Fifty-Five Years for a Pre-Ghibli Panda
Panda! Go, Panda! opened in Japanese theaters in 1972, in the middle of the country's panda boom, as an original mid-length anime from the Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki team. The sequel, Panda! Go, Panda!: The Rainy Day Circus, followed in 1973. Japanese anime news site Anime Anime describes the two films as the wellspring of the Takahata and Miyazaki work that came later. They have kept a multi-generational audience in Japan ever since. Both are held by TMS Entertainment (Detective Conan, Lupin III), which is running the anniversary program.
The first piece of the project to surface is the logo. It builds on the shot of Papa Panda, Mimiko and Panny peeking around a door, redrawn so the door frame becomes the entrance to the anniversary. TMS says the campaign is meant to let more people feel the warmth of the films and to deliver a small piece of everyday happiness.
This is not the first time the films have been dusted off. The 50th anniversary in 2022 brought congratulatory comments from public figures, commemorative merchandise and a batch of collaborations, and it launched a touring Panda! Go, Panda! Exhibition. That show has since visited seven venues, and its current stop is the Kitakyushu City Manga Museum.
A Circus That Sets Up Inside a Bookstore
The biggest item in the first wave is Panda! Go, Panda! Book Circus, a pop-up tour of four cities that starts October 8, 2026. The hook comes straight out of The Rainy Day Circus, where a circus troupe rolls into town and Papa Panda and company spring into action after meeting the tiger cub Tora-chan, called Tiny in English releases. The pop-up asks what would happen if that circus pitched its tent in a bookstore instead, and it comes with an original line of goods.
The schedule, per Anime Anime, splits into two blocks. Maruzen's Marunouchi flagship bookstore in Tokyo runs October 8 to November 3, and MARUZEN & Junkudo Umeda in Osaka runs October 8 to November 1. Maruzen Hakata in Fukuoka and MARUZEN & Junkudo Sapporo in Hokkaido both run November 11 to November 29.
The Marunouchi stop gets an extra: M&C Cafe Marunouchi Oazo, the cafe attached to that Maruzen store, is putting a special Panda! Go, Panda! curry on the menu, modeled on the curry rice that appears in the film, along with other collaboration items.
Lawson Turns the Anniversary Blue
Convenience store chain Lawson has joined as well, with a collaboration goods line arriving the same day, October 8. The designs use Lawson's corporate blue as their base, and the goods will be stocked in the book sections of Lawson stores nationwide. The chain's in-store Lawson Print multi-copy machines will also sell original stickers.
Separately, TMS announced the first wave of anniversary merchandise, all of it shipping in October 2026. There is a Tora-chan plush mascot in a sitting pose at ¥2,200 (about $15), a palm-sized Blind Mini Mini Tote in eight blind-boxed variants at ¥880 each, two designs of message paper called Itadakimasu and Ongakutai at ¥660 each, and two deco sticker sets at ¥605 each, meant to be cut up and arranged however you like.
Looking Ahead
TMS says further plans will be announced in stages. The project runs until 2028, the year the sequel reaches its own 55th anniversary, so the October rollout is the opening move rather than the whole campaign.
For fans outside Japan, the news is mixed. Nothing announced here is available outside the country. The four pop-up venues, the cafe menu and the Lawson goods are all domestic, and no overseas release for the merchandise has been mentioned. The films themselves are easier to reach. GKIDS is the current North American licensee, and both shorts have been on Blu-ray in the region since Discotek Media's 2016 edition, which GKIDS re-released in 2022.
(C)TMS