Gosho Aoyama's YAIBA art is headed for the ISS: Samurai Legend's space project sends a Miura-folded poster to Kibo before Season 2
Ahead of the Kaguya Arc premiere on January 9, 2027, the YAIBA: Samurai Legend team will ship a new Aoyama illustration and other promo materials to Japan's Kibo module through JAXA's paid utilization program.
Season 2 of YAIBA: Samurai Legend takes Yaiba off the planet, and its promotion is going with him. On October 23 the production team announced a space project that will put a newly drawn Gosho Aoyama illustration aboard the International Space Station, roughly 400 kilometers overhead, in Japan's Kibo module.
In the artwork, Yaiba Kurogane soars past the stars gripping his Dragon God Sword, with Kaguya, the new season's pivotal figure, at his side. It has been printed as an A1 poster and folded using the Miura fold, a technique from space structural engineering, so it fits the tight cargo allowance. It travels in a special envelope stamped "TOP SECRET" and "OPEN ONLY IN SPACE."
The flight is booked through a JAXA scheme that lets companies pay to use Kibo, and the package is still being prepared for loading onto a rocket; no launch date has been given. Further updates are promised once crew members on the station have photographed and filmed it. A teaser video was shot on location at JAXA's Tsukuba facility, in its Rocket Plaza and Space Dome, and the comedy duo Haraichi joins as the project's promotional ambassadors, with comment videos from them and from Aoyama.
Season 2: the Kaguya Arc
The second season premieres on Saturday, January 9, 2027, on Yomiuri TV and the Nippon TV network. The fight leaves Earth for space and becomes a three-cornered contest: Yaiba, still set on becoming the greatest samurai; his rival Takeshi Onimaru, who wants to rule the world; and Kaguya, the Moon's sovereign, stirring after a thousand-year slumber.
WIT STUDIO animates with Studio Kurm's cooperation. Takahiro Hasui directs, Toko Machida handles series composition, Yoshimichi Kameda designs the characters and is chief animation director, and Yutaka Yamada and Yoshiaki Dewa compose. Minami Takayama leads the cast as Yaiba, with Manaka Iwami as Sayaka Mine and Yoshimasa Hosoya as Onimaru.
Aoyama, also the creator of Detective Conan, serialized YAIBA in Shogakukan's Weekly Shonen Sunday between autumn 1988 and the end of 1993, a run collected in 24 volumes. Its first TV adaptation, 52 episodes long, ran for a year from spring 1993, and Samurai Legend's first season ran 24 episodes from April 2025.
