With ‘Iyanu,’ Lion Forge Continues Breaking Barriers In Animation

The animated fantasy-adventure series Iyanu, which debuted on Cartoon Network and MAX April 5, is part of a new wave of kid-friendly content coming from Africa. Along with Garbage Boy and Trash Can, which arrived in 2023, Disney’s afrofuturist anthology Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire (2023) and Super Team 4, which ran two seasons on Netflix in 2023, Iyanu taps the culture and aesthetic of African cultures and showcases the rising generation of talent emerging from the continent.

The series follows a teenage orphan girl Iyanu (Serah Johnson), from the mythical west African kingdom Yorubaland, who discovers she has magical powers and a destiny. She and her friends Biyi (Okey Jude) and Toye (Samuel Kukbiyi) embark on a journey of discovery that promises to bring them into conflict with an evil conspiracy inside their kingdom.

The show is based on a series of graphic novels by Roye Okupe and Godwin Akpan published by Dark Horse Comics. Okupe is showrunner on the animated series, produced by Lion Forge Entertainment. Akpan is art director and designed the characters for the show based on his original concepts from the comics.

“I saw this project 10 years ago when Roye was doing the comics,” said David Steward II, founder and president of Polarity Studios, the parent company of Lion Forge Entertainment, in an exclusive interview in mid-April. “We stayed in contact and, when they were looking to develop the project, they came to us and it definitely fit in with what we were trying to do.”

Steward says he launched Lion Forge Entertainment to “bring something different and authentic to the landscape from a diversity standpoint” as one of the leading Black-owned entertainment studios in the United States. The company’s first production, Hair Love, directed by Matthew A. Cherry (Song Pictures Animation) won an Academy Award for best Animated Short in 2020, and Lion Forge has gone on to form relationships with Paramount/Nickelodeon, Disney, HBO Max and PBS. Though Lion Forge is exploring live action productions as well, Steward says animation “always has my heart.”

“To have a project like Iyanu, based on African mythology, gets us into something we haven’t really explored, which is a truly global context,” said Steward. “There’s some importance to showing the value of stories coming from Africa, for Roye showcasing elements of his Nigerian and European background. He created this story for his daughter, and he wanted to give her a chance to see herself onscreen.”

Steward says the company reached out to work with Nigerian talent throughout the production, including the cast of voice actors. “Authenticity is imbued in what we do, not just from a creative standpoint, but also from a representation standpoint. It’s definitely a core to our strategy.”

While many voices in America’s current politics and culture are trying to turn back the clock on diversity, Steward rejects the notion that these kinds of projects are divisive. “Diversity is not being exclusionary,” he said. “The key is to be all-encompassing. It’s important to create diverse content, but not just for the people we are representing in the content. Iyanu is not just for Africans or African-Americans. Everyone can enjoy a fun action-adventure story and learn something about another culture. Looking at it from that lens, it’s always going to be needed in society.”

The show has not been out for very long and has not yet had much audience reaction, but the lively, high-energy episodes and colorful look of the series seems bound to appeal to young viewers. In a world where borders are going up and minds seem to be closing to new perspectives, sometimes the most important thing we can do is tell our stories to the world, and to see ourselves in stories told by others.