Two of Hello Kitty’s pals in the Sanrio universe will star in their own stop-motion series that’s scheduled to drop on Netflix this summer.

The streaming giant has greenlit My Melody & Kuromi from Toruku, the stop-motion arm of Tokyo-based animation house WIT Studio (Attack on Titan). And its release will tie into the 50th anniversary of My Melody and the 20th anniversary of Kuromi.

Opposites in most ways, My Melody is cheery and good-natured, while Kuromi is famous for her mischievous tendencies. They have traditionally been positioned as rivals (primarily one-sided from Kuromi) in Sanrio’s franchise world, but a 2020 2D-animated series from Split Studio called Hello Kitty and Friends Supercute Adventures (2020) recast them as good friends, laying the groundwork for this new concept. 

Tomoki Misato (Pui Pui Molcar) is directing My Melody & Kuromi with scripts written by Shuko Nemoto. Episodes will see the characters engage in fun activities like baking cookies with My Melody’s mother and taking care of her little brother. 

Interestingly, Kuromi ranked as the third most popular Sanrio character in a 2024 online poll that garnered more than 57 million votes from fans.