Today Disney and Kugali Media have announced something rather special for those on this continent in the form of an upcoming longform series called Iwájú.

“Walt Disney Animation Studios is teaming up with the Pan-African comic book entertainment company Kugali to create an all-new original series called ‘Iwájú’ which will debut on Disney+ in 2022. WDAS Chief Creative Officer Jennifer Lee made the announcement this week, citing Kugali founders Tolu Olowofoyeku, Ziki Nelson and Hamid Ibrahim’s dream to bring African stories—created by African artists—to the world through comics and animation,” reads a press release about the show.

Details about Iwájú are a bit thin right now. Aside from the two pieces of art (a logo and development piece you can see at the bottom of the page) we do know that the show will be set in a sci-fi, fictional version of Lagos, Nigeria.

Themes of “class, innocence and challenging the status quo” will be explored in the show, according to the aforementioned press release.

From the provided piece of art it looks like there will be two characters from different sides of the technological and class divide.

While we’re excited to see Iwájú in the future it must be pointed out that the platform it will be available on exclusively – Disney+ – is still not available anywhere in Africa. It really feels like a slap in the face that local talent is being used to make the show but there’s no legal way to watch Disney+ content on the continent right now.

That being said 2022 is still a long way away and there’s every chance that Disney+ will become available before then.

This is far from the first time that talent from African has worked with big international animation names.

The most recent example we can think of is Moosebox, a videogame-inspired short form show that was made for Nickelodeon. The creator of Moosebox is South African Mike Scott whose work you may have already experienced in the music video for the local band Goldfish.

Iwájú logo

Iwájú visual development art