France’s Studio La Cachette and Anime Digital Network (ADN) have teamed up with anime industry leader Toei Animation to bring their action-adventure series Le Collège Noir (six x 15 minutes) to life on screen. 

The 2D toon for tweens/teens is based on a series of comics by French-Belgian author Ulysse Malassagne, who is also writing and directing the TV project. Studio La Cachette is producing Le Collège Noir, which SVOD platform ADN will premiere in France this fall. For its part, Toei will work on distributing the series in Japan and internationally. 

This marks a strategic shift for Toei towards producing anime with a more Western feel to reach new audiences, said senior producer Yosuke Asama in a release. 

Le Collège Noir stars five high school students lost in the mountainous region of central France. They head off on a quest to solve the mystery of their missing classmate and escape creatures found in French folklore. Malassagne has written three comic books in the series, which are geared towards kids ages 11 to 16. 

Studio La Cachette announced Le Collège Noir as part of its slate during Annecy last year. Its other anime-inspired titles include two fantasy-adventure series for tweens called Lance Dur and Dreamland. And the studio has worked on kids projects including Star Wars: Visions (2023) and fantasy feature film Mune: The Guardian of the Moon (2014) in the past.