Netflix’s Super Crooks Season 2 anime TV series would need to expand on the Jupiter’s Legacy universe by taking the story in an entirely new direction. Assuming that Netflix has Super Crooks renewed and not canceled, when will Super Crooks 2 come out?
The first season of the anime TV series was animated by Japanese animation production Studio BONES, which is best known for the My Hero Academia anime TV series and movies.
In 2021, the company also produced the original work SK8 The Infinity anime, an adaptation of the The Case Study of Vanitas manga, and the Eureka Seven Hi-Evolution 3 movie. They also collaborated with Studio Orange of BEASTARS anime fame to make Netflix’s Godzilla: Singularity Point anime.
In the future, BONES is working on the Mob Psycho 100 Season 3 anime and the My Hero Academia Season 6 anime. There’s also an Sk8 The Infinity anime sequel in the works, but it’s unclear whether it’s Sk8 The Infinity Season 2 or a movie project.
The main staff and studio making Super Crooks Season 2 hasn’t been announced yet.
For the first season, the anime project was helmed by first-time lead director Motonobu Hori. In the past, he was a co-director for the Carole & Tuesday anime.
Writer Dai Satou (Altered Carbon: Resleeved, Cowboy Bebop, Space Dandy) wrote the scripts and series composition based on additional backstories provided by original comic writer Mark Millar.
Character designer Takashi Mitani (animation director for My Hero Academia and Carole & Tuesday) adapted the original comic designs by Leinil Yu for animation. Recording producer and DJ Towa Tei created the music.
The Super Crooks Season 2 OP (opening) and ED (ending) theme song music hasn’t been announced yet.
For the first season, the Super Crooks OP “Alpha” was created by Towa Tei.
The Super Crooks ED “Sugar” was also created by Towa Tei.
Here is the Super Crooks English dub cast:
- Johnny Bolt – Jonah Scott
- Kasey Ann – Abby Trott
- The Bastard – Jason Marnocha
- Carmine / The Heat – Doug Stone
- The Gladiator – Beau Billingslea
- Josh / The Ghost – Bill Butts
- TK McCabe – Bill Rogers
- Roddy Diesel – Bruno Oliver
- Sammy Diesel – Ben Pronsky
- The Praetorian – DC Douglas
- Forecast – Zeno Robinson
The first season was a Netflix anime exclusive. All 13 episodes were release for streaming on November 25, 2021.
This article provides everything that is known about Super Crooks Season 2 (Supercrooks Season 2) and all related news. As such, this article will be updated over time with news, rumors, and analysis. Meanwhile, let’s delve down into what is known for certain.
Super Crooks manga (comic) series is the source for the story
The story for the Netflix anime TV series is based on the Supercrooks comic book series by writer Mark Millar and artist Leinil Francis Yu. The original Super Crooks comic series was published by Marvel Comics imprint Icon Comic back in 2012.
Millar is a big name in the comic book world since he’s known for creating memorable comic book stories such as Superman: Red Son, Marvel’s Civil War, and Wolverine: Old Man Logan. In 2004, he launched the Millarverse and many of his stories have been adapted into popular movies including the 2008 Wanted, the 2010 Kick-Ass, and the 2014 Kingsman: Secret Service.
In 2017, Netflix purchased the Millarworld company, although the rights to Kick-Ass and Kingsman were excluded. Netflix is likely to develop other stories in the Millarworld, although the Super Crooks TV show is about as close as we’ll get to watching Netflix’s Jupiter’s Legacy Season 2 since the live-action TV show’s streaming numbers didn’t perform as expected.
Those who have already read the limited comic series are probably wondering if it’s still worth it to watch Super Crooks. The original story was a four-issue limited comic book series that focused on only the big heist by the villain crew. It was basically Ocean’s Eleven with supervillains and many reviewers found the comic book series to be forgettable.
The Super Crooks TV show greatly expands on the comic book premise by acting as both a prologue and an interlude to the original plot. Arguably, the Super Crooks anime is definitely an improvement on the original since it fleshes out the characters and provides multiple inter-connecting story arcs that lead up to the big finale provided by the original comic story.
Netflix’s Super Crooks review
So, besides comic fans, is it worth watching Super Crooks on Netflix? In a nutshell, it’s a fun yet flawed ride that’s much better than the comics.
I say flawed since it’s still easy to dislike the characters, plus the music can be grating and distracting at times, especially during tense moments in the heist. But we’ll get to that more later since the big heist is mostly a backdrop to the development of the main character Johnny Bolt.
Warning: This Super Crooks review does contain minor spoilers concerning early plot events and overall character developments.
This protagonist is set up to be a sympathetic character based on his introduction in Episode 1. The plot starts off with a typical coming-of-age teen superhero story only to go horribly off the rails when Johnny loses control of his newly-gained electric powers, which quickly ends his dreams of becoming a popular superhero beloved by the masses.
At first, Johnny certainly wanted to play the role of a hero. Like many teens, Johnny has superhero posters on his walls and wants to be friends with big names in the Union of Justice like The Utopian. So, when he experiences his awakening of powers, he already has his future mapped out despite still learning how to use his abilities.
With the help of a school friend he creates his Electro Boy costume and plans on surprising his classmates and the entire town with a recorded debut. Instead of making a stunning entrance as Electro Boy, a bully recognizes his true identity, thus spoiling Johnny’s concentration and unleashing his powers on his classmates.
And that’s just the beginning since this sudden crisis results in Johnny accidentally causing more chaos than his small, sleepy town had ever seen before. Even the pigs are flying!
