Matthew Lillard Is Officially Back as Shaggy, Reuniting With Frank Welker’s Scooby-Doo for a Brand-New Series

For more than half a century, the Mystery Inc. formula has stayed gloriously simple. A masked villain, a haunted location, a van full of teenagers and a Great Dane who will do almost anything for a snack.

Now that formula is getting its biggest stylistic shake-up yet. The latest chapter swaps American small towns for Japanese streets, and the art style changes with it.

Matthew Lillard is officially returning to voice Shaggy alongside Frank Welker as Scooby-Doo in ‘Yokoso Scooby-Doo!,’ the franchise’s first original anime. The series follows the duo on a foodie adventure in Japan, where they accidentally unleash hundreds of mythical Japanese monsters.

The official logline sets up a classic Shaggy and Scooby disaster. The pair visit Japan on what they think is the ultimate culinary vacation, then unwittingly release monsters that start causing trouble across the country.

They won’t be tackling the chaos alone. Scooby has a new relative in Daisuke-Doo, his uncle, and the group is joined by new friends. Yume is described as a magical girl, and Takumi is a gadget whiz.

That mix gives the show a very anime-flavored supporting cast. It also suggests the story leans into monster-chasing and what the logline calls “fun chaos” rather than a traditional unmasking mystery.

Both stars come with decades of history in the franchise. Welker has been part of the Scooby-Doo family since 1969, when he voiced Fred Jones in ‘Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!’ He first voiced Scooby-Doo himself in 2002’s ‘A Scooby-Doo! Christmas’ and has played the Great Dane for more than 2 decades.

Lillard first played Shaggy in the 2002 live-action ‘Scooby-Doo’ film. He has continued in the role in live-action projects and as a voice actor across multiple animated series.

Early reports suggest this is a pure Shaggy and Scooby spin-off, with Fred, Daphne and Velma appearing to sit this one out. That would make the anime a buddy comedy built around the franchise’s most food-obsessed pair.

The production is a genuine cross-Pacific collaboration. Warner Bros. Animation produces the series, and OLM in Japan handles production services. OLM is the studio behind the ‘Pokémon’ anime and also worked on ‘The Apothecary Diaries.’

Itsuro Kawasaki directs, with Francisco Paredes serving as co-producer. Kawasaki is an anime veteran whose credits include ‘The Yakuza’s Guide to Babysitting’ and ‘Cardfight!! Vanguard.’ That background suggests the show should feel like a real anime rather than a Western cartoon with a few visual flourishes.

Tubi has exclusive rights to the series in North America, while Cartoon Network will run it internationally. Tubi’s chief content officer Adam Lewinson said in the company’s announcement that the show “lets us reinvent it in a way fans haven’t seen before.”

The title translates to “Welcome, Scooby-Doo!,” a fitting greeting for a franchise stepping into a new medium. It marks the first anime series in the property’s 57-year history.

The timing is interesting too. Netflix is working on a live-action series called ‘Scooby-Doo: Origins,’ so the franchise is expanding on several fronts at once. Warner Bros. Animation is clearly keen to reach both longtime fans and a younger anime-loving audience.

That broader strategy makes sense for a brand that has survived through reinvention. Few cartoon properties have been remade as often as this one, and a Japan-set anime is a bold new angle.

There is no premiere date yet. The show was announced in May, and no release window has been confirmed since. Production is underway, but fans will have to wait for more details.

For now, the pairing of OLM’s animation pedigree with two of the franchise’s most beloved voices is enough to build real anticipation. Seeing Shaggy lose his lunch at the sight of a Japanese yokai might be the most natural crossover in cartoon history.

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