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Music

Ezra Koenig's Anime 'Neo Yokio' Has Arrived on Netflix

He's also shared minimal details about new Vampire Weekend music.
Lauren O'Neill
London, GB

Ezra Koenig, having transcended Gold Level nerddom (making actual friends with Seinfeld 2000), is now a God Tier nerd in that he literally has his own anime, Neo Yokio, which is now available to watch on Netflix.

Neo Yokio is set in the titular town, and stars Jaden Smith (!) as the existentially-questioning "magistocrat" Kaz Kazan. Koenig created the series, and wrote and executive-produced it with VICELAND's Nick Weidenfeld, and it features the voices a large number of his famous friends, including Steve Buscemi, Tavi Gevinson, Jason Schwartzman, Desus and Mero, Susan Sarandon, and Jude Law, in the role he was born to play: a robot butler.

Speaking to Zane Lowe on Beats 1, Koenig enthused about the project:

Well I'll just explain. I mean Neo Yokio is a cartoon that's going to come up on Netflix on Friday. I made it with Jaden Smith, Jude Law, and […] Kazuhiro Furuhashi did the storyboards. He's an old school anime artist. So basically it's a cartoon, this collaborative project between this U.S. studio, a Japanese anime studio and an animation studio in Korea and I don't know how to describe it. Sometimes I watch it, I'm just like 'Can't believe this is real!' It's like it takes place in this alternate universe in New York, and Jaden is the main character.

He also gave away a small tidbit about the next Vampire Weekend album ("It's getting there. I feel like it's close to being done. There's not too many other ways I can say it."), but the main event of the chat was Neo Yokio. Watch the trailer above, and pretty much just get ready to spend your weekend watching cartoons and loving it.

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