Milky Subway: The Galactic Limited Express
Milky Subway: The Galactic Limited Express is a Japanese animated short series directed, written, and self-produced by Yōhei Kameyama. It is a sequel to Milky Highway, a 2022 original net animation also created by Kameyama. The series aired from July to September 2025, broadcast simultaneously on television and YouTube. A theatrical edit of the series is also in development.
Premise
Arrested for violating space traffic laws, the genetically enhanced "super human" Chiharu and cyborg Makina are sentenced to perform community service alongside four other convicts aboard the Milky Subway, a train used for interplanetary travel. When the train is suddenly activated, the group must scramble together to resolve the situation.
Characters
;Chiharu Kujo
;Makina Kurusu
;Ryoko Kanzaki
;Akane Daidoji
;Kanata Iwao
;Kurt Cramer
;Max MacCallister
;O.T.A.M.
;Minami Minase
Production
On March 19, 2025, it was announced that Milky Subway: The Galactic Limited Express would be developed as a sequel series to Milky Highway, a short film created by Yōhei Kameyama. Much of the series' production is handled by Kameyama himself, who serves as director, writer, producer, character designer, modeler, animator, and editor. The series premiered on July 3, 2025 on Tokyo MX, with simultaneous streaming on YouTube, including dubs in English, Portuguese, Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Thai, Indonesian, French, Hindi and Russian. "Gingakei made Tonde Ike!" by Candies is used as the series' theme song. The final episode also features an insert song, "Tokimeki Meteostrike", performed by Yukari Tamura in-character as Minami Miyase.
Other media
Manga
On September 19, 2025, a comic adaption of the series with the same title by Don Kouya, in supervision by Yōhei Kameyama, began serialization in Shōnen Ace Plus.
Film
On September 18, 2025, it was announced that the series would receive a re-edit with additional content. The film, titled Ginga Tokkyū Milky Subway: Kakueki Teisha Gekijō Iki, is scheduled for a theatrical release in Japan on February 6, 2026.
Reception
Kara Dennison of Otaku USA Magazine wrote positively about the series. On the setting, which she describes as "at once futuristic and retro", she noted that "We can believe that the characters have lived, worked, and commuted within this world for all their lives and consider it 'normal,'" adding that the use of "Gingakei made Tonde Ike!" as the theme song "brings some honest-to-goodness Showa era feel to this Reiwa-era production". She also praised the "natural feel" of the dialog, writing that the main characters "sound like real people, less beholden to the conventions of anime voice acting".