The Television Critics Association (TCA) announced the nominees for its 42nd Annual TCA Awards on Friday. Disney Twisted-Wonderland The Animation received a nod in the Outstanding Achievement in Family Programming category, where it is competing against Electric Bloom, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Phineas and Ferb, Stranger Things: Tales from ’85, Vampirina: Teenage Vampire, Wizards Beyond Waverly Place, and WondLa.

Two live-action series based on Japanese stories, Drops of God and Last Samurai Standing, also received nominations for Outstanding International Series, a new category this year. The other nominees are The Boyfriend, Crime Scene Zero, The House of the Spirits, and Squid Game.

Over 220 professional television journalists in the United States and Canada voted for the nominees from among the television series distributed between June 1, 2025 and May 31, 2026. The TCA will announce the winners this summer. In addition to Outstanding International Series, this year’s awards added the new category of Outstanding Achievement in Animation, although no anime received a nod in this category.

The first season based on Aniplex‘s Disney Twisted-Wonderland mobile game, Disney Twisted-Wonderland The Animation: Episode of Heartslabyul, premiered on Disney+ last October, and the staff is planning at least two more seasons. The game centers around characters inspired by villains from Disney films, and Aniplex describes it as a “villains’ academy adventure game” with rhythm game elements and battles.

Apple TV began streaming the second season for the multinational production of Tadashi Agi and Shū Okimoto‘s The Drops of God (Kami no Shizuku) manga on January 21. The manga also inspired a previous live-action series in Japan, and an anime version premiered on April 10. Netflix debuted the live-action adaptation of Shōgo Imamura‘s Ikusagami novel series under the title Last Samurai Standing last November, and it has green-lit a second season.

Sources: Television Critics Association, Deadline (Denise Petski)

Grammy Award winning acoustic guitar duo Rodrigo Sánchez and Gabriela Quintero of Rodrigo y Gabriela revealed on Wednesday that manga creator Naoki Urasawa illustrated the cover of their single “MONster,” which they stated was based on Urasawa’s manga of the same name. Urasawa also directed and animated the music video for “MONster,” which features a timelapse of the cover being drawn:

Quintero stated, “[Urasawa’s] Monster is such a deep, philosophical story – it’s about a psychopathic killer, but it’s so uplifting and leaves you with a real sense of hope. We’d written that track without knowing that Urasawa was a fan of ours, and now he’s making the video for us.”

“MONster” will be a single on Rodrigo y Gabriela’s forthcoming album OurHome. The album is set for release on September 18 through ATO Records.

Urasawa’s Monster was published in Shogakukan‘s Big Comic imprint between December 1994 and December 2001. The manga got a television anime adaptation in 2004 by Mad House. Viz Media published the Monster manga, as well several other titles by Urasawa, in North America. Viz also released the Monster anime. The anime ran on the television channel Syfy in the U.S. from 2009 to 2010.

Sources: Press release, Sony Music‘s X/Twitter account, Rodrigo y Gabriela’s YouTube channel, Comic Natalie