AREA 35 representative and creator Hiroaki Yura said the TINY METAL anime project is moving forward through connections with friends, among them Studio Khara CG director Hiroyasu Kobayashi. He spoke in an interview with Game*Spark held at the company's Tokyo Game Show 2026 booth and published October 4, 2026, where he also revealed a new character for TINY METAL 2, information he said he had not given to any media before.
Yura said he wanted to make anime in order to spread the IP, because anime has become, in his words, everyone's content around the world. A barista at a cafe he stopped into in Atlanta once talked to him in depth about anime, he said, which showed him how high American awareness of anime has become. He also contrasted the two media: a game has its own rhythm, with the player deciding the timing, while an anime carries a story from A to B, so he wants to put on screen the parts only anime can tell.
AREA 35 premiered the animated short film TINY METAL: ZERO LINE at Japan Expo 2026 in Paris on July 9, and the anime's official site credits Kobayashi as director. An AREA 35 press release distributed by Anime News Network says animation studio SAFEHOUSE, which is already creating the cinematics for TINY METAL 2, has joined the anime, and that the official teaser is available worldwide.
The new character is a shop clerk rather than a playable character, designed by Yusuke Kozaki. Yura said the idea came from advice he received at Paris Games Week last year that the game would be better with a "wife character," which the Game*Spark writer explains as a character a player would want to marry. AREA 35's characters are all serious, he said, so the game had no one of that type, and the concept started from aiming for that contrast. Players will have plenty of exchanges with her, such as being handed items at their base.
On the writing of TINY METAL 2, Yura said Michael Chu, a former Blizzard writer, wrote the story first, since Chu does not write Japanese. A Japanese scriptwriter then joined to localize the script, building Japanese DNA into the text before it was turned back into English, which Yura described as a close collaboration.
Yura traced the series to Nintendo's Famicom Wars, which he said he loves. He wanted to play a remake, and when none appeared he decided to make one himself. The first TINY METAL grew out of that respect, he said, but he did not want to leave it there: he cut elements that let units jam up, added attacks that flank enemies from behind, and worked in military ideas such as being unable to attack enemies you cannot see unless you build radar.
Asked about the state of development, Yura joked that it is currently ablaze. Simply finishing the game is not enough, he said, because everyone on the team is staking their life and career on it. He is aiming for three kinds of success: players feeling the game was worth playing, critics calling it interesting, and the game selling. The development team's average age is 29, he said, and AREA 35 has grown into a company of about 120 people. Asked for a message to fans who have followed the studio, including those waiting on Project Phoenix, he said that Project Phoenix is alive.