Rakuen Tsuihou: Kokoro no Resonance

Expelled from Paradise: Resonance from the Heart (Rakuen Tsuihou: Kokoro no Resonance) is a new feature film and the sequel to Expelled from Paradise, a 2014 science-fiction movie. It opens in Japanese theaters on November 13, 2026. Toei Animation first announced it in January 2024 at an online event. The main team from the first film is back. Seiji Mizushima, known for the first Fullmetal Alchemist anime, directs. Gen Urobuchi of Nitroplus, the writer of Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Psycho-Pass, writes the story. Masatsugu Saito designs the characters, and NARASAKI makes the music. Rie Kugimiya returns as the voice of the heroine, Angela Balzac.

Like the first film, this one is made mostly with 3D computer graphics (CG) rather than hand-drawn animation. The first film was a 104-minute movie made by Toei with the CG studio Graphinica. Many viewers praised it for its striking action and for showing that CG anime could look great.

To understand the sequel, it helps to know the world. In the future, most of humanity has left the ruined surface of Earth. Many people now live inside DEVA, a huge space station. There, they no longer have physical bodies. Their minds exist as digital data in a perfect virtual world. Angela Balzac is an officer in DEVA's security force. In the first film, she was sent down to Earth in a real, cloned human body to track down a mysterious hacker known as Frontier Setter. On the harsh, dusty surface, she worked with Dingo, a relaxed, guitar-playing man who lives on Earth and knows how to survive there. Angela, who had always seen life on Earth as worse than life in DEVA, slowly started to see things differently.

The new film continues the story of this world and its characters. Official trailers have teased a new threat, and there are big robot battles, called mecha action, in the tradition of the first movie. So far, only a few plot details have been shared publicly, so this overview does not guess beyond that.

The series is known for asking big questions: What makes a person human? Is a mind without a body still alive? Can an artificial intelligence have a heart? The title word "resonance" suggests the new film will again explore how different kinds of minds connect.

Watching the 2014 film first is strongly recommended. A related game, Expelled from Paradise: The Stellar Angel, is also coming to Nintendo Switch and PC in late 2026.