The issue is that in transitioning Johnny to becoming a villain this leap is made too quickly. He starts off as a teen in a broken home that makes one mistake due to a bully. Suddenly he’s stealing and one time skip later he’s already a grown villain in a supermax prison. It’s hard to form an emotional investment into a character you don’t like, especially if it’s difficult to understand their motives.
By contrast, the transition of the ARCANE: League of Legends character Powder into the maniacal terrorist Jinx was emotionally compelling. ARCANE Season 2 was immediately renewed whereas it’s questionable whether the same will happen for Super Crooks Season 2.
Johnny’s girlfriend the long-suffering Kasey Ann is probably the most sympathetic since she desires a simple life. While waiting for Johnny to serve out prison sentences, she’s been studying for an MBA while working as a waitress. But, like Johnny, she has an amazing superpower and wants to retire after doing one big job.
The only issue is that it must be the perfect job where the reward outweighs the risks… and Johnny is tired of waiting on this unknown job to materialize. Johnny also seems to love hanging with his crook bros and the thrill of being a villain more than his relationship commitment to Kasey.
Johnny and Kasey’s conflict is the core of the story. Audiences will probably be rooting for Johnny to finally make the right decision even as his choices take him down a thorny path where Kasey has anything but romance and wedding bells on her mind.
Unfortunately, it’s easy to lose empathy for the rest of the Super Crooks cast since their character development and backstories are fairly limited. Carmine aka The Heat is an old, quasi-retired supervillain whose legacy is bigger in his own mind than in reality.
The smug and handsome The Ghost initially banters with Johnny but otherwise becomes invisible as a character despite his powers being integral to the heist plans. TK McCabe is pretty much X-Men’s Magneto except he somehow became a B-lister and is working minimum wage jobs as an ex-supervillain so he can focus on his family. Forecast can transform the weather and enjoys attention-seeking to his own detriment.
Brother Roddy and Sammy Diesel have Wolverine/Deadpool-like healing factors but as masochistic wrestlers, they seem to enjoy throwing themselves into situations where it’s inevitable that they will be sliced, diced, and torn apart repeatedly. As you can probably surmise, much of the on-screen gore happens due to their antics.
They’re literally a bunch of (lovable?) idiots, although at least their morals are better than many of the so-called superheroes who revel in wanton destruction for the sake of fame. These superpowered crooks have one rule that they don’t kill but the heroes certainly do and the death-by-hero body count stacks up quickly in the first half of Super Crooks.
Remember, this is the world of Jupiter’s Legacy in the Millarworld universe, so the so-called heroes are often corrupt glory seekers. One such hero called the Rubber Ball delights in crushing a villain’s legs and has no problem with destroying many San Francisco homes and killing many people while trying to stop jewelry store robbers.
Another hero called The Praetorian has the ability to randomly call forth over 200 superpowers by picking them out from a deck of cards. When he picks out laser heat vision he excitedly begins slicing innocent civilians in half as he stalks the characters who are supposed to be the villains.
As you can guess by now, Netflix’s Super Crooks is darky and gritty like Amazon’s Invincible series or The Boys, but doesn’t quite carry the same emotional weight. Those who like gory superhero stories will love Super Crooks since it arguably ups the gore factor by a considerable amount thanks to one grisly scene in the final episode, never mind the literally mind-blowing special powers of a certain villain.
The biggest issue with the entire Super Crooks anime was the music. In combination with good direction, music is supposed to heighten the tension of action scenes and accentuate the emotional moments. With the exception of the gory-yet-comical molecular chainsaw scene, the background music selection utterly failed at its job.
Quirkiness can sometimes add to the unique charm of an anime, but in this case, the sounds being emitted by my home surround system often felt like distracting elevator music rather than an intentional plan for building tension and drama. It’s so bad that at one point I looked around trying to figure out if the music was playing or if I was experiencing technical problems with my audio receiver.
Despite the musical failings, at least the high-stakes caper plan itself proved to be interesting. Evoking memories of the ending of The Great Pretender, the final story arc wrapped up things neatly by allowing the protagonists to gather once again to take down a peg the ego of the worst villain, the fittingly named The Bastard.
The Super Crooks ending is essentially a montage of what happened to all the characters in the years after the heist. It wraps things up although certain characters are still getting in trouble… and the main villain is still alive.
The only question is, will this happy ending allow any wiggle room for Super Crooks Season 2 to be made in the future?
Netflix’s Super Crooks Season 2 release date predictions: Sequel unlikely?
As of the last update, Netlifx, Studio BONES, or any company related to the production of the anime has not officially confirmed the Super Crooks Season 2 release date. Nor has the production of a Super Crooks sequel been announced.
Once the news is officially confirmed, this article will be updated with the relevant information.
In the meantime, it’s possible to speculate about when, or if, the Super Crooks 2 release date will occur in the future.
Anime-only fans of the TV show are probably wondering if this season was just the prologue to an extended version of the relatively short comic book series. After all, this story is directly connected to the canceled Jupiter’s Legacy live-action TV show so there’s still a bigger world to explore.
The only problem with the ending is that it only barely leaves the door cracked open for Super Crooks Season 2. But this shouldn’t be a surprise to those who know about the Super Crooks comic series.
The big heist at the end with the final three episodes was originally the entire plot of the comics since the graphic novel opened with Johnny being arrested by The Gladiator on his wedding day. Extending the plot also required tweaking the comic heist and the ending to match certain detail changes, but it’s still a self-contained story with a definite end.
The good news is that since Millar extended the story once there’s no reason why he couldn’t come up with a reason to drag Johnny and Kasey back into the world of heroes and villains. But that prospect seems unlikely unless Super Crooks makes it to the Netflix Top 10 for TV for several weeks.
We’ll just have to wait and see if Netflix has Super Crooks Season 2 renewed. Stay tuned!