Big announcements happened during the Netflix Anime Festival 2020. One of these is the announcement of an animated adaptation of the popular Filipino graphic novel series Trese. A teaser screenshot was teased featuring the series main heroine, Alexandra Trese.
The series is slated to premiere on the popular streaming platform Netflix in 2021. As of press time, no exact date has been announced so far.
Trese is a popular Philippine graphic novel series created by Budjette Tan and Kajo Baldismo. The animated adaption will have Jay Oliva as its executive producer, while Shanty Harmayn and Tanya Yuson at Jakarta- and Singapore-based studio BASE Entertainment are tasked to produce the show.
It follows the story of Alexandra Trese, a mysterious detective that deals with crimes of supernatural origin occurring mainly in Manila, the capital region of the Philippines. Trese was first published in ashcan or photocopied format in 2005, and is currently published as a series of four black and white graphic novels by Visual Print Enterprises under the Alamat Comics imprint since 2008.
Book 1 introduces us to Alexandra Trese, her twin half-breed bodyguards, her allies in the local police force Capt. Guerrero and Sgt. Tapia, and Hank the bartender at the Diabolical. Trese gets involved in 4 cases: the murder of a ghost; drag racing and kidnapping involving a tikbalang; a tragic love story that ended in soul trading and a great fire; and a case that served as Budjette Tan’s tribute to one of the most popular superhero icons in Philippine comics.
Book 2 features once again, 4 stand-alone cases involving Alexandra Trese and her crew: the murder of an actress/superstar and her patron duwende, a zombie attack in the Manila North Cemetery, unreported murders in a mall involving tiyanaks, and human sacrifice in exchange for good fortune in a quaint village in the metro.
Book 3 is the award winning volume of Trese which deviates from the usual format of stand alone stories and instead, featured an over-arching story divided into 5 cases. The story flashes back to the past, in the years when Trese was 15 and 18 years old, and tells of the origin of the Kambal, Trese’s twin half-breed bodyguards. In this book, Trese is seen with her father, Anton Trese, and we get to meet Trese’s tribe of hunters, fighters and protectors of Manila against the Underworld. The story also jumps back to the present where Trese fights a formidable foe from the past.
Book 4 returns to the stand alone stories and features 4 new cases: a serial killer seemingly strangled by plant like creatures in Luneta, a case where Trese tries to prevent a gang war between Aswangs and Manananggals but ends up fighting a ruthless hunter, the strange deaths of students living along Katipunan avenue, and a story where Trese steps out of Manila to witness a fight in General Santos City.
Book 5 features 4 new cases. Book 6 features a more serialized format akin to book 3, wherein one overarching story is divided according to several chapters.
The series also have spin-offs titled Stories from the Diabolical and Precinto 13. Stories from the Diabolical are prose stories set in the world of Trese mostly told from the perspective of the Diabolical’s bartender, Hank. The stories are published online in a blog with the exception of The Last Full Show, which was included in the ebook anthology, Alternative Alamat, edited by Paolo Chikiamco.
The following are published stories listed in order of publication: The Choir, One Last Drink at the Diabolical, The Usual Spot, Coffee Black, I Carry Your Heart, On the First of January, and The Last Full Show. Precinto 13 delves into the cases handled by Capt. Guerero and his men. Each case is a stand-alone comic and told in the perspective of the officers. Three cases have been released and all are available online. The titles of the cases are: Domestic Disturbance, Premeditation, Midnight Patrol, and Calling the Parents of a Little Girl in a Blue Dress.
Source: ANN (with sources from Trese (Fandom))