawa. Tokyo gets Shinjuku Piccadilly, Kanagawa gets Yokohama Burg 13 and Cinecitta Kawasaki, and Osaka gets Osaka Station City Cinema and Namba Parks Cinema, with the lineup built largely around MOVIX venues. Movie Ticket cards are handled at 24 of them, with only Southern Plex in Okinawa not carrying them. Theaters are subject to change, so please confirm before you go.

What to look forward to with “ASURADA,” and what honestly gives me pause

The single biggest thing to look forward to is the triple package of “new Kawamori machines plus a direct sequel to SIN plus all hand-drawn animation.” What gives me pause is the roughly six-minute runtime, and the fact that the screening scale and day-of pricing are unannounced.

Let me stack up the good. The continuation of “SIN” is moving again after 28 years, Mitsuo Fukuda is both directing and writing, and the original cast is assembled. The machines are Kawamori designs, and there’s even a built-in old-versus-new contrast structure in Zenith Asurada AKF-S0/G against Ohtori Ogre AA-1. You get all of this for a 1,900 yen advance ticket, as a double bill with an HD remastered compilation, so I’ll flatly say the value proposition is high.

On the other hand, here’s what nags. “ASURADA” runs about six minutes. Declaring that you’ll depict “a new year” in six minutes also means, flipped around, that you can’t fully depict a year’s worth of drama. Fukuda’s comment stops at describing “a glimpse of the beginning and of change,” so it’s natural to read this as a story that doesn’t conclude. No sequel or series continuation has been announced as of September 2026.

The screening scale deserves a careful look too. Twenty-five theaters nationwide is clearly limited compared to the several-hundred-screen rollouts of major theatrical anime. The screening period and day-of ticket price are both unannounced, and depending on where you live, the nearest theater could mean a serious trip. From my own experience going to Akihabara once a week, limited rollouts like this tend to sell out fast in the opening week. Preorders for the Animate-exclusive edition close Thursday, December 17, 2026. You don’t have much time to dither.

Summary: Cyber Formula ASURADA takes the green flag February 19, 2027, at 25 theaters

Here’s the bottom line again. Future GPX Cyber Formula ASURADA opens Friday, February 19, 2027, as a roughly six-minute new short anime that serves as the direct sequel to “SIN” (1998). It screens alongside EARLYDAYS RENEWAL MOVIE EDITION (HD remaster) at 25 theaters nationwide. Movie Ticket card-type advance tickets are 1,900 yen each for general admission (two designs, CHALLENGER and WINNERS), already on sale as of September 26, 2026, and the Animate-exclusive version with an acrylic stand is 3,550 yen (tax included) with preorders open through December 17.

Mitsuo Fukuda directs and writes, Hirokazu Hisayuki handles character design, Shoji Kawamori handles Cyber Machine design, and Tomo Shigeta is chief mechanical animation director. The new machines are “Zenith Asurada AKF-S0/G” and “Ohtori Ogre AA-1.” The double bill’s total runtime, day-of ticket pricing, and screening period are all unannounced (everything above as of September 2026, verified on the official site).

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