Pinocchio

Red Riding Hood: A Detective Story, known in Japan as Akazukin, Tabi no Tochuu de Shitai to Deau., is a TV anime planned for January 2027. The Japanese title means "Red Riding Hood Meets a Corpse on Her Journey." It is based on a series of mystery novels by Aito Aoyagi, published by Futabasha since August 2020. There were four books by July 2025, and more than 600,000 copies were in print by August 2026. The story has already been made into a live-action film: Netflix released Once Upon a Crime around the world in September 2023, starring Kanna Hashimoto. The idea is simple and clever. Everyone knows the old tale of the girl in the red hood who walks through the woods to visit her grandmother. In this version, she is not just a sweet girl with a basket. She is smart, curious, and very good at noticing small details. While she travels through a world built from famous fairy tales, she keeps running into dead bodies and strange crimes. Each time, she has to use her mind to work out what really happened. That makes the series a "whodunit," a mystery where the fun is trying to guess who did the crime and how. Part of the charm is that the crimes happen inside stories we already know. Characters like Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, and Sleeping Beauty show up, but their tales take dark and surprising turns. In the books, Red Riding Hood's journey also leads her into stories connected to Pinocchio, the Arabian Nights, and Aesop's fables. Pinocchio, the wooden puppet who wants to be a real boy, is one of the main characters in the anime. The tone mixes a bright, storybook look with real puzzles and crime. Fans of fairy tales will enjoy spotting what has been changed, and fans of detective stories will enjoy the logic. Because the whole point is solving each case, it is best to watch without reading spoilers about who is guilty. The anime is produced by Benten Film. Itsuro Kawasaki directs it and also writes the scripts. Character designs are by Manami Minakata and Yuko Yahiro, and the music is by Jun Ichikawa. Yume Miyamoto voices Akazukin, the Japanese name for Red Riding Hood, and Akira Sekine voices Pinocchio. The show will air on Tokyo MX and other stations in Japan, and Crunchyroll will stream it worldwide, outside of Asia. For viewers who like mysteries with a twist, or who enjoy seeing childhood stories retold in a darker and smarter way, this new detective series is one to watch next winter.