DC Studios and Warner Bros. Animation announced "Joker: Laugh Riot" anime, directed by Yasuhiro Aoki at Sola Entertainment.
DC Studios and Warner Bros. Animation have announced Joker: Laugh Riot, a new anime series centered on Batman's most iconic adversary, during their presentation at the 2026 Annecy International Animation Film Festival. The project is being billed as DC's first-ever anime television series, a significant milestone for a studio whose animated output has historically been rooted in Western styles. Warner Bros. Animation is partnering with Sola Entertainment on the production, signaling a deeper investment in the medium. The announcement landed as part of the studios' wider World's Finest Animation showcase at the festival.
Leading the series is Yasuhiro Aoki, an award-winning director best known for the animated feature ChaO, who also contributed to The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim and worked on Batman: Gotham Knight in the segment In Darkness Dwells. His selection points to the kind of expressive, visually inventive sensibility that anime can bring to Gotham, a city that has always lent itself to heightened storytelling. Aoki's background in both Japanese animation and prior Batman material makes him a natural fit for a project that aims to reframe a familiar mythology through a new stylistic lens.
What sets Joker: Laugh Riot apart is its premise, which inverts the traditional Batman and Joker dynamic. According to the official synopsis, the story begins after Batman is murdered, prompting the Joker to launch a ruthless crusade through Gotham's underworld to find the killer who took away his greatest adversary. As his violent quest for answers pushes him closer to vigilante than villain, the Joker is forced to confront a destabilizing truth: without Batman, he no longer knows who he is. The concept turns the Clown Prince of Crime into an unlikely investigator driven by a warped sense of loss.
That framing gives the series a distinctly character-driven and psychological hook, positioning the Joker not as a chaotic antagonist but as a figure undone by the absence of the man who defined him. The premise leans into the codependent relationship long explored in Batman comics, where the hero and the villain are often portrayed as two halves of the same whole. By removing Batman entirely, the series proposes to examine what remains of the Joker when his purpose is stripped away, a setup several outlets compared to a darker, more introspective revenge narrative.
The production team brings established credentials to the project. Jim Krieg is attached as executive producer, a veteran of numerous DC animated features, and the series is a joint effort between Warner Bros. Animation, DC Studios, and Sola Entertainment. The involvement of Sola Entertainment, a studio that has helped bring high-profile Western properties into anime production, reinforces the ambition behind the venture. The series was greenlit as an adult-oriented project, with its network and release timing still to be announced.
Joker: Laugh Riot also reflects a broader strategic push by Warner Bros. Animation into anime as a format. Coverage of the announcement noted that Jason DeMarco, Senior Vice President of Action and Anime Development, is helping guide that expansion, suggesting the studio sees the medium as more than a one-off experiment. The move follows a wider industry trend of Western comic-book properties being adapted into anime, including DC's own Suicide Squad Isekai, and indicates that Joker: Laugh Riot may be the first of several such efforts rather than an isolated release.
The announcement arrived amid a packed slate of DC animation reveals at Annecy 2026, including an animated adaptation of Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta's best-selling Absolute Batman and a new Krypto the Superdog series for younger audiences. Within that lineup, Joker: Laugh Riot stood out for its willingness to break from convention, both in its anime format and in its decision to build an entire story around the villain rather than the hero. If the series delivers on its ambitious premise, it could mark a turning point in how DC approaches its most enduring characters on screen.
Reported by Animation Magazine.
