Okay, Pizza Cats people. The last few days have been ABSURD, so here’s the giant pre-TGS news dump. 💚💜

We are now only TWO DAYS AWAY from Samurai Pizza Cats: Blast from the Past! / キャッ党忍伝てやんでえ ～復活のニャンキー！ やっぱり明日は日本晴れ！ getting its world-first playable demo at Tokyo Game Show 2026, beginning September 17 at the Red Dunes Games booth, Hall 7, N03. The demo will let players switch between Yattaro/Speedy, Sukashii/Guido and Pururun/Polly, with combat, platforming and completely new animated sequences created by Blast Zero in the style of the original anime.

And apparently Blast Zero decided that the appropriate way to prepare us for this was to OPEN THE FLOODGATES.

We’ve been getting an almost ridiculous stream of new screenshots, a short teaser trailer and a ton of new artwork, including beautiful new shots of the Nyankī, Otama, Karamaru and other familiar faces. The newly created animation continues to look uncannily faithful to the original series. Even the returning cast have commented on how impressive the recreation is. Ai Orikasa called the reproduction of the original anime’s look essentially “splendid,” while Koichi Yamadera said he initially thought the animation was old footage before learning that Blast Zero had made it from scratch. 😭💚

We’ve ALSO been getting behind-the-scenes material. Blast Zero has shown footage from the soundtrack recording sessions, including live orchestral musicians recording music for the game. Between that and the artwork being shared by the game’s art director, we’re suddenly getting these wonderful little windows into how this thing is actually being made rather than just seeing finished promotional material.

Visit Blast Zero on X, here: https://x.com/blastzero_games?s=11

And then yesterday brought us some Japanese VOICE CAST NEWS.

Several original Japanese cast members are officially back:

Kappei Yamaguchi returns as Yattaro.
Ai Orikasa returns as Pururun.
Ken’yū Horiuchi returns as the Narrator.
Koichi Yamadera is officially back as Karamaru.
And, to my absolute delight, SATOMI KOOROGI IS BACK, NOT ONLY AS OTAMA, BUT SHE’S ALSO VOICING OMITSU (in the absence of late great miss Yuko Mizutani, RIP 💔). 💚

Seiichiro Yamashita voices Sukashii, succeeding original actor Jūrōta Kosugi. The Japanese script for the TGS demo is also being written by Satoru Akahori, the original anime’s series composer/scriptwriter.

Koorogi actually talks about returning to Otama after all these years and says that being able to deliver her familiar “Ikki-ma~su!” again made her happy.

😭 And Yamadera’s reaction might be one of my favourite details of this whole project: he was apparently shocked to discover that the anime sequences weren’t recycled footage.

Akahori himself describes being involved again 35 years later as a miracle and says the quality made him feel as though a genuine new Teyandee production had arrived.

Which pretty much captures why I’m losing my mind over all of this.

This isn’t just somebody licensing Samurai Pizza Cats, slapping the characters onto a competent platformer and collecting nostalgia money. Everything we’re seeing suggests that the people making it are ridiculously invested in getting the tiny details right, right down to rebuilding the visual language of a 1990 anime, bringing back as much of the original Japanese cast as possible, involving one of the original writers, and recording a proper soundtrack.

After spending decades being a fan of an IP that frequently seemed to exist in a cupboard Tatsunoko occasionally remembered to open…

THIS IS VERY WEIRD. I LIKE IT HERE.

And in two days, actual human beings are going to get their hands on the thing.

TGS 2026: September 17–21
📍 Red Dunes Games
📍 Hall 7, Booth N03
🎮 World-first playable demo

The 17th and 18th are business days, with general admission beginning September 19.

Famitsu has the new screenshots, cast comments and a ton more information here:

Famitsu: New Samurai Pizza Cats game cast comments, screenshots & TGS 2026 details⁠

TWO. MORE. DAYS!

At this rate I fully expect Blast Zero to reveal tomorrow that they have located the original Pizza Cat restaurant brick by brick and reconstructed it in their office. 🤣