Anthony Bourdain's 'Get Jiro' Animated Series Sets October Premiere on Adult Swim
A half-hour animated series based on the late Anthony Bourdain's graphic novels will premiere on Adult Swim on 3 October at midnight, streaming the following day on HBO Max. The Hollywood Reporter exclusively reported the date alongside the first trailer, which the outlet described as violent.
The series hails from Warner Bros. Animation and DC Studios. It adapts the New York Times best-selling DC/Vertigo graphic novels written by Bourdain and Joel Rose, with artwork by Langdon Foss and Alé Garza. The first novel in the franchise was published in 2012, with a prequel, Get Jiro: Blood and Sushi, exploring the character's origins. DC collected both into a complete edition with new cover art and development material, released in 2026.
Set in a near-future Los Angeles, the story follows a mysterious, revenge-focused sushi chef named Jiro in a city where customers resort to murder to secure a table at coveted restaurants. A synopsis from The Futon Critic describes Jiro as a sushi master entering a bloody culinary war and crafting his recipe for revenge.
Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka developed the series for television. The pair co-wrote the A24 feature Sharper and served as producers on NBC's comedy Superstore. They executive-produce alongside Jordan Blum and Sam Register.
Brian Tee voices the title character. The cast also includes Titus Welliver, Alison Pill and Justin Kirk.
Adult Swim president Michael Ouweleen said the network was "all in" when Warner Bros. Animation first pitched the project, calling it a wildly original, cinematic series. The Hollywood Reporter
The premiere lands on Adult Swim's Toonami block, the network's dedicated anime and action programming strand. The series was also selected for the SXSW London 2026 lineup, where head of screen Anna Bogutskaya discussed it in a preview interview with The Hollywood Reporter. The Hollywood Reporter
Bourdain died in 2018 at age 61. Beyond Get Jiro, his legacy is reaching screens in a second form: the A24 feature Tony, currently in theatres, focuses on his early restaurant job as a teenager on Cape Cod, with Dominic Sessa playing the 19-year-old chef-to-be.
For Bourdain fans, the animated series carries a particular weight — a story he co-wrote with Joel Rose, finding its audience eight years after his death, in the medium of late-night animation rather than the kitchens and travelogue television he was known for.